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Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez will soon investigate and get to the
bottom of the claim of Senate star witness Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr.
that he was abducted.
And next week she will begin hearings of cases
filed against persons alleged to have committed corrupt practices in
relation to the ZTE national broadband project.
The Senate hearing on Tuesday made it
clearer—judging from the testimonies of airport and police
authorities—that Lozada was taken by men he did not know and would
neither identify themselves to him nor tell him where they were
taking him. He had tearfully narrated his ordeal at the Senate
hearing last Monday. In yesterday’s hearing, the senators and the
public learned—through the thicket of obfuscations raised by
administration men—that he was turned over by the NAIA security
chief to a man, Roger or Rodolfo Valeroso, whom the PNP chief and
the airport security head (who claimed to be eager to protect Lozada)
did not know from Adam.
It became obvious, despite the attempts of
government and police people to hide the fact, that Lozada was kept
against his will in the company of people he did not know for four
hours or so. They had his life in their hands. And it turns out that
they wanted him to sign affidavits that would be used to disprove
his claim of having been kidnapped and negate any revelations
damning to the administration that he might make in the Senate
hearings.
One could hear
through their protestations of innocence that the airport
authorities (who handed him over to Valeroso and men of military
bearing equipped with advanced radio and phone tapping equipment)
and the police officers to whom the military types finally delivered
him were all either in on his abduction or did not care what
Lozada’s fate would be.
Scrapped, then redesigned
President Arroyo had ordered the project
scrapped last year. Mrs. Arroyo’s own socio-economic development
secretary, then-NEDA chief Romulo Neri, had told her and the Senate
of the bribery offers and massive overpricing attendant to the
project.
The project should, in President Arroyo’s
original judgment, best be done under a build-operate-transfer
arrangement, which was what Joey de Venecia had proposed. As a BOT
project, the government would not have to pay cash.
Her instructions were ignored. And for some
reason, she changed her mind and approved the redesigned project
arrangement. She took a trip to China and signed the agreement
covering the project loan.
The ZTE NBN deal was going to proceed as a
$329-million project to be financed with a huge loan from China. At
least $130 million of the project amount was the commission
allegedly demanded by resigned Commission on Elections chairman
Benjamin Abalos. Originally, both de Venecia and Lozada had
testified the project amount containing the US$130 million
commission allegedly for Abalos was only $262 mission. As a BOT
project, it would have cost only about $132 million.
The first whistleblower was Neri himself,
followed by businessman Joey de Venecia, the son of the ousted
speaker of the House. His ouster, politics-savvy observers say, was
a result of his namesake son’s whistleblowing.
And now the spotlight is on Jun Lozada.
Seven cases filed
Seven ZTE-related cases have been filed before
the Ombudsman.
Those charged before the Ombudsman’s Office
include former Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos,
Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza, former Speaker Jose de
Venecia Jr. and his son Joey, First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo and
President Arroyo.
The Ombudsman has created a panel headed by
Deputy Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro to work expeditiously on these
cases. The persons charged, Ombudsman Gutierrez said, could be
summoned to appear at the hearings. She said the President and her
husband, lawyer Mike Arroyo, could be summoned.
In the past we have praised Ombudsman Gutierrez
for her various rulings and actions for which the Supreme Court had
also lauded her.
We hope the Ombudsman’s ZTE hearings will
really be fair and serve the cause of justice, as she has declared
they will be.
One warning: She must not let her hearings serve
as a rival-production to the Senate’s hearings.
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