FINAL REPORT - Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

“2. If the Garci CDs came from fake tapes or spliced tapes being used to
frame-up the President, this would be the first time in my 27 years
experience as recording engineer to see such a masterpiece, that only a
genius of all geniuses can produce or fabricate. It will take a psychic and
a sound genius to make the script that will detail events, many of which
only became known later and make it appear that Pres. Arroyo was
speaking. It would be absurd for someone who was merely trying to
frame-up Pres. Arroyo to make a 3-hour CD, complete with innocuous
conversations by different people not related at all to the President, while
Pres. Arroyo has only a few minutes of participation in the three hour
CD. The genius will then need to ensure that the different scenarios in
the script coincide exactly with what is transpiring during the period of
months that the CDs relate to. Then the genius will have to look for
many actors who have exactly the same voice as all the persons the CDs
wishes to portray (including maids, drivers, other politicians, mayors, for
example), so similar that it will fool trained audio experts. Then the
person framing up the President will be so powerful to influence the
President into not answering questions on whether it was her on the CDs
or not even if the President knows that it was not her speaking on the
CDs, and later confess to it and thereby entrap her into a serious
scandal. That for me, would be one of the greatest, although impossible,
feats by a serious audio expert and script writer.” 23 (Affidavit of Jaime
Sarthou dated February 20, 2006, pp. 4-5)
On the other hand, we think that the first scenario (i.e., that the voice of
President Arroyo was fabricated by inserting and splicing into 137 other genuine
conversations, and therefore the voice of Code One is not the voice of President Arroyo)
would be contrary to both our elementary sense of hearing and our elementary
common sense. On the significance of our own sense of hearing, the expert witness
Jaime Sarthou had this to say:
“1. It is my considered opinion, however, that one of the voices talking to
Comm. Virgilio Garcillano is that of Pres. Arroyo. First, her lawyer Atty.
Ferrer said so publicly. Second, sound and recording engineers are
trained to discern voices, noise and distinguish sounds. The ears of
sound experts form THE most important tools in doing their job. I have
heard Pres. Arroyo so many times, and as a recording engineer her voice
sample, if you wish to call it, is already etched in my memory. As a
recording engineer, my ears are my tools for 27 years. Sound Engineering
has been my bread and butter to this very day. An important aspect of a
sound engineer’s job is to listen to the timbre of a voice, the manner,
23
As the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (“PCIJ”) has reported: “… several Comelec officials
interviewed by the PCIJ as well as former Comelec chair Christian Monsod confirm it is indeed Garcillano's voice that
is in the recording. Moreover, Garcillano identified himself in several of the wiretapped conversations and also spoke
to various individuals — his wife Grace, his secretary Ellen Peralta, and his maid Lyn — whose connection to him
cannot be denied.” (“Virgilio Garcillano Master Operator,” Sheila S. Coronel, PCIJ i Report Special Issue, July, 2005,
pp. 18-25)
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