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By Perfecto R. Yasay Jr.
Star witness Rodolfo Noel Lozada, Jr., must have
reflected hard and well before deciding to testify at the Senate
inquiry into the anomalous U.S.$329 million National Broadcast
Network and China’s ZTE Corporation deal that implicated President
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and the first gentleman.
It’s not easy for a public servant to stand up
against the most powerful person who can use all the resources of
the office to destroy one’s credibility. The whistleblower could
be bribed, ridiculed and harassed by his superiors and peers, or be
investigated for corruption and other irregularities. All these
are all too familiar to Lozada by now.
Lozada himself decried the attempt of the Palace
to prevent him from testifying by buying him off. He also disclosed
the times he was threatened with physical harm, and
admitted thinking of the late PR guru Bubby Dacer when he was
whisked off from the airport on his arrival from Hong Kong. He was
virtually held against his will by police and military escorts for
more than six hours without knowing where he was to be taken. What
saved him was his mental presence in texting his relatives about his
abduction who in turn reported it to the media.
Dacer, who did not publicly announce his plan to
speak the truth about corruption in government, was not so lucky. To
this date the identities of his killers officially remain a mystery.
I wonder if Lozada also had in mind the fate of
two other personalities in the government service linked to
another anomalous project: the $650 million NAIA Terminal 3 BOT
contract.
RTC Judge Hendrick Gingoyon was assassinated by
unknown assailants on Dec. 31, 2005, in Imus, Cavite, on his way to
his office in Pasay City. Gingoyon was presiding over the controversial
expropriation proceedings of the unfinished international air
passenger terminal. Rumor has it that he was silenced as a result of
a compromise that turned ugly.
NAIA Terminal 3 was built by the Philippine
International Air Terminal Company (PIATCO) on land already owned by
the government pursuant to a BOT contract that was nullified by the
Supreme Court because of irregularities.
The other official linked to the
NAIA T3 anomaly was Assistant Solicitor Nestor Ballocillo, gunned
down on Dec. 6, 2006, in Sucat, Paranaque. Ballocillo argued for the
government in a case filed by the Asia Emerging Dragon Corporation
against the expropriation of the terminal facility before the
Supreme Court. Some quarters have theorized that he was killed for
revealing sensitive confidential information to AEDC lawyers
regarding the arbitration case filed by the German firm Fraport AG
before the International Court for the Settlement of Investment
Disputes in Washington, D.C.
The murders of Gingoyon and Ballocillo also
remain unsolved and the truth surrounding their deaths might never
be known.
Given these premises, we could surmise that
before testifying at the Senate, Lozada was confronted
with a great dilemma and made an extremely difficult choice of
either braving death for the sake of truth or risk honor by cowardly
lying about what he knew or what former NEDA chief
Romulo Neri had told him about the deal and his conversations with
the President. He must have fully understood that living the
rest of his life in humiliation and disgrace would be worse
than dying for a noble cause. Corollarily, I also believe that if
the President is honest and honorable she will not be bothered by
fabricated accusations. The truth will set her free.
Unfortunately, by forbidding her officials from
testifying in congressional probes, she has conveyed the impression
that she is concealing the truth that could be damaging to her. This
is precisely why the majority of Filipinos adore Lozada
as a folk hero while the public trust in the President and her
husband is steadily plunging. Not even the overwhelming support that
Lozada receives from the biased political opposition is harming his
credibility.
My family will long remember the nightmare we
went through more than seven years ago when, against the advice of
close friends and confidants who considered my choice suicidal, I
disobeyed the unlawful orders of a former President and exposed his
corruption and abuse of power. Despite my suspension from office as
SEC chairman through false charges of corruption, the numerous
harassment, intimidation and death threats, the attempts to
destroy my credibility, hiring top PR professionals to
twist the facts, the humiliating and vulgar adjectives used in
public against me, the truth prevailed and the President eventually
fell from office in disgrace. Ironically, I also found strength from
his utterance when he angrily told me in primetime television
watched by millions of Filipinos that: “Ang nagsisinungaling ay
matatamaan ng kidlat!” Indeed, as the truth unfolded
to its climax, these words became unmistakably prophetic.
Speaking out forcefully against irregularities
and abuse of power in government, public servant or not, is a duty
every citizen must take seriously, without compromise.
In carrying out this responsibility, I regret that I was
unwittingly used by unscrupulous politicians who rose to power but
proved to be no better, if not worse, than the
leaders they succeeded. Proclaiming the truth against former
President Joseph Estrada was a profound liberating experience for me
and a much-needed catharsis for the nation. But supporting Mrs.
Arroyo’s rise to the presidency in a critical period of our
history was one of the biggest mistakes of my life.
I hope Jun Lozada will not relive the same
disappointment shared by the key witnesses who bravely spoke the
truth against a corrupt President, only to realize in the end that
he was merely replaced by one now perceived to be even more corrupt
and who appears likely to be succeeded by another wolf in sheep’s
clothing.
Fortunately, we see a more mature and
enlightened citizenry in our people today. Hopefully, this
vicious, serial, grand scale corruption will be a thing of the past
the next time people power brings about sweeping purges.
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Perfecto R. Yasay, Jr., former SEC Chair and
Recipient of the EDSA II People Power Award, is a Professor of Law
at the University of Hawaii.
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