
Originally Posted by
Randy David
"Talking is acting," says Wesley Sharrock, a British sociologist. "Members (of a speech community) do not have a general problem of describing or explaining 'everything' that happens. They do not typically produce actions and then, separately and independently, try to describe or explain what they have done. Sometimes, of course, when what is happening is 'specifically senseless,' members will explicitly offer descriptions or explanations to make sense of something-they will produce what Garfinkel calls 'formulations'."
Compare the conversations in the "X-tape" with those in the "Hello Garci" tape. Here is an intriguing one from the latter, possibly among the most incriminating of the Garci conversations:
Garci: Hello Ma'am.
Ma'am: Hello, atsaka ano, ano, yung kabila, they they're trying to get the Namfrel copy of the municipal COCs.
Garci: Saang Namfrel ho? Namfrel copies ho?
Ma'am: Uhm-uhm.
Garci: Ay wala naman, ok naman ang Namfrel sa atin. They are now sympathetic to us.
Ma'am (mumbling in a lowered voice): Oo, oo, oo ... (garbled) Namfrel does not tally ... Pero yun nga, yung dagdag, yung dagdag.
Garci: Ah, oho, we will, we will get an advance copy ho natin kung anong kwan nila.
What makes this conversation credible? Ma'am brings up a ticklish problem she does not state till toward the end. Instead, she refers to a seemingly harmless event -- namely, the other side is trying to get Namfrel copies of the municipal Certificates of Canvass, or COCs. Garci does not see right away why this is a problem. So he answers with a question: Namfrel where? He knows which groups of the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections, or Namfrel, he controls. He allays Ma'am's unease by assuring her Namfrel is cooperating. Ma'am seems aware of that, but that's not what she is inquiring about. The point is the "dagdag" (the padding), a bad word she is hesitant to utter but could not avoid. She wants Garci to make sure the Namfrel copies in the concerned municipalities reflect the "dagdag," but nowhere does she explicitly tell him so. She assumes he understands what she's saying and what he needs to do. Garci finally gets it, and so he tells her: We will; we will get an advance copy so we will know what ("kwan") they have. He does not elaborate.