Ex-poll chief Garcillano may run for Congress

Manila: Controversial former poll commissioner Virgilio Garcillano is reportedly eyeing a congressional seat in 2007 after the justice department junked the perjury charges against him.

The political opposition had filed the charges alleging that he masterminded the 2004 election results in favour of President Gloria Arroyo.

Lawyer Eddie Tamondong, Garcillano's counsel, told ABS-CBN television his client is running as representative of the 1st district of Bukidnon in southern Philippines where he is holed out awaiting the justice department's decision.

"With the coming out of this resolution clearing him, it's positive that he will run," Tamondong was quoted by the television station.

Garcillano grabbed the headlines last year when a wiretapped conversation allegedly between him and Arroyo came out in public.

Lady's voice

In that phone call, a feminine voice was heard inquiring about the election results to which Garcillano assured his caller that everything was falling into place.

The scandal forced Arroyo to apologise publicly for "lapse of judgment" in calling a poll official. She however did not admit or deny that it was her voice in the controversial tape.

Garcillano is believed to have manoeuvred Arroyo's one million margin against her closest rival, the late Fernando Poe Jr, a popular action star who is well-known among Filipino masses. Twenty opposition lawmakers including former presidential aspirant Senator Panfilo Lacson accused Garcillano of 21 counts of perjury and falsification of documents to cover his plane flights out of the country during the height of the scandal last year.