Retired Vice Admiral Mateo M. Mayuga once said he would bring the results of his factfinding mission on the purported involvement of the military in the cheating in the 2004 presidential elections that enabled Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to stay in power to his grave.
But Mayuga isn’t getting his way. Recently, President Benigno S. Aquino III declassified his “secret” report, popularly known as the Mayuga Report, and the 15-page executive summary has made its way to the news media.
The document, however, does not contain the sensitive revelations offered by resource persons invited by the commission—70 in all, including 68 officers and enlisted personnel of the Armed Forces, a AFP civilian employee and Commission on Elections Region 9 director Helen Flores.
The revelations are instead buried in the voluminous transcripts of the investigation that measure a meter.
One of the most important revelations excluded from the 15-page report was the testimony of then AFP Vice Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Rodolfo Garcia, commander of the 2004 Task Force HOPE (Honest, Orderly, Peaceful Elections), who urged the Mayuga Commission to have the funds allotted to his task force audited.