Arroyo allies dismiss US cables as irrelevant

MANILA, Philippines—Opposition lawmakers at the House of Representatives on Wednesday dismissed as irrelevant purported US Embassy cables on the Philippines released by WikiLeaks, the antisecrecy website, over the weekend.

“They could be good copy but at the end of the day they don’t have any probative value,” House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman said in a press conference.

Lagman was reacting to US documents purporting to show that then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had considered declaring martial law in 2005 in the midst of the “Hello Garci” wiretapping scandal but Washington reportedly refused to support her.

Lagman said Arroyo, who is now a Pampanga representative, neither discussed such a plan during her presidency nor indicated that she was considering it.

“I have no inkling whatsoever that that was on the mind of the former president to declare martial law. The fact is that she never declared it.”

Zambales Representative Milagros Magsaysay said in the same forum that people should just ignore the WikiLeaks documents  in the same way that presidential spokespersons Edwin Lacierda and Ricky Carandang were ignoring them.

“So that means all WikiLeaks reports that will be leaked to the Philippines will have no basis whether they are for or against this administration,” Magsaysay added.

Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario declined to comment on the authenticity of the cables carried by WikiLeaks. “We are not supposed to comment anymore, but believe what you read,” he said.

In an interview Wednesday on Radyo Inquirer, Sen. Antonio Trillanes said “emergency rule and electoral fraud” were among Arroyo’s options long before the “Hello Garci” rocked her presidency in 2005.

Trillanes laughed off former National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales’ claim, revealed in a WikiLeaks cable, that “emergency rule” was necessary to save Arroyo from being toppled by an alliance of the leftist, rightist and secessionists rebels.

He said Gonzales was “so paranoid he cannot think clearly anymore.”

Trillanes said he learned about Arroyo’s plan to declare martial law as early as 2003, pointing out that at that time, her “presidency was not under siege.”

But a lawyer of the Arroyo family laughed off the WikiLeaks documents as “hearsay.”

“WikiLeaks is being laughed at abroad,” Inocencio Ferrer, lawyer of Arroyo’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, said on Radyo Inquirer.

Still,  Ferrer said he had sent a letter to businessmen Francis Chua and Washington Sycip, requesting them to issue statements regarding a WikiLeaks document which quoted them as saying that Mike Arroyo was involved in smuggling and illegal gambling. With reports from Nancy C. Carvajal and Dona Dominguez, Radyo Inquirer