|
LOOK
who’s talking.
This was
the reaction of Assistant Secretary Reynaldo Berroya,
Land Transportation Office chief, to the accusation of
Sen. Panfilo Lacson that the Intelligence Service of the
Armed Forces is behind the wiretapping of the telephone
line of former President Corazon Aquino in her residence
on Times Street in Quezon City.
Berroya,
former close associate turned nemesis of Lacson, said
that Lacson himself should be held liable for his
involvement in wire tapping activities during his tenure
as chief of the Special Project Alpha of the National
Police and later chief of the Presidential Antiorganized
Crime Task Force (PAOCTF).
“Look
who’s talking. Wasn’t it him who was implicated in the
illegal wiretapping operations inside the headquarters
of Task Force Habagat at the Kiangan Hall in Camp Crame,
Quezon City, where several wiretapping equipment were
seized by a police team before the May 1998 elections?”
Berroya asked.
“The
monitoring equipment seized inside the Special Project
Alpha office are similar to the one discovered on the
telephone company cabinet near the Aquino residence,” he
added.
Retired
Director Eduardo Matillano, a classmate of Lacson in
Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class 1971, raided the
Special Project Alpha headquarters that led to the
confiscation of several wiretapping devices and cassette
tapes containing voice recordings.
Matillano was then the commander of the Task Force
Amihan of the defunct Presidential Anticrime Commission
while Lacson was the SPA chief at the time.
Both
units were housed in the same building at Camp Crame.
Among
the voice recordings taken from the Special Project
Alpha office were those of former senator Leticia Ramos
Shahani, sister of former President Fidel Ramos and
several other police and political personalities,
Berroya recalled.
Charges
were filed against Lacson and his men but were dropped
after then President Estrada won the May 1998 elections.
Lacson later became the National Police chief while
Berroya and Matillano were not given assignments.
He also
recalled that a Criminal Investigation and Detection
Group raiding team under then Senior Supt. Nestorio
Gualberto also seized a G-Track computerized wiretapping
device made in Germany at the Discovery Suites in Pasig
City shortly after President Arroyo assumed office in
January 2001.
Berroya
said that the computerized wiretapping operation at the
Discovery Suites was traced to Lacson’s men. In fact,
then Senior Supt. Michael Ray Aquino of the PAOCTF
managed to take out an important component of the G-Trak
that rendered the device nonoperational. Aquino is
detained at the United States on an espionage case. |
