|
FORMER senior government officials asked President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
to do five things or else face more street protests. So what else is
new? The threat, of course, is that a critical mass of protest would
be built up to force the President to leave office as in the case of
former Presidents Ferdinand E. Marcos and Joseph Estrada.
All these seem to be based on the appearance of
Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada that would trigger a series of revelations
before the Senate on the cancelled NBN-ZTE deal leading to a
spontaneous combustion, another People Power revolution. For months
Sen. Panfilo Lacson had been meeting with Lozada to set up his
Senate testimony.
The supposed attempt to abduct Lozada (now
referred to as JLo) started the ball rolling well enough. But after
coming out with nothing new before the Senate and visits to several
schools, JLo has not generated that much heat and fervor.
The people who went to the Inter-Faith meeting
last month were supposed to make a statement. But even if we take
the most generous estimate of 75,000 by its organizers, it is not
anything near combustible. And this is in the heart of the anti-GMA
country.
So now, it is necessary to bring back Secretary
Romulo Neri to give more credence to what JLo has testified to so
far. Neri has refused to return to the Senate and went to the
Supreme Court for help. The High Tribunal suggested a compromise—Neri
may testify except that he may not be asked three questions.
Senate President Manuel Villar rejected the
compromise but Senator Lacson was ready to accept it. One may
suspect that Neri’s testimony may not be that important but his
appearance before the Senate may have a psychological effect
particularly if he is sicced on JLo or vice versa. This certainly
will make good copy and dramatic TV cuts. But Senator Villar had
other ideas about the independence of the Senate.
In any case, the appearance of two other
consultants was expected to be the icing on the cake after the
revelations of JLo and Neri. But the testimony of Dante Madriaga
linking First Gentleman Mike Arroyo to the cancelled deal was
dismissed as hearsay and did not do much to raise the people-power
temperature.
But what could have been a real stinger was the
suggestion that the ZTE-NBN deal could have been the pay-off for a
special agreement among China, Vietnam and the Philippines in the
seismic exploration to search for oil in the Spratlys.
And here former Senate President Franklin Drilon
stuck out his chin by saying that Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez had
opined that a bilateral agreement between China and the Philippines
for a seismic study of the Spratlys may be a violation of the
Constitution and may lead to GMA’s impeachment.
Gutierrez denied this. She said the problem on
constitutionality has been addressed and that the seismic
undertaking is not unconstitutional. If there was a problem, she
would tell the President. At that time, she was Secretary of
Justice. The agreement was later extended to include Vietnam.
She also added that Drilon himself, when he was
Secretary of Justice, issued an opinion that a proposed seismic
study between the Philippines and Australia was constitutional.
But the supposed link between the Joint
Geophysical Survey Agreement among the Philippines, China and
Vietnam made some sectors of media go overboard and started citing a
former president of the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC), the
signatory to the agreement, as a witness to the ZTE-NBN scandal.
The Inquirer which bannered the story last week
had to apologize to Eduardo Manalac, former PNOC president, for
saying that he would testify on the ZTE-NBN kickbacks and suggesting
that he was another surprise witness of Senator Lacson.
The surprise witness turned out to be Leo San
Miguel who denied any knowledge about the supposed kickbacks, that
all he knew about the ZTE-NBN discussion were the technical details.
The Inquirer banner probably said it all:
“Surprise witness surprises Lacson.”
If the administration defense against the JLo
attack was ineptly handled, the follow-up to the attack by the
opposition may have suffered the same weakness.
After Holy Week comes the summer vacation. There
will be a break in the demos among students, JLo’s favorite
audience. By June the possible news leads could be the filing of
impeachment cases against the President. But the cancelled ZTE-NBN
deal may already have lost much of its momentum.
mlatimes@gmail.com
|
