Was the Adam & Eve of All Tapes Digital?

HINK you understand the Strange Case of the Amazing Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano? I don't. Ever since this whole thing started, with Ignacio Bunye raising up two CDROMs and calling one a fake and the other legitimate -- but getting it wrong -- the Garci conversations have been endlessly reproduced and different verions have appeared in various file sizes, compression formats, media, and editions: PCIJ, Lacson, Paguia, Tatad, plus everyone capable of making an MP3. Then there is the former NBI Deputy Director Sammy Ong who claims to have the Mother of All Tapes. But does Sammy Ong really have the "original" or "genuine" source of all the versions of the Garci Conversations scattered all over the Archipelago? Could there be a Grandmother or Grandfather of All Tapes. A Great-Great Grandmother of all Tapes?

But in thinking things over, I have come to one inescapable conclusion:

Any version of the Garci conversations which contain military-sounding voices introducing a series of conversations with time and place information ahead of each one CANNOT be the Adam & Eve of All Tapes.

Why? Because such versions of the Garci conversations are OBVIOUSLY recordings being made from other pre-existing recordings, otherwise how would each military sounding voice KNOW the identities, sex, or names of the conversants in the recording if such annotations were being done BEFORE the recordings were made?? We are forced to the conclusion that all these versions are recordings of recordings being made, presumably by ISAFP personnel, for the convenience of somebody else's review and action.

This leads to a stunning possibility. It is entirely possible, in fact highly probable that the source materials are DIGITAL SOUND FILES (probably hundreds if not thousands of them depending on the actual scale of the purported wiretapping operation) stored on a hard disk in a PC or Laptop that was originally connected to Cell Phone Interceptor gear, which collected the raw data. The ownership of such equipment by NBI and ISAFP was exposed by Rep. Roilo Golez of Paranaque, Rep. Boying Remulla of Cavite and the five Congressional Committees investigating the Garci Conversations a few months ago.

IT STANDS TO REASON: For it would be illogical and a logistic nightmare to mount a months-long wiretapping operation on Virgilio Garcillano and several others using a hefty old Akai Double Reel Analog Tape Recorder. Not when ISAFP has UberTech German SuperCell InterZeptors putting out 48 Khz digitized audio through an IEEE-488 high speed link or FireWire channel that would more efficiently be controlled by a laptop personal computer with a couple 120 Gigabyte hard disks and on-board DVDROM streamwriters. (Don't you just love this sexy tech talk?). This would be true even if an analog bug had been installed in Garci's phone (the one allegedly gifted to him by Bong Pineda's wife) that was transmitting to a nearby interceptor base. Digital systems are just so much cheaper and more available than analog systems, which are expensive and actually hard to find since the market for them is practically nil. I mean, what serious audiophile or wiretapper would use casette tapes any more? It may be true that Sargeant Doble did sell such analog tapes to Laarni Enriquez, a mistress of deposed President Joseph Estrada, who then gave copies to Lacson, Tatad and Paguia. But that would only mean all the tapes in the public domain are derived from an original source that remains undiscovered.

HYPOTHESIS: I think it would be a good working hypothesis to adopt -- that the Adam and Eve of All Tapes is not an analog magnetic tape at all, but a bunch of digital files. Probably WAV or OGG or MP3. It was from these files that various analog tapes were made that then found their way into MP3s on weblogs and CDROMs on street corners in the University Belt. This hypothesis is consistent with the observation that the tapes that have come into the public domain do not have characteristic screeching or tape winding and rewinding sounds, a signature of the random access capability of a digital process of editing and collation. No wonder the Garci sound recordings have always struck me as being "clean," -- its because the Adam & Eve of All Tapes almost certainly was digital.

IMPLICATIONS: One of Garci's most strident demands is for the Mother of All Tapes to be produced and authenticated before he will even deign to DENY it. The implications for the investigation of Garci and his upcoming interrogation(s) at the House and Senate must take the very distinct possibility into account that there is no actual Mother of All Tapes, because the Adam and Eve of All Tapes may not even belong to the same species. Looking for a Mother of All Tapes as such may just be a wild goose chase. What needs to be found, even if Adam & Eve have been deleted is the equipment and high tech gear, the personnel and the command and control structure that undertook a wiretapping operation. Which is no mean feat, I am sure. The Creator of Adam and Eve has not likely been deleted for it must be an organization, or institution, or some other Lawful Authority.

DOES GARCI KNOW SOMETHING? As Garci talked to Henry Omaga Diaz last night, there was this recurring look of supreme confidence in Garci's swarthy face...as if he knows something about Adam & Eve and the Garden of Eden and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I think it must be the same look that Someone once had, as It watched from under Its hood -- our Eve taking her first bite.

SO WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED THAT...

(PDI): Military Won't Need Garcillano in Probe of Wiretapped Tapes
This is of course about as logical as saying that the Subic Bay Rape Case investigators don't need the testimony and cooperation of the alleged 22-year old Filipina victim. But Virgilio Garcillano speaks the absolute truth about his relationship to the WIRETAPPING -- when he says to Henry Omaga Diaz "... Even if it were true, hypothetically, I was the VICTIM of a WIRETAPPING operation. Until now the author or authors of the alleged wire tapping have not been found. Why will I be forced to testify on the conversations that were allegedly tapped, which since no original is shown to exist, was most likely spliced, edited and/or tailored to fit the sinister purpose. Any right-minded person situated similarly as myself will understand why I feared for my life and that of my wife."

(ABSCBN): Palace Mum On Garci Controversy
In one breath: "Former commissioner Garcillano can very well defend himself in any pertinent forum and we are not commenting or interfering in any way with his statements," Bunye said in a statement. then in the next breath: "The President won fair and square in last year's elections as this was 'validated' by 'all institutions and observers' who participated in non-partisan activities in the 2004 polls." You may want to read more about Bunye and his techniques.

RELATED POST: The Wire Tapping. The Wire Tapping!

UPDATE: (0900): Ellen Tordesillas posts an interesting document Palace Political Situationer which she describes thus: "This document was given to us by a source in Malacañang. Prepared in September, the document was presented to the Cabinet in October. We can’t say for sure who prepared the Situationer. We also cannot say for sure whose marginal notes are in the document."

The unknown author of the situationer is obviously a high ranking Palace insider, because the words in it from September are the very ones the public has encountered as SOUND BITES during the intervening 3 months! Here are some choice excerpts (courtesy of Ellen, who typed this from a paper copy, while I blithely cut-n-paste-it here, but with gratitude:)

The unstable stalemate induced by the three-month old wiretap controversy has brought about a delicate and complicated security picture. Shadowy groups have emerged, convinced that the only solution to the crisis lies outside of a system they have already condemned as a failure.They are trying to find allies among politicians and vested interest groups, who might be looking fro an opening to advance their own political ambitions. They are seeking alliances with unwitting civil society groups… for legitimate reforms in society. Should these groups succeed in … .. extra-constitutional closure to the controversy, we will have in our hand at best, as shaky transition government that could set us back by several years.

Interesting speculations on the identity of the situationer's author are from Anna de Brux on Ellen's Comment Thread today, along with other serious commentaries. Read it all.

The Comments of Dr. Peter J. H. Walker in the associated Thread at Ellen's site today refer to the OFW remittance-fed ECONOMIC BUBBLE:

To explain why the situation became volatile, add to this the fact that there is a limit of just how much overseas Filipinos will be able to remit in order to keep their beneficiaries in better financial circumstances. Surely when that limit will be reached the bubble will burst. It may also burst before that limit has been reached, should the remitters wake up to the fact that the low exchange rate is actually robbing from them much of the fruits of their hard work. Thus it is not an unlikely scennario that enough of them will decide that they will stop remitting, or at least reduce their remittances, until the exchange rate improves. Sould that happen, it can cause the exchange rate to plummet overnight, even to send the Peso into an uncontrolable tail spin.

Chilling Forecast.

SALUDO'S CASUISTRY(1300): Rick Saludo was talking back to Tina Monson Palma last night. At one point Opposition columnist Lito Banayo castigated the government for the fact that in over six months it does not seem interested in apprehending Virgilio Garcillano and Samuel Ong, both of whom have outstanding Arrest Warrants issued by no less than the House of Representatives. Saludo had his answer ready: Look at Ka Roger [a well known local Communist leader who seems to be in touch with Media or anybody else interested in him, but has been a fugitive for years] ... This is a cute bit of casuistry from the Palace guardian, but I guess I will accept it for what it says -- that a Comelec Commissioner appointed to that august body by the President last year -- is of the same moral calibre and inaccessibility as Ka Roger. The parallels are exact at all levels of association, at that. You heard it from Rick Saludo himself, folks! I'm only agreeing with him.

GONZALES ON GARCI (1500): Again I am prepared to accept at face value the statement of the Secretary of Justice, this time, that he and the entire Philippine Bureaus of Customs, Immigration and the Foreign Service Apparatus, even assisted by the entire Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines just couldn't find Garci, nor even agree among themselves whether the most famous desaparecido was IN or OUT of the country. "But I shall be submitting my full Report..."

PUSILLANIMOUS HOUSE (1530): Just heard Rep. Gilbert Remulla telling ABSCBN News that the House of Representatives would soon be asking the lawyer of Virgilio Garcillano, "Please Please just assure us that your client will appear before us at Congress on December 7, and we shall surely void the Arrest Warrant we so arrogantly and wrongfully issued against him. We didn't mean it, really when we said he was in CONTEMPT of Congress for disappearing like that. No really, we just want to avoid a Constitutional Crisis. Please, Please, don't go to the Supreme Court and make Chief Justice Hilario G. Davide mad at us again. You remember what happened the last time when we tried to impeach him. Really this is all our fault. We shouldn't have thrown the Subpoena for him through what was it he said, a hole in the window of his house. Yes. Sorry for all the bad publicity too okay? But oh Please, please, don't accuse us of grave abuse of discretion..That's already what he spanked us for the last time. oooWaaaah!."

ABSCBN posts the statement Garci read to Henry Omaga Diaz on 27 November 2005

(2100) REP. TEDDY BOY LOCSIN is mad that we don't have a "real government" and was frankly amazed that his colleague, Rep. Rodolfo Antonino would have the temerity to lawyer for Virgilio Garcillano on Pinky Webb's show. Antonino is one of those insipid Palace sycophants who really deserves to have the smile on his face wiped off on Garcillano's pudenda when the latter goes to jail, some day. Antonino should go to jail with him for his role in the demolition of the House of Representatives and its transformation into a Kongress of Moral Midgets, to which project he has lent his considerable skill as a smooth-tongued sophist. He still relishes the victory of Datumanong, in which he played a few minor, declamatory parts of intellectual dishonesty. (As you can see, I don't have the divine poise and reserve of their talk show host, nor do I need to. But I do blame Teddy Boy for getting me all riled up about this "government" and his own reserve, thus far, tonight excepted.)