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SOMETIME this week is the deadline for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
to cooperate with the Senate as demanded by some former government
officials. Something of this sort has already been attempted by a
group named Hyatt 10 and asked the President to resign, threatening
“or else.” They are bound to suffer the same fate as their
best-laid plans over the past week.
Things began to unravel when one of the
well-touted witnesses to the cancelled NBN-ZTE corruption contract
proved to be a dud. He testified to what some people said but
couldn’t present a more reliable evidence. This prompted one
sector of the opposition to claim that the witness was a Trojan
horse, that his testimony would just serve to make the previous
testimonies look bad.
If one may indulge in fantasies and fears, a
Trojan horse was supposed to set up a series of cosmic revelations
about the cancelled NBN-ZTE deal the plotters thought would force
the President to resign.
The leading man in this fantasy, now often
referred to as JLo, is a confessed adulterer and permissible grafter
who only collects 20 percent on his deals. He was summoned by the
Senate to testify and went into an elaborate song-and-dance
supposedly to get away from doing so. He went to Malacañang for
help and the people there, not knowing that they were probably being
set up, backed up his story about going to London to attend an
international conference.
One senator, who had been meeting with this
Trojan horse with another senator, testified in the Senate that he
was sure JLo was coming back to answer queries from Sen. Juan Ponce
Enrile.
JLo never got to London. He waited in Hong Kong,
living in the lap of luxury, and decided to return, in time to meet
his appointment with the Senate. Apparently surprised by his
decision to return, JLo’s friends in Malacañang scrambled to keep
him away from the Senate men who were waiting to arrest him on his
arrival.
What happened seem like an extemporaneous
operation which produced such egregious blunders that could not have
happened if there was anything like a plot or planning behind the
whole exercise. They all walked into the trap set by JLo or whoever
were his handlers.
JLo suddenly became the flavor of the month for
the media and the Senate and, like a fish, promptly got caught by
his mouth. In his dawn press conference after he sought refuge with
the La Salle brothers and sisters, he said that he changed his mind
about testifying before the Senate when he was offered P50,000 to
tell media he was not abducted. He said he was kidnapped but that
still has to be verified by a competent agency.
Then it came out that he appealed for funds and
P500,000 were given to his brother. During a TV interview, when
asked whether he will return the half-million travel expense, he
hedged and said that he used his personal credit cards while in Hong
Kong and suggested that he might use part of the cash to pay off his
bills. In any case, a big show was made during the Senate hearings
for the return of the P50,000 and the P500,000. Question: how will
he make good his credit card bills?
In his testimony, he keeps saying he was always
telling the truth and never told any half-truths. But he testified
that Sen. Joker Arroyo and his wife invited him to their home.
Inquirer columnist Solita Monsod straightened him out. She wrote:
“ . . . From the transcripts, Lozada gave the
impression that Fely Arroyo’s role was partisan in nature and that
he was giving both her and Sen. Panfilo Lacson a chance to talk to
him—that he was not being ‘selective.’ The impression is not
true. Fely Arroyo was not engaging in any partisan political
authority. She was giving the legal advice that he and [Tony] Abaya
had sought. Furthermore, he met with Ms. Arroyo only once, for all
of half an hour, while he met with Senator Lacson six times (this,
from Senator Lacson; Lozada said that he could not remember how many
meetings took place).
“One also gets the impression (until Lozada
recanted it) that Fely Arroyo not only invited him, but told him not
to appear in the Senate. What actually transpired is that Fely
Arroyo told him that, since he was neither invited, subpoenaed, nor
served a warrant of arrest, he was under no compulsion to go to the
Senate.
“The impression that he gave was that the
meeting with Fely Arroyo occurred at about the same time as his
meetings with Senator Lacson. He met with Fely Arroyo in September.
His meeting with Lacson occurred later.
“Conclusion: Of course he was telling
half-truths, and embellishing the truth. He changed his story only
when he was confronted with the whole truth.”
JLo says “it’s the truth that’s defending
me.” He better be careful, the truth also bites.
mlatimes@gmail.com
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