Pro-admin senators: Don't play 'Hello Garci' tapes

Two administration senators warned their colleagues on Tuesday against playing the wiretapped “Hello Garci" tapes in the renewed Senate investigation of the alleged wiretapping operations of the military during 2004 presidential elections. Senators Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Richard Gordon said they would take the issue to the Supreme Court once their colleagues vote to use the wiretapped phone conversations in the public hearings. "It is a crime to wiretap, and it is a crime to use a wiretap by talking about its contents," said Santiago. Even if the House of Representatives already played the tapes during its investigation last year and its contents already known to the public, Santiago said it would not justify the use of the wiretapped tapes in the Senate investigation. "It is the duty of the Senate to educate the House on pressing points of constitutional law," she said. Gordon cited possible violation of the anti-wiretapping law and the wiretapped persons’ the right to privacy if the Garci tapes are played. Santiago however said raising legal issues to the Supreme Court in relation to the Hello Garci tapes would be the “last option" even as she appealed to the other senators to just exclude the tapes and focus the investigation on the alleged illegal wiretapping operations of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (Isafp), or the Philippine National Police (PNP). The two senators aired the warning after the Senate committee on rules decided to toss to the committee of the whole the question of whether or not to proceed with the investigation. Opposition Senator Panfilo M. Lacson revived the “Hello Garci" issue in a privilege speech Tuesday last week where he played a video recorded interview of former T/Sgt. Vidal Doble, erstwhile agent of the Isafp, about his participation to the military’s wiretapping operations during the 2004 presidential elections. Lacson said he was confident most senators would vote in favor of opening a new investigation of the “Hello Garci" scandal. Gordon said he would cast a vote in favor of the investigation if he could get an assurance that the wiretapped conversations would not be used. "I think there is a ground for us to raise this issue before the Supreme Court because there is a clash between what is provided for in the constitution (and the right of the Senate to investigate)," Gordon said. "As an elementary rule of law you cannot use wiretapped evidence without the permission of the court. If you do this that already constitutes a violation of the law as well as the constitution," he explained. Santiago, considered as an expert on constitutional law, invoked Art. 2, paragraph 2 of the Constitution which provides that an illegal wiretap is "inadmissible for any purpose in any proceeding." "This absolute constitutional language creates an invincible legal fortress against spies and eavesdroppers," she said. If the tapes are played and used as evidence, Santiago said the Senate would be an "unwitting accessory to a crime." Santiago likewise refuted the argument of several of her colleagues who insisted that public interest should override the constitutional prohibition. She challenged them to "exhibit doctrinal jurisprudential colonial mentality in constitutional law." The lady senator cited that the 2001 US case of Bartnicki v. Vopper, which upheld the "public interest" argument, does not apply to the Philippines because the US Constitution does not contain a provision similar to the Philippine constitutional provision which makes wiretapped materials inadmissible for any purpose in any proceedings. Instead, Santiago noted that in the 1998 case of People v. Olivares and in the 1994 case of Salcedo-Ortanez v. Court of Appeals, the SC ruled that: "The constitutional provision on the inadmissibility of evidence, known as the exclusionary rule, extends to any other form of proceedings." Citing rules of statutory construction, Santiago said the right to privacy of communication, being a particular provision of the constitution, prevails over parliamentary immunity, which is a general provision. - GMANews.TV