Dickey Gypped?

 Posted by Alecks Pabico 
PCIJ

FROM the looks of it, the two tracks that environment secretary Michael Defensor submitted to American audio forensic expert Barry Dickey for analysis may not have come from the Paguia tape as he claims.

This was the conclusion of our source, an independent audio expert, after reading Dickey's expert report on the said tracks.

Dickey's preliminary findings have pointed to certain "anomalies," in particular the absence of start and stop signatures.

Explains our source, "Mr. Dickey was expecting that the recording was done on a standard recording device. That's why he was looking for 'start'/'stop' clicks or signatures on both tracks. Obviously the tracks submitted were already edited and 'pre-selected' for analysis."

Since Jonathan Tiongco, Defensor's local audio expert, did not submit the entire recording but only two tracks, including the one with the "yung dagdag" portion, Dickey concluded a lack of consistency with original recordings.

From Dickey's point of view, that is an act of "splicing," our source says.

In the first track, Dickey also pointed to a sudden change in male voice/verbal pattern, referring to "participants in a manner that suggest knowledge of the recordings." Could the male voice at the front of the recordings that Dickey found strange either be lawyer Alan Paguia's (who inserted his own introduction) or the ISAFP agent's (who made the annotations before each conversation)?

But since Defensor is claiming that the tracks came from the Paguia tape, it couldn't have been the ISAFP agent since they were deleted by Paguia in his tape version, claims our informant.

Using Dickey's wave image on Track 1 as reference, our source is however clueless as to where this track was taken as he found no resemblance to any of the portions in either the Paguia tape or the three-hour recording.

However, doing a wave comparison of Dickey's Track 2, particularly in the first part, and the ISAFP agent's annotation of the conversation with the " yung dagdag" portion in the three-hour recording, our source found 100-percent identical wave characteristics in both.

"This has led me to conclude that Track 2 is not a Paguia tape track but a 'Tiongco-spliced' clip of 'yung dagdag' that included the ISAFP annotation," he says, indicating that Tiongco may have "pre-selected" in "cut-and-paste" fashion a portion of this track from the three-hour recording and created Track 2, which is an act of splicing.

The best part of Dickey's report, adds our source, is that there was no mention of any verbal or pitch anomaly on Track 2 — the "yung dagdag" track. "Simply because Dickey's pitch/discontinuity analysis on this track found none, except for the absence of "start" and "stop" signatures."

Randy David's Column

Public Lives : Clean hands

Randy David randolf@pacific.net.ph
Inquirer News Service

THE "GREAT DEBATE" on Charter change has hardly begun, yet the country is riveted once again on the sordid affair of the "Hello Garci Tapes." For two weeks following Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's State of the Nation Address, the media stopped talking about the Garcillano conversations. Public discourse shifted to the parliamentary and federal forms of government and their relative merits. The embattled Arroyo government got the breathing space it needed to review its situation and to map out a plan to re-take the political initiative.

Ms Arroyo went on a media offensive, projecting the new confidence she drew from the orchestrated applause of her supporters at her last Sona. But the questions she was asked in her TV appearances could not be regulated. She found herself parrying persistent questions about the wiretapped conversations. Though she kept her composure and even managed to project cheerfulness, her answers were evasive. She refused to talk about her alleged conversations with Garcillano, invoking her "rights as an accused." Yet, in the same interviews, she was quick to deny meeting with election officials at her private residence in La Vista, Quezon City before the 2004 presidential election.

Having previously apologized on public television for a "lapse in judgment" when she called an election official during the canvassing period, Ms Arroyo was asked by GMA-7 anchor Mike Enriquez to confirm if the election official she did not name was Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano. She declined to answer. On another occasion, ANC anchor Korina Sanchez asked her pointblank why she felt the need to publicly apologize for a mere lapse in judgment. Her reply was as intriguing: "I should have been better."

That response is a take-off from the same theme she has spoken about on many occasions, namely, that our political system has so degenerated that it is extremely difficult to come out of it with clean hands. It shows a beleaguered politician wanting to regain some moral ground while refusing to render a clear account of her actions out of fear of the legal consequences.

In the impeachment court where the political opposition wants to take her, Ms Arroyo only needs a fraction of the votes she wields to kill the case against her. In the more unwieldy court of public opinion, however, where trust matters most, she needs to demonstrate the quality of moral fitness expected of the highest leader of a nation. This is especially so because of the extraordinary circumstances of her succession to the presidency in 2001. She took over from a morally discredited president who was taken out by the direct action of citizens acting on their own moral instincts.

If Ms Arroyo's political allies think they can go through the procedures of the impeachment process while blocking the admission of the Garci tapes as evidence, then their memories are short. They have forgotten how the fatal vote on the second envelope in the Estrada trial spontaneously brought the people out into the streets. That envelope was supposed to contain details of the hidden bank account of Estrada. Today, the public demands to know the truth about the Garcillano conversations. Are these conversations real? If they are, what conclusions can the public reasonably draw about Ms Arroyo's behavior in the 2004 elections? And what do these tell us about her fitness to lead the nation in these crucial times?

We may not agree with Mike Defensor's unusual methods, but his political instincts are at least correct. His desperate attempt to impugn the authenticity of the tapes is far more useful to his boss than the smug strategy of blocking the complaint at every point of the impeachment process. The real tribunal is the public one. Before the court of public opinion, there is no way of avoiding the Garcillano tapes. Ms Arroyo's allies can use their numbers to terminate the impeachment, but where will that leave her? She may retain the allegiance of legislators using the same decadent tricks that she laments in the present political system; but if she completely loses the trust of a nation that had looked to her as the last hope of moral renewal in government, how could she govern?

In the final analysis, Ms Arroyo has no choice but to tell a plausible story of her calls to Commissioner Garcillano. In her public apology to the Filipino nation, she had said she owed it to the people to set the record straight. Beyond insisting that she did not cheat in the last election, she has done nothing to dispel the suspicions that have hounded her presidency. She sidesteps the questions, even as she allows her operatives to obfuscate the issues. Mike Defensor's latest maneuver is continuous with Chavit Singson's "X-tapes"—the main goal is to plant enough seeds of doubt in the public mind about "spliced" recordings so as to diminish the probative value of the Garci tapes.

Ms Arroyo may be a little stronger today than she was a month ago. But whatever gain she has made has been at the expense of the moral community of which she is a part. In his little book, "Being Good," Simon Blackburn writes: "A different example of a bid to escape the stringency of behaving well is the excuse of 'dirty hands'." There is something not quite right about this, he says. "We have some sense that we should keep our own hands clean, however much others will then dirty theirs. The excuse is not open to a person of strict honor or integrity, however convenient it may be in practice. In many areas, it is not over and above the call of duty to keep our own hands clean." Will the nation survive this crisis with clean hands?

Arangkada for August 15, 2005

 

                HIGANTENG DAHILI

 

        Usa ka buwan ug upat ka adlaw na ang lapad nga pagdahili sa yuta sa Barangay Mayana sa Jagna, Bohol.  Inanay pero kanunay ang paglihok sa yuta nga nagsugod sa sayong buntag niadtong Hulyo 11.   Hangtod karon, wa pa ni mopakita og tilimad-on sa paghunong.

        Ug way bisan usa sa mga eksperto sa gobyerno, apil nang Mines and Geosciences Bureau sa DENR, nga nakahingpit na sa ilang pasiunang imbestigasyon sa katalagman, nga nakaseguro asa ni kutob ug kanus-a ni mahuman.

        Sa labing uwahing ihap, 140 na ka pamilya, o kapin sa 500 ka indibiduwal, ang naapektahan, dul-an na sa 100 ka ektarya ang yuta, kasagaran umahan, nga nangliki ug nidahili ug nahulga nang silingang lungsod sa Duero.

-o0o-

        Niadtong Sabado, ang Kapamilya Relief Campaign sa DYAB Abante Bisaya ug ABS-CBN Cebu nga gipangulohan sa among station manager nga si Tata Cinco-Sy, nitungas sa bukid sa Mayana, nga tungod sa iyang kahabog ug katugnaw gitawag og "little Baguio," dala ang mga sinakong bugas, sardinas, corned beef, noodles, mga plato ug ubang gamit sa kusina, sabong humot ug iglalaba, mga sinina ug daghang tambal nga hinabang gikan sa mga Sugbuanon para sa mga biktima sa lisod hisabtan nga katalagman.

        Samtang ang himsog nga mga sakop sa naapektahang mga pamilya nagbaguod pagsakwat sa sinakong relief goods, ang masakitong mga kadugo nakapahimus sab sa libreng serbisyo sa medical-dental mission sa mga boluntaryong doktor sa Bohol ug sa Central Command.  Ang mga biktima ug ang mas suwerte nilang mga silingan gitudloan sab unsaon paghimo ug pagnegosyo og bukhayo ug puto cheese ginamit ang kalbasa sa mga eksperto sa CSCST ug sa upisina ni Senador Manny Villar.

-o0o-

        Gihimo ang relief operations sa kapilya sa Sitio Ilawod daplin sa national highway nga nagsumpay sa Jagna sa ubang kalungsoran.   Tungod sa pagdahili, ang highway nahimong dakong bungtod ug di na kaagian.  Usa sa mga biktima niingon nga ang iyang bay inanayng gilamoy sa yuta ug gibalhin sa gilay-ong usa ug tunga ka kilometro.

        Daghan og mga pangagpas ang mga imbestigador sa gobyerno ug sa pribadong sektor sa hinungdan sa pagdahili:   Paghumok sa yuta tungod sa grabeng pag-uwan, pagputol sa mga kainginero sa dagkong punoan sa kahoy, ug paglihok sa yuta nga nagtungtong sa bukid nga anapog kada 100 ka tuig.

-o0o-

        Dalayegon ang paspas nga pagtabang sa lokal nga mga opisyal sa Jagna ug sa Bohol.  Pero ang mga biktima dunay reklamo batok sa tulo ka nasudnong ahensiya:

·        Ang SSS ug GSIS nagdumili paghatag nilag calamity loan; ug

·        Ang DepEd nagdumili pagsuspenso sa klase ug pagbalhin sa Mayana Elementary School bisan peligro na para sa mga bata ang pagtabok sa lapad nga luna nga naigo sa landslide.   [30]  leo_lastimosa@abs-cbn.com