Witness says he burned ‘Hello Garci’ audio tape

MANILA, Philippines – A former head of the Military Intelligence Group (MIG) 21 testified before the Senate on Tuesday that he burned an audio recording purportedly containing the voice of former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and disclosed that his former boss allegedly offered him P900,000 weeks before his appearance in the upper chamber.

The audio-recording was known as the “Hello Garci tape” where Arroyo allegedly was heard ordering former elections chairman Virgilio Garcillano to ensure her victory in the 2004 presidential election.

Testifying before the blue ribbon committee and the committee on electoral reforms, Colonel Pedro Sumayo revealed that it was Colonel Allen Capuyan, then head of the Operations Intelligence Division, who instructed him to destroy the tape.

He said that it was also Capuyan who allegedly sent him the money sometime in October or November this year that was coursed through a certain Colonel Sosa.

Sumayo said he has been on floating status since 2005 when he was relieved from his post.

Before this, sometime after the 2004 elections, Sumayo said former Technical/Sergeant Vidal Doble approached him and showed him the audio recording.

“According to him [Doble], it’s important so I listened to him [but] I stopped when I heard a voice familiar to me. Based on what I heard, the voice in the tapes sounds like that of the former Presient Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,” he told the committees.

Sumayo said he immediately reported the incident to Capuyan.

“When I told him the details, he [Capuyan] told me to destroy the tape which I also complied by asking Sgt. Doble to surrender the tapes. I burned the tapes and the papers,” he said, referring to the transcripts of the recording.

Sumayo said he burned more than one tape.

Sumayo said he met Sosa when he was on leave and sought his help so that he could return to the military.

It was Sosa, he said, who handed him a green plastic bag containing nine bundles of P100, which supposedly came from Capuyan.

“So I went to Col Sosa after sometime and he gave me a plastic bag and I found out that the green plastic bag contains nine bundles of P100,” Sumayo said.

He said there was also a text message coming from a certain “BB” or “Big Brother.”

“BB is Big Brother and he is Cololel Capuyan. We called him Big Brother,” said Sumayo.

He said he did not know why he was given the money since he was asking for help so he could go back to the military.

Sumayo suspected though that the money was given to him in connection with the invitation of the Senate to testify in its ongoing investigation into the alleged massive cheating in 2004.

“I was relieved from J2 and my expectation is [that I would testify in this investigation] so here comes this money,” he said.

Originally posted at 10:12 am | Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011