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RESBAK. That’s street language for not only accepting a challenge
but hurling a counter-challenge as well. In the current controversy
between the Manila Electric Co. and the Government Service Insurance
System, a contest of power over power, if ever there was one, the
announcement of a new (another “surprise”?) witness in the
ZTE-NBN investigation has the makings a Meralco resbak.
The GSIS management is making no bones about
challenging the Lopez family for the control of Meralco and has
floated charges that the high rates that Meralco consumers are
paying may be blamed on the way Meralco is being operated.
At a time when the flavor of the news was high
prices here and around the world, the price of electricity strikes a
familiar and aggressive chord among a populace reeling from the cost
of oil (cooking and fuel) and rice, and the effects of these on
other prime needs such as education, health and transportation.
The Senate spent some eight months investigating
charges of immoderate greed (kickbacks) surrounding the negotiations
of the cancelled ZTE-NBN deal. The Senate, in closing the
inconclusive probe, admitted that there was no direct link to the
President in the corruption charges brought out in the hearings.
Now, Vice Gov. Rolex Suplico of Iloilo has
revealed that a new witness will testify to the fact that President
Gloria Arroyo and First Gentleman Mike Arroyo played golf in
Shenzhen with ZTE Corp. executives on November 2, 2006, five months
before the signing of the aborted contract between ZTE and the
government.
Dripping with self-righteousness, Suplico
suggested that the “secret” meeting between the President and
ZTE executives was immoral and against the law. Suplico also
released photos taken during the golf game. Were these photos of
negotiations or conferences between leading protagonists?
If as suggested that the meeting was
clandestine, why would souvenir photos be taken? Obviously, the
photos released show that some of the photos were taken by the
hosts. And if the whole exercise was hush-hush, why were the photos
handled lackadaisically that copies of them got into hands that put
ZTE into trouble along with its guests?
Suplico makes much of the fact that Executive
Secretary Eduardo Ermita, former Commission on Elections Chairman
Benjamin Abalos and Mrs. Gina de Venecia have confirmed the Shenzhen
outing.
Malacañang did not bother to deny the meeting
because, as Secretary Ermita suggested, it which was just a golf
break in the heavy Presidential schedule and at most a social visit.
All these must have surprised many a GMA basher who thought that
this was just another communications blunder like at least two
“admission” instances in the past.
In the first place, then Speaker Jose de Venecia
was there. He could have been the ace-in-the-hole had the Palace
denied to Shenzhen outing. If there were no other business other
than golf, the former speaker would have known about it.
Malacañang says the best person to ask as to
what really happened in that golf outing is Mr. de Venecia. And
indeed this was the question that was asked of him on his arrival
from a trip abroad. His answer was that he just came from Moscow
where he delivered a speech. Pressed for information about the
Shenzhen trip, he admitted being invited and after some evasive
maneuvers said he was going to “consider” testifying about what
transpired during that trip.
Mrs. Gina de Venecia has said that the golf date
was so secret that she was not invited. It could be because she
doesn’t play as good a game of golf as the President. Or her
husband.
The bigger issue was that with the number of
media people in the Presidential entourage, none apparently
mentioned the golfing break in Mrs. Arroyo’s schedule. Were the
Presidential communications handlers able to put one over the media
people? Or were the media in on the secret? Or what is worse,
didn’t the media think the outing was important and didn’t
bother to mention it?
As a result of the “discovery” of the
meeting and of “Alex,” the latest of a series of “surprise”
witnesses, the Senate is reopening the ZTE-NBN investigation. To
justify the reopening of the probe, Blue-Ribbon Committee Chairman
Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano chimed in that he knew about the witness
“from two months ago and [Alex] was one of the witnesses I
mentioned who can give direct testimony regarding the participation
of the President Arroyo in the deal . . . ”
So, why wasn’t his testimony pursued as the
testimonies of Neri, Lozada, et al, were? Was it because the “rice
crisis” and high prices have taken over the news?
Inquirer columnist Solita Monsod, has this to
say about the media frenzy that followed that golf interlude:
“Frankly, it is quite puzzling that the
incident is being played up as if it were a scoop of some sort,
something that has been brought to light for the first time. Because
I distinctly remember that Joey de Venecia mentioned the golf game
that took place in November 2006, even naming the players as the
president, Jose de Venecia, Ben Abalos and a bigwig or two of the
ZTE. (I am not sure whether he mentioned Mike Arroyo as one of the
golfers, but the transcript of the hearings should resolve that
issue.) As I recall, nobody paid too much attention to it then. That
they are pouncing on it only now, after something like eight months,
indicates, at best, very slow mental processes—bordering on the
challenged—on the part our Senate investigators.”
The power poker continues.
opinion@manilatimes.net
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