"yung dagdag, yung dagdag"

the administration and the opposition has been trading barbs for several weeks now over the issues of jueteng, wiretapping and alleged election cheating. but the exchange of tirades has escalated to a point where the administration has challenged those pushing for "gloria resign" to resign themselves, if the alleged "dagdag" tape is proven to be fake.

cong alan peter cayetano, who ran under the administration's k4 banner during the last election, played a part of the wiretap recording where a female voice is asking a male voice about "yung dagdag, yung dagdag". cayetano said it was clear the female's voice was the president's and the male's, garci's.

in the interest of fair play, we asked malacanang for a reaction. the president's defender sec mike defensor (play on words deliberate. hehehe!) was quick to say that if the recording is proven to be authentic, then the president will resign. but if it's fake, the opposition should instead resign.

the story was exclusive to gma, though we didn't flash the word on the screen.

i called cong cayetano before the story aired on 24Oras to ask what version of the recording he had where the "dagdag" part was audible. he said he had all the versions and that the "dagdag" part was audible in all of them, even in the quiapo version.

when i met cayetano for an interview this morning, he had with him his laptop. he not only played the recording again, he even showed me a video recording of my voice-over report on saksi last night.

he (and others in the opposition) not only took on defensor's challenge - he also dared defensor to have the president sign an agreement.

defensor was willing to draft the agreement with the oppo but the oppo had already drafted an undertaking. he said there was nothing wrong with "dagdag" - the president was merely protecting her votes. and when translated to english, he said "dagdag" meant addition, not padding. defensor also went on to challenge the oppo to a re-count of the votes in the contested provinces. the re-count will be based on the election returns. (which prompted a comment from someone - e di ba yun nga yung sinasabing nadaya?)

the opposition hopes the "dagdag" recording will convince the president to finally resign. cayetano even proposed to give her immunity so that her successor can have "a healing presidency." but the same immunity will also be given to the estradas. siyempre, defensor outrightly rejected this. why give president arroyo immunity, he said, when she has done nothing wrong?

in between interviews, a politician (not cayetano) joked that unlike erap, pgma wont be leaving malacanang aboard a barge. she'll be riding her (in)famous bangkang papel.