The bigger perjurers
Like good lawyers, Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Joker Arroyo and Dick Gordon yes-terday attacked the credibility of intelligence agent Vidal Doble. They said that Doble, under oath, had told a House hearing that he did not wiretap the conversations of former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano and that he, also under oath, had told the Court of Appeals during a habeas corpus proceeding that he and his family were not held against his will by his old unit, the Intelligence Service of the AFP.At yesterday’s hearing, the three senators said Doble was now singing a different tune. How could a self-admitted perjurer be believed now?
First, because there were those "Hello Garci" tapes whose existence could not be banished by the tiresome invocation of its inadmissibility as evidence under the Anti-Wiretapping Act. Second, because the administration has time and again demonstrated that it would stop at nothing in blocking the search for the truth about the wiretapping.
Given this background, Doble’s admission that he was part of the Isafp wiretapping team but that he was ordered to lie makes his testimony most credible.
Balanga Bishop Soc Villegas’ letter to the Senate joint panel holding the inquiry into the wiretapping is most revealing. He said he agreed to fetch Doble from San Carlos seminary because he was told by a Palace emissary, Remedios Poblador, that the military was determined to take Doble by force.
If Doble was a crank or a peddler of tales, why was the military ready to storm church grounds, a show of force not contemplated since the military raided the Jesuits’ house in Novaliches at the height of martial law, just to get hold of him?
Subsequently, Doble and his family were sequestered at the Isafp compound inside Camp Aguinaldo. These circumstances certainly were not conducive for a soldier in active service to accuse his superiors of violating the law.
Fast forward to the present. If Doble is now lying, why don’t his superiors appear before the Senate inquiry and controvert his allegations point by point?
The former head of Isafp, Tirso Danga, was a no-show. Likewise, former AFP chief Efren Abu. Their excuse for snubbing the Senate hearing? Executive Order 464 which has been reincarnated as Memorandum Circular 108 after the former was declared as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Clearly the stone-walling and the cover-up are continuing. Who then is the bigger perjurer?
Doble or those who continue to insist the "Garci tapes" are legally non-existent and who are as determined as before to hide the truth about the wiretapping.
