“Hello Garci” A story of Presidential transgression6 min read

The Hello Garci Scandal is a political and electoral fraud allegation that points to former Philippines president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as the main culprit. It began during the country’s 2005 elections, where wiretapped conversations discussing vote-rigging were obtained with one of the participants suspected to be President Arroyo. She was apparently making these plans together with the previous Comelec Commissioner, Mr Virgilio Garcillano.

In the recording, a woman with Arroyo’s voice can be heard whispering ‘Yung dagdag, yung dagdag’ which translates to ‘The addition, the addition’ in English, thus implying that the speaker wanted her ballot figures to be changed in one way or another. The conversations also provided evidence that Garcillano was susceptible to manipulation by election candidates, with one anonymous Comelec official further stating in an interview that Garcillano was the chief electoral fraud plotter and overall supervisor, working in favor of the incumbent administration.

The “mother of all tapes”

The recorded tapes were released by Igancio Bunye, who claimed that the conversations had taken place on June 6th 2005. A short while later, another round of wiretapped conversations between the two senior officials was also produced by Sam Ong, who was Philippines’ former NBI Deputy Director. He called his findings the ‘mother of all tapes’, which then prompted the country’s House and Senate to launch investigations to ascertain the truth behind all these rigging allegations.

There were also calls made for President Arroyo to step down, though she adherently denied the tapes and refused to do so. In her defense, she admitted to have held brief discussions with an Elections official during the campaigning period, but that it had nothing to do with rigging. Arroyo claimed it was a ‘lapse in judgment’ and apologized to anyone who might have been offended by the leaked tapes. She further mentioned that the conversations happened after vote-counting and therefore didn’t affect the outcome in any way, though she refused to give the name of the Comelec official heard in the recording.

On his part, Virgilio Garcillano went undercover as soon as the Hello Garci CDs were released, and rumours started spreading around the country that he had actually sneaked out. However, after around 5 months the pressure became too much to handle and he decided to resurface, admitting that indeed they held talks with Arroyo but after the votes had already been counted. Garcillano further appeared before House hearings regarding the wiretapping scandal, where he corroborated his claims that the president didn’t command him in any way to scam in the Philippine’s 2004 elections.

---

Impeachment attempt vs. Arroyo

Following the Hello Garci Controversy, an impeachment case was filed against President Arroyo by a human-rights attorney called Oliver Lozano. He claimed the president had betrayed public trust and was therefore not fit to continue serving the country in that position. The complaint was accompanied by another one filed about 10 minutes later by a private Filipino citizen called Jose Rizaldo P. Lopez.

Voting day was set on August 23rd, where the House of Representatives was to decide whether to remove Arroyo from office or not. However, on the material day the justice committee tarried the impeachment voting process, instead choosing to cast ballot on procedures. Ultimately, a report was made by the House called Report 1012, which suggested that office removal proceedings against Arroyo should stop forthwith.

The next year, lawyer Lozano tried to re-file another impeachment motion against the president in January 16th. This was met with stiff opposition from Arroyo’s minority party loyalists in the house. The House Minority Leader, Francis Escudero, even threatened Lozano with a legal suit in the Integrated Bar, which is the official body that regulates the conduct of attorneys in Philippines. The opposition claimed that Lozano’s attempt to remove President Arroyo from office was ‘illegal and unethical’. Particularly considering that the minority party in the House didn’t agree to filing the impeachment motion in the first place.

Following the Hello Garci Scandal and consequent impeachment trial

Though all attempts to remove Arroyo from office failed following the Hello Garci Controversy. Some members of the public didn’t give up and instead arranged peaceful protests throughout the country for several days. A couple of big names also joined in the demonstrations, including former president of the Philippines Corazon Aquino as well as retired vice president Teofisto Guingona.

However, the campaigns weren’t effective in changing the Congress’ outcome, partly because conventional protesting sites such as EDSA and Mendiola had been cordoned off by the government, and hence there weren’t many people attending the protests to cause any real concern.

Nevertheless, Arroyo eventually responded to the protests by instituting certain reforms in her government, though totally unrelated to the election fraud case. For instance, she introduced new taxes to plug the gap in her administration’s fiscal deficit. This helped the economy to stay strong and resilient throughout her tenure, but despite the healthy economy the root cause of Hello Garci Scandal was still not solved.

In her presidency, Arroyo failed to address issues touching on election fraud propagated by candidates during voting time, unreliable electoral systems and an Elections Commission that’s open to manipulation. Consequently, the public lost confidence in her leadership with her popularity ratings declining significantly based on polls taken by different institutions. For instance, a Pulse Asia research released on July 10th by the Philippine news showed that 57pct of the citizens wanted President Arroyo out of office before completing her full term. Another poll conducted by CNN/Time also gave roughly the same results at 57.5pct.

While the cancellation of impeachment attempts against Arroyo provided a temporary victory for her regime, it still demonstrated that her government had powers to use incumbency privileges to save the presidency from going under.

Until former President Arroyo willingly presents herself before trial, undergoing the full process of determining whether she was guilty of election fraud or not, it would be difficult for her to regain back the public trust and prove the sanctity of government in election matters. So far, there hasn’t been any new legal prosecutions brought up against Arroyo or former Comelec commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, and their case is still open.