Philippines military intelligence officials will appear before an inquiry today to shed light on a bugging scandal that has rocked Gloria Arroyo's presidency.
The political crisis over allegations she tried to manipulate elections has triggered fears of a military coup, derailed the government's economic reform agenda and roiled financial markets.
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo speaks to thousands of supporters in Manila today.
Tensions heightened yesterday when Arroyo publicly asked to be impeached to clear her name, as Congress aired alleged wiretapped telephone conversations in which she purportedly asks an election official to help rig the vote result.
The House of Representatives inquiry will question 10 members of the Military Intelligence Group 21 (MIG) unit that was allegedly behind the recordings when the congressional inquiry resumes later today.
"It's like undergoing a seminar for electoral fraud," said legislator Roilo Golez, the president's former national security adviser who broke away from his ex-boss last week over the tape controversy.
Golez said the conversations demonstrated the mechanics of wholesale electoral bribery.
He told the inquiry late yesterday he wanted the MIG 21 unit to take the stand in order to compare their voices with unknown commentators who state times and dates on the recordings, military-style.
The tapes were supposedly recorded in late May and early June last year, or several weeks after the May 10 vote in which Arroyo defeated popular Philippines movie star Fernando Poe by over a million votes.
Arroyo admits to improperly calling an unnamed poll official during the vote count and has apologised to the nation but denies trying to fix the election.
The audio tapes suggest unidentified persons had wiretapped the telephone calls of senior Commission on Elections official Virgilio Garcillano, who has gone into hiding since the tape recordings surfaced.
In the supposed wiretapped conversations, a woman sounding like Arroyo sought reassurance she would win a million-vote victory against Poe, who died of heart attack in December while mounting an election protest.
Two private citizens have filed impeachment complaints against Arroyo at the House of Representatives, while house speaker and Arroyo ally Jose De Venecia has pledged to ask the house's justice committee to deal with the complaint.
But the opposition is wary of going the impeachment route, believing it to be a trap laid by the Arroyo camp.
Arroyo's allies have a majority on the justice committee and could vote to stop the complaint being sent to the full House, which has the sole power to send the charges to the Senate for trial.
Instead, the opposition has encouraged street protests apparently in the hope of persuading key sectors of society like the military, the dominant Roman Catholic church and the middle classes to withdraw support for Arroyo.