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By Efren L. Danao Senior
Reporter
Businessman Jose “Joey” de
Venecia 3rd said the “mystery man” who tried to bully him into
backing off the controversial broadband deal is none other than the
President’s husband, Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo.
De Venecia testified at a Senate
blue-ribbon committee hearing on Tuesday. He is the cofounder and
major shareholder of Amsterdam Holdings Inc. (AHI), which vied but
failed to land the $330-million national broadband network project
that was given to ZTE Corp. of China.
De Venecia, a son of House
Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., testified how Mr. Arroyo, at a meeting
at the Wack-Wack Golf and Country Club, shouted at him to “back
off” while Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos looked on.
Abalos was said to be brokering
for ZTE and had allegedly received a commission from the Chinese
firm, de Venecia claimed. Abalos has repeatedly denied those
charges.
The meeting in mid-March 2007 in
Wack-Wack, where Abalos has an office, was supposed to be a
reconciliation meeting arranged by Transportation and Communications
Secretary Leandro Mendoza. De Venecia said Abalos had been upset
with him for turning down offers to work together on the project
and, later, for refusing an alleged bribe to step away from the
project.
Instead of reconciliation, de
Venecia described how he met Mr. Arroyo who angrily told him off
while pointing a finger at him. With them were Mendoza, Ruben Reyes,
Jimmy Paz, Leon San Miguel and retired general Quirino de la Torre.
De Venecia said that in the
months he was talking to Abalos about the broadband project, he
never had a clue that Mr. Arroyo was involved with the deal given to
ZTE.
He said he believed that neither
President Gloria Arroyo, whom he repeatedly described “my
President,” nor his father knew about the details of the project.
“It was the First Gentleman who
told me to back off, not my President Gloria Arroyo,” he said. He
later added that after a trip to China, his father had told him how
he overheard Abalos bring up the ZTE offer to Mrs. Arroyo while
playing golf. She replied by saying Abalos and ZTE should make their
offer like AHI’s, which costs $100 million less and required no
sovereign guarantee from the Philippine government, de Venecia said,
quoting his father.
On Tuesday de Venecia reiterated
his charge that Abalos offered him a $10-million bribe to stop
pursuing the project, but he refused it. He conceded that there were
no witnesses to corroborate this.
He also said he was “shocked”
to learn about the $100-million overprice of the ZTE contract during
a visit to China at the invitation of Abalos. De Venecia said he
learned only then that ZTE was quoting a price of $260 million,
which is higher than the original price of $130 million. He said he
believed the difference was for kickbacks.
He also said that at the meeting,
Abalos threw a tantrum when ZTE executives refused to give Abalos
the balance of the money he was demanding. Those executives wanted
certain loan documents to be finalized first, de Venecia said. He
said Abalos supposedly told the Chinese executives that President
Arroyo and his father were waiting for that money—banging the
table with his fist as he said that.
“At this point, Director Fan
Yang [of ZTE] asked, ‘What about the money we already advanced Mr.
Chairman?’ Chairman Abalos did not make any reply,” de Venecia
said. He added that he was angry with the chairman for dragging the
names of President Arroyo and his father into the conversation.
De Venecia also recounted another
angry fit by Abalos who supposedly shouted invectives at him in
February 2007. The businessman had told his partners that AHI was
having difficulty with the broadband contract because Abalos wanted
a $130-million kickback. He said Abalos knew about this
conversation, admitting to de Venecia that he had wiretapped his
telephone.
De Venecia claims he is no longer
interested in the broadband contract, even if the government cancels
the deal with ZTE.
Opposition senators doubted de
Venecia’s statement that President Arroyo was not involved in the
contract.
Sen. Jinggoy Estrada said the
President went to China even when her husband was in hospital and
all the personalities involved were close to her.
The broadband contract was signed
on April 21, 2007, in China between officials of the Department of
Transportation and Communications and ZTE executives. President
Arroyo witnessed that ceremony.
Recently, she told the media that
the Philippines should push ahead with the broadband deal with ZTE.
This came days after a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao at
the APEC forum in Sydney, Australia, where they had agreed to have
the deal reviewed.
Mendoza was invited to the Senate
hearing but failed to show, invoking Executive Order 464 as a
reason. E.O. 464 requires Cabinet officials to ask permission from
the President to attend congressional hearings.
Mrs. Arroyo made a statement
Tuesday, ordering Mendoza to explain the ZTE deal before the Supreme
Court.
Meanwhile, Speaker de Venecia
issued a press statement after the hearing. He said his son went to
the Senate “in his own right as a stockholder of the Amsterdam
Holdings, Inc.”
“My son has his own moral
principles to guide him. He is his own man, strong enough to stand
up for them.”
The statement also said: “He
has assumed full responsibility before the joint committees for his
actions and revelations, which he provided under oath. In the course
of his testimony, he named the First Gentleman, Miguel Arroyo, as
telling him to back off the national broadband network project.
The First Gentleman has every right to come forward and air his side
on the issue.”
The next hearing is scheduled
Thursday. Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, chairman of the blue-ribbon
committee, said he will invite Mr. Arroyo to appear then.
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