Weirdly I would argue it was more of a statement by Stones in a way.
Garcia getting picked so much last season was on one part a statement on what Guardiola thinks of Garcia, but the fact we saw so little of Stones and Otamendi is another statement on what Pep thought of them.
One constant with Pep is that if he doesn't think you're good enough for the team, you don't play. (Rightly or wrongly) We've seen a lot of young players not get minutes due to it but also players Pep doesn't trust anymore tend to get the cold shoulder too. We've seen he'd rather play a player he trusts out of position that someone he doesn't in position, and he can take that quite far sometimes (Remember Fernandinho at LB?). If he doesn't trust you he only plays you when he feels he has absolutely to, and how many minutes that is equivalent too I suppose depends on how good they were.
So at the back end of last season Stones was only getting minutes to help someone else rest. I wouldn't say he was done for, but it felt like Pep had lost a lot of patience with him. There were quite a few rumours of this at the time too, which I'm inclined to believe were true.
So the fact that now he's getting games ahead of both Garcia and Fernandinho suggests to me that something has happened to convince Pep that Stones is good enough. Maybe it's Stones stepping up a gear, or being fitter than ever, or something else entirely. A 16/17 Touré revival of sorts.
My point being, Stones playing is a statement that Stones has done something to up his game, or at least get back to his former levels. And on top of that given the circumstances he was the best option available. Because Pep would 100% play Garcia or Fernandinho there if he felt he had to or that he felt they were better.
The only possible statement by Pep here would be that he's a Stones fan again. I don't think it has any bearing on his feelings for Garcia.