Watch 'em Circle Them Wagons

Well, the recordings are certainly causing a stir. Which recordings? The ones that allegedly have our President GMA talking with some undisclosed COMELEC official about how the election returns are being fixed in her favor. From what I've seen on the news and the papers, there are certain interesting tidbits that piqued my interest:

1. The Palace revealed the existence of the recordings first, perhaps in an attempt to discredit them as fakes. [Not a bad move, PR-wise. Transparency and all that.]
   
2. The Palace, for some inexplicable reason, claimed that the recordings were really of PGMA but were spliced from various conversations. [Okay, this may have gone a bit too far with the transparency bit.]
   
3. The Palace later claimed that the recordings were not necessarily PGMA after all. [... and this really makes 'em look suspicious...]
   
4. The Palace is now threatening legal action towards anyone who seeks to disseminate copies of these recordings. [... and even more suspicious. A complete 180-degree turn.]
   
5. The Palace claims that the rumors claiming that the source of these recordings as coming from someone the U.S. government is part of destabilizers seeking to indicate that the U.S.A would support the fall of PGMA. [Wow, I didn't even hear that rumor yet! Maybe a return to transparency?]
6. The Opposition claims that the whole recording brouhaha is merely a Palace attempt to distract everyone from the jueteng allegations. [Interesting.]
   
7. There is a prominent spread in today's Philippine Star indicating the close ties between the PRC and the Philippines, which could be construed as either diplomatic PR, or a warning to U.S. interests in the Philippines. [Now THIS was a nice move.]
   
8. Some dude has come out saying "Hey, that guy she's talking to sounds like me!" but has not confirmed (or denied) that it is him. [WTF? Is he looking for hush money or attention?]
   
9. Some analysis of the recordings seem to indicate that they have some basis in truth:

• the voice, phrasing, and vocabulary of one of the speakers has been identified by some experts as PGMA;
• the election returns being discussed (wins, losses and related margins) seem to tally with the actual election results reported;
• there is supposedly no indication when electronically analyzed of any splicing.

We'll see how the story develops further. It's interesting to compare the various types of news reported on the Philippine Star and Philippine Daily Inquirer websites. I leave that as an exercise for you intrigued folks out there.

I gotta get back to work.