Garci could be working for one presidential bet, one VP candidate–Osmeña
Reelectionist Senator Serge Osmeña said he received unconfirmed information that former elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano is helping a presidential candidate and another vice presidential bet in the May elections.
“Meron pero hindi confirmed (There is [information] but it isn’t confirmed yet) and I don’t want to say it publicly because it might not be true,” Osmeña said when asked during a regular forum at the Senate on Thursday if he had information as to the identities of the people who Garcillano has been helping for the upcoming elections.
But when pressed for an answer, the senator said: “One presidentiable and one vice presidentiable.”
He did not elaborate but clarified that the presidential and vice presidential candidates that he was referring to are not running together.
“Hindi magka tandem (They don’t belong in one tandem),” Osmeña said.
Garcillano, who was tagged in the so-called “Hello Garci” wiretapping scandal during the Arroyo administration, was spotted last February 21 at the Seda hotel in Cagayan de Oro City, where presidential aspirants Senator Grace Poe and Vice President Jejomar Binay were staying for the first presidential debate there.
READ: Garci surfaces, says he’s a ‘consultant’
Poe’s adoptive father, the late Fernando Poe Jr. ran but lost to then President and now detained Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during the 2004 presidential race that was allegedly marred with massive fraud.
Poe was quick to deny that Garcillano was working for her.
Osmeña said it might just be a coincidence that Garcillano happened to be in the same hotel were Poe and Binay were staying.
“Alam mo pag nasa maliit na syudad ka (You know when you are in a small city), there’s only really one or two hotels that everybody will use e. You will bump into everybody in the lobby of that hotel e…” he said. CDG
READ: Wary of cheating, Poe laments Garci’s reappearance
