‘GMA lawyer misquoted’

Pedro Ferrer, President Arroyo’s principal impeachment lawyer, said yesterday reporters have taken out of context his answer to questions on whether his client had spoken to missing election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano during the election period last year.

In radio interviews and later in a press statement, Ferrer said he had not been misquoted but was taken out of context.

He denied having admitted that his client spoke to Garcillano during the controversial congressional canvass of votes for president and vice president last year but had "merely referred to what he thought was a hypothetical situation being asked by the media."

He said he did not properly hear the questions that reporters incessantly put to him.

Ferrer held a news conference on Wednesday at the House of Representatives media center shortly after filing Mrs. Arroyo‘s "motion to strike," in which the President sought the expunging from the House records of the opposition-initiated amended complaint against her.

Responding to questions, he admitted Mrs. Arroyo had spoken to Garcillano "to protect her votes."

He said the President, as a candidate in the May 2004 presidential election, did not commit an improper act by talking to an election commissioner.

Asked whether the "election official" his client has admitted talking to in her June 27 nationwide televised address was Garcillano, Ferrer said he did not know.

It was at this point, perhaps realizing that he was treading on dangerous ground, that the President’s impeachment lawyer, clammed up and refused to answer further questions.

While Mrs. Arroyo has admitted speaking to an "election official," she did not identify such official. It was a lapse in judgment, she said, for which she apologized.

In the controversial "Hello, Garci" tapes, a female caller who sounds like the President discussed with "Garci," believed to be Garcillano, vote-rigging and winning by more than a million votes in last year’s election.

In her answer to the original impeachment complaint filed by lawyer Oliver Lozano, which charges her with betraying the public trust largely on the basis of the tapes and her televised "I’m sorry" statement, Mrs. Arroyo invoked Republic Act 4200, or the Anti-Wiretapping Law.

She said the House cannot take cognizance of the tapes in the impeachment hearings since under R.A. 4200, these are not admissable as evidence in any criminal, administrative or legislative proceedings.

In his news conference, Ferrer refused to answer questions on the implications of the President’s invocation of the Anti-Wiretapping Law.

It was former Western Samar Rep. Eduardo Nachura, who, Malacañang has announced, would be part of the President’s defense team, who answered such questions. Nachura is reportedly eyeing the post vacated by his former Liberal Party boss, resigned Education Secretary Florencio Abad. — With Aurea Calica