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The two leading networks habitually attach the “EXCLUSIVE” label
to their news stories even if their rivals also have them. On
countless occasions, a quick flick of the TV remote
control—especially during the long commercial breaks—quickly
belies one or the other station’s claims of exclusivity.
Last week, however, GMA 7 did manage to outdo
its competitor when it ran two genuinely exclusive stories, which we
in the newspaper trade prefer to call “scoops.”
The first was an interview with a retired Army
sergeant, Rodolfo Valeroso, now a confidential agent of the police
Aviation Security Group, who was one of those who met—or accosted,
depending on your political inclination—Rodolfo Noel “Jun”
Lozano Jr. soon after the so-called whistle-blower deplaned from the
Cathay Pacific flight that brought him back to Manila from Hong Kong
on February 5.
In its second scoop for the week, GMA 7 was able
to extract from CHED Chairman Romulo Neri the information that he
and Lozada had held a secret meeting on December 7 last year with
Senators Panfilo Lacson and Ma. Ana Consuelo Madrigal at a Makati
bistro.
Neri, a former socioeconomic planning secretary
who was tasked with evaluating the National Broadband Network
project, added that it was Lozada who arranged the meeting with the
two opposition lawmakers.
When confronted with Neri’s revelation, Lozada,
Lacson and Madrigal expressed surprise. They said that the four of
them had agreed never to confirm that their meeting took place.
Meanwhile, an e-mail to the Lasallian community
from Edmundo Adolfo Fernandez <brdodo@lasallian.ph > detailed
a chronology of events that culminated with Lozada seeking refuge at
La Salle Green Hills in Mandaluyong.
Dated February 13, the email from Brother Dodo
said that a month after the Makati bistro meeting, Lozada and his
wife Violet asked the Christian Brothers of LSGH “if they could
seek sanctuary in the school for the safety of their children if the
need should arise.”
On January 30 Mrs. Lozada “temporarily
entrusted the four Lozada boys who are students of [LSGH] to the
care of the brothers,” Brother Dodo said. “She picked them up in
the afternoon of the same day.”
On February 4—the day before Lozada returned
to Manila, Brother Dodo wrote: “Mrs. Lozada called up Br. Felipe
[and] requested the Brothers to take care of the family. She came
late in the afternoon after fetching her daughter from her school.
The family spent the night in the Brothers’ House. Carmen, Jun’s
eldest sister, arrived in the Brothers’ House around 9:30 p.m.”
Around 2 a.m. on February 7, Lozada called a
news conference. Toward the end of his statement as transcribed in
the GMA News website, he said: “I have agonized over this
decision, both sides know, like many people who had been trying to
get me to speak, no [one] knew that I don’t want to speak along
partisan lines. I do not want this statement to be taken as a
partisan political exercise. I just want to give this to the
country. I’ve suffered long enough, agonizing over this ...”
On February 8 Lozada testified at one point
before the blue-ribbon committee that two days after the Senate
issued a warrant for his arrest in late January he met with his boss
Environment Secretary Lito Atienza.
After Atienza asked him what he wanted to do,
Lozada said: “Sabi ko ito lang ang gusto kong mangyari. Sana huwag
n’yo na akong paratingin sa Senado. Tigilan na po iyong death
threat sa akin at pangatlo kung ako ay makakarating sa Senado e
kilala ko ang sarili ko baka hindi ako makapagsinungaling. [I said
this is all I want to happen. If possible do not let me reach the
Senate. Stop the death threat to me and, third, if I do get to the
Senate, eh, I know myself, I might not be able to lie.]”
The media have portrayed Lozada as a hapless,
helpless victim whose world has been turned upside down by a
vindictive administration, which tried to silence him. He insists
that he never wanted to give up what he knew about the NBN deal, and
that circumstances merely forced him to reveal all.
Many of his public statements were premised with
the qualifier that he “meant no malice on anyone” and that he
has no partisan inclinations. However, the disclosure that he
arranged a meeting with two opposition senators and Neri in December
well before the Senate issued its arrest warrant and sanctuary for
his family at LSGH a month later seems to indicate—at the very
least—that Lozada was well aware of what he was getting himself
into.
Lozada was able to make the administration
believe that he did not want to spill the proverbial beans. His
admirers would probably adore him all the more for apparently
outwitting his government superiors.
Meanwhile, the officials he has gotten into
trouble probably rue the day they decided to help him to try and
evade the Senate warrant—only to realize later that they had
fallen for an elaborate ruse.
Whatever you think of Lozada, I would not want
this guy sitting across the poker table, that’s for sure. He’s
good.
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