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Why don’t we invite the ZTE officials over? Then ask them in an
executive session the following questions:
1. Had there been delivery of money to prominent
people in the Arroyo administration? If so, how much?
2. If there was really a hefty commission
demanded by these scumbags, what range was the agreed-upon
commission? Was it $130 or $65 million?
3. Was impossible greed really the frame of mind
of the broadband “commissioners?”
4. Is it SOP for ZTE to give big SOPs to
influential people in governments the ZTE does business with?
5. Or, are all those talks of massive
corruption related to the aborted broadband deal mostly half-truths?
The ZTE people have not been given the
impression that their testimony is their only thing that will give
closure to this deal. Not one from the government or the opposition
or the anti-corruption groups has ever pleaded before the ZTE to
dramatize the import of their testimony or sworn statement in the
pursuit of truth.
If we appeal to their sense of decency, they
might see the light to day, agree to testify just to unravel what
needs to be unraveled. In the search for truth, the ZTE holds the
key. At this point, all the convoluted statements from Neri, Lozada
or Abalos are deemed useless and self-serving.
Even at the price of giving the ZTE an IT
contract, why not? The truth is worth knowing. The crooks should be
sent to jail. A dozen people in prison for a lifetime after a
plunder conviction is worth every word of truth from the ZTE.
There will be no closure to this case unless the
ZTE agrees to state the truth and nothing but the whole truth.
We have to get past the broadband
controversy. The stink of big-time corruption is sad and
embarrassing enough. But worse is the international perception that
even a monumental project such as a national IT capability
enhancement is left for the cronies to transact and such
transactions can take place in clubby places such as golf courses.
Not even in an office mind you, to give the project presentation a
sense of formality. But in a golf club where club-wielding
buccaneers can slug at each other in case of disagreements.
Worst, the kickbacks are supposedly negotiated
first before the nuts and bolts and the complex technical details of
a project are taken care of.
Is there no sense of decency left in government
whatsoever?
Going back to the ZTE testimony, under what
terms and conditions would the ZTE agree to come on board and
testify?
A scaled-down broadband deal under their name.
To make sure national interests are really protected, the existing
telcos should form a consortium and partner with the ZTE in the
deal. The ZTE will welcome that. It is here to do business. Once it
is offered a profitable deal, there is no way it would withhold the
truth.
The Arroyo administration and the political
opposition should support such arrangement. The terms and conditions
to be offered to ZTE might be unprecedented but if that is the only
way to get the real story on the sorry saga of the broadband deal,
so be it.
The search for truth is not cheap. Remember Ken
Starr and the millions of dollars he spent hyping up the undies of
Monica just to pave the way for the impeachment of Bill Clinton?
Nothing came out of it.
By offering to ZTE a project on a silver
platter, it would throw all caution to the wind and agree to
testify. That would be our real day of liberation.
Testimonies of the Lozada type, while enough to
get media into a frenzy, will not provide closure to the ZTE deal.
In the first place, he should not have gotten enmeshed into the
whole sorry affair. Friendship with Romulo Neri alone does not
mandate one to evaluate the soundness of a broadband agreement. It
is a complex affair with legal, technical and financial inputs
needed to really evaluate its soundness and viability. It is too
vital to national development.
But as things stand now, the broadband
negotiations is not a lofty program to enhance our IT capabilities
and help the nation become more competitive in the context of a
Knowledge Society.
It is a racket gone sour, starring “brokers”
such as Lozada and “commissioners” such as Mr. Abalos and the
bigger people he was supposed to be fronting for.
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