‘Release Mayuga report, or else…’

Representatives of the Bayan Muna party-list group on Saturday asked the House of Representatives to suspend deliberations on the proposed budget of the Department of National Defense until a copy of the elusive Mayuga Report was submitted to Congress.

Neri Colmenares and Teddy Casiño also urged President Benigno Aquino III to declassify the “secret” report and make its contents public.

The Mayuga Commission, headed by then Navy chief rear Admiral Mateo Mayuga, was directed in 2005 to reexamine the systems and procedures of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in connection with the 2004 presidential election, including the reported  involvement of some ranking officers in fraud.

“It is shocking that the Mayuga report which was hidden from the public during the Arroyo administration remains hidden under the Aquino administration,” Colmenares said.

He said the belated revelation by Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin of the report’s security cover and classification during Thursday’s hearing on the proposed 2012 DND budget shocked him.

Defense Undersecretary for Legal and Legislative Affairs Pio Lorenzo Batino told the committee that his group had been ordered by President Aquino to further study the logic, relevance and validity of the Mayuga Report. Cynthia D. Balana