Ping’s sting

Ping’s sting

HOW could that have happened to Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson?

That was the question on everybody’s mind following the dud of a testimony given by Leo San Miguel before the Senate probe of the national broadband deal. For publicity’s sake, Lacson had built up San Miguel’s scheduled appearance before the blue-ribbon inquiry. Filipinos were made to expect that the new resource person would offer the same level of entertainment, which the now-famous Jun Lozada has provided the public.

As it turned out, however, San Miguel’s testimony became a source of major embarrassment to Lacson—for several reasons.

First, palpable is the public’s frustration over Lacson’s failure to satisfy their expectation that the new witness would be as exciting, if not as entertaining, as Lozada.

Second, San Miguel’s testimony tends to show that not everybody is afraid of the top cop-turned-lawmaker. For 12 hours Lacson tried to badger San Miguel into saying in the Senate hearing what the two of them allegedly discussed in private. But San Miguel dug in and stuck to his line—forcing Lacson to utter the scary words, “My patience has its limits.”

San Miguel did not flinch, however—apparently unintimidated by Lacson’s fearsome reputation.

Third, the San Miguel dud tends to show that Lacson is highly vulnerable to unreliable or deliberately misleading information. The senator’s press statements always carry the standard qualifier, “I have information that . . . ” It gave the impression that the former chief of the Philippine National Police has maintained an intelligence network, which possesses dossiers on just about anybody who matters in this country.

The San Miguel debacle loudly hinted that some of the senator’s intelligence sources might actually be peddling reports designed to mislead and embarrass him. Not a few observers now think that his much-vaunted machinery of spooks and stoolies has become what makes the senator vulnerable.

Given the embarrassment that San Miguel has caused him, Lacson should now take a second look at Dante Madriaga, author of the “Greedy Four Plus Plus” tale. It was Madriaga who created in Lacson’s mind the impression that San Miguel was a major player in the NBN-ZTE deal.

Madriaga’s “revelations” may have given the notion that San Miguel was in possession of a potential bombshell. Lacson may have unwittingly bought Mad­riaga’s pitch about the value of a San Miguel appearance at the blue-hearing inquiry.

As the saying goes, once burned twice shy. Lacson should now take a second look at everything that Madriaga has said at the inquiry—and elsewhere. The senator should now determine whether or not Madriaga’s so-called bombshells were merely meant to sell San Miguel to Lacson.

Observers suspect that Lacson has been had and that San Miguel was not alone in a conspiracy to embarrass him, deliberately or otherwise.

Evidently, it was Madriaga who inflated the value of San Miguel whom the former insisted was part of the Greedy Four. That description generated excitement for San Miguel, which was magnified through a second label, “surprise witness.”

Clearly, the biggest surprise was on Lacson. And the public is startled that despite his much-vaunted intelligence apparatus, Lacson could still be flabbergasted.

As far as many observers are concerned, the San Miguel dud further eroded what credibility Madriaga still has. It has now become harder and harder to accept what he has said—and what he would say in the future.

Was Lacson set up with a scheme that exposed his vulnerability to bum steers, which sounds even more humiliating in its Tagalog translation—kuryente.

Too bad, the confirmation that Madriaga has no credibility virtually dismisses his own allegation that former presidential chief of staff Mike Defensor was somehow involved in the NBN-ZTE scandal. Did Madriaga drag Defensor’s name into the controversy merely to spice up his tall tale?

Madriaga may be aware of it or not, but there is an ongoing smear campaign against Defensor, which knowledgeable sources say is being carried out by the “Thunderbird Gang.”

The clique’s moniker has nothing to do with the classic coupe that giant automaker Ford first rolled out in the 1950s. The gang takes its name from its members’ “I love my own” syndrome. The hatchet job on Defensor is, according to knowledgeable sources, all about local politics.

Lacson should not allow characters like Madriaga and San Miguel to highlight the chinks in the senator’s armor. He obviously has been had—and it will take some time for people to forget that he was publicly shamed by a nationally televised dud.

Lacson should also take a second look at his intelligence apparatus and clean it up before it is manipulated again by a San Miguel-type caper. The ex-PNP chief’s edge over his political rivals is his uncanny ability to get the “goods” on anyone he targets.

Another Leo San Miguel-type flop, and people might start to think that Ping has lost his sting.

Who's Next

Who's Next

After the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan convicted deposed President Joseph Estrada of plunder last week, government officials, civil society leaders and media people began asking, “Who’s next?” The Sandiganbayan decision has shown that no one is exempt from accountability, not even a former president, and it should embolden everyone to pursue graft and corruption cases against those who have to answer for them.

For her part, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo last Thursday created the Procurement Transparency Group, which will monitor procurement for public projects and report irregularities to the agency heads concerned. She also formed a Pro-performance Infrastructure Monitoring Group.

But what is needed in dealing with the problem of graft and corruption are not new government agencies but resolute action against grafters. We already have many government agencies charged with bringing corrupt officials to justice. What is needed is the political will to go after these officials and not to let up until they are all behind bars.

For starters, Ms Arroyo and other officials should act on the following cases:

(1) The $2-million extortion charge against former Justice Secretary Hernando Perez filed by former Manila Rep. Mark Jimenez in 2001. Estrada had said then that Jimenez gave Perez $2 million to approve the $470-million contract to rehabilitate a power plant in Laguna won by the Argentine firm Industrias Metalurgicas Pescarmona Sociedad Anonima (Impsa). Graft prosecutors said there was sufficient evidence to establish that Perez and company had committed “illegal acts.”

(2) The P1.3-billion election computerization deal. The Supreme Court on Jan. 13, 2004 voided MegaPacific’s contract to supply the Commission on Elections (Comelec) with 1,991 automated counting machines because the deal was tainted “with graft and legal infirmities.” Strangely, however, the Ombudsman on Oct. 2, 2006 absolved of any wrongdoing Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos and other officials involved in the deal.

(3) The alleged P532.9-million overpricing of the P1.1-billion 5.1-kilometer President Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard in the Manila Bay reclamation area. The Ombudsman has upheld the allegation of whistle-blower Sulficio Tagud Jr., a former director of the Public Estates Authority (PEA), that the road was overpriced by 250 percent and the bridge by 67 percent. The Ombudsman has approved the filing of graft charges against 20 PEA officials, six auditors of the Commission on Audit and Jesusito Legaspi, owner of JD Legaspi Construction firm that constructed the road, described by Tagud as “the most expensive asphalt road in the country.”

(4) The P200-million Jose Pidal case. In 2003 Sen. Panfilo Lacson accused Jose Miguel Arroyo, husband of President Arroyo, of amassing more than P200 million from campaign contributions to Ms Arroyo and putting the money in secret bank accounts, including that of “Jose Pidal.” Last June, Lacson criticized Sen. Joker Arroyo, former chair of the Senate blue ribbon committee, for sitting on the Jose Pidal case.

(5) The $503-million Northrail project. Former Senate President Franklin Drilon said the project was one of the “colossal corrupt deals” of the Arroyo administration. In August 2005 the University of the Philippines Law Center said the contract between Northrail and the China National Machinery and Equipment Corp. Group was illegal because of “questionable terms” and should be annulled. It also urged the filing of criminal, civil and administrative charges against some public officials and private individuals.

(6) The P728-million fertilizer fund scam. Former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-joc” Bolante was accused of distributing P728 million in fertilizer funds to local leaders to ensure Ms Arroyo’s election victory in 2004. Bolante fled to the United States, was arrested at the Los Angeles International Airport. He has chosen to be detained in the US rather than be deported to Manila.

(7) The $329-million National Broadband Network.

If the President is sincere in going after grafters in the government, she should order all the government agencies concerned, including the two offices she recently created, to go hammer and tongs after all the individuals and offices involved in these seven high-profile cases. The Estrada plunder case has shown that “big fish” can be caught, prosecuted, sentenced and put behind bars. From now on, there should be no pussyfooting and foot-dragging on graft and corruption.

Stickup

Stickup

ON THE SAME DAY THE SANDIGANBAYAN ended the trial of the century by sentencing her predecessor, Joseph Estrada, to life in prison for plunder, President Macapagal-Arroyo announced the creation of a new body to help curb graft and corruption in government. The President told the Bishops-Ulama Conference in Malacañang Wednesday that she had created the Procurement Transparency Group to monitor procurement for public projects. The inter-agency body, chaired by the Department of Budget and Management, will have representatives from civil society. It will monitor procurement biddings and report anomalies to agency heads as well as the Office of the Ombudsman and the Commission on Audit. Its main purpose is “to ensure transparency and good governance in our massive public investments,’’ Ms Arroyo said. A separate group will “also harness civil society and the private sector in ensuring that public works projects serve the needs and objectives for which they are undertaken, and contract terms and timetables are complied with.’’

If the twin announcements were meant to signal a fresh resolve to combat graft in government, the President herself diluted the message with her other statements in the same forum. “We must be a government that honors contracts and agreements that go through the required processes, despite media attacks,’’ she said. “We live by the rule of law.’’ Later when asked by reporters if that policy included the ZTE contract to set up a national broadband network (NBN), Ms Arroyo reiterated that “as long as the contract goes through the required processes, we are required to comply’’ with its terms.

It was clear as day that she was referring to the $329-million contract with the Chinese firm ZTE. No other contract, whether involving foreign or local governments or companies, has been the subject of so much “media attacks’’ in recent months. And “transparent’’ is the last thing anyone can say about that contract or the processes that went before and after it was signed -- from the deliberations on the project to the negotiations and the decision to award it to ZTE.

To this day, top administration officials continue to dissemble and mislead the public about the NBN project and how ZTE bagged the contract. They cannot even agree if there is a contract or not. Some Cabinet officials say what has been signed is a memorandum of agreement or understanding, but others call it a contract. Commission on Higher Education Chair Romulo Neri, who used to head the National Economic and Development Authority, says there is a “supplier’s contract’’ but it is only a “prospective contract.’’ If that means it is not the real thing, then why did Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza sign it? And why did the President have to leave her husband, who had just undergone a delicate operation, to witness the signing in Boao, China? If the contract is “prospective,” it is probably because the plans and specifications are not spelled out so that no one can tell exactly what the country is getting for $329 million or if that would be the final price.

When pressed for answers, most Cabinet members point to Mendoza, saying the NBN is his baby and he knows it best. But Mendoza refuses to make the contract public and he doesn’t want to talk -- not to the press, not to the members of Congress. The only talking he has done recently was to the Cabinet where he supposedly explained the project in detail, including how it would save the government billions of pesos a year.

Funny that Mendoza bothered to do that. It was like preaching to the converted or at least to those who must act like true believers, given the President’s keen interest in seeing the NBN project through. But it is not the Cabinet that has been asking questions, it is the Filipino public. Does Mendoza think he owes it to the Cabinet to explain, but not to the Filipino people?

The Arroyo administration wants the Filipino people to approve a contract and pay for a project they know very little about, and it has the temerity to talk about transparency and good governance? In any other place, they would call this secret, rotten deal a stinking stickup.

Grace period

Grace period

THROWING MONEY AT A PROBLEM WON’T SOLVE it. President Macapagal-Arroyo says the government has the cash to automate elections. Clearly, she has the upcoming barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections in mind.

We believe pursuing automation in a rush would be counterproductive. The Commission on Elections, in particular as it is presently constituted under the beleaguered leadership of Benjamin Abalos, shouldn’t be entrusted with the authority to shortcut bidding processes in the rush to automate the barangay elections. Instead of modernizing our electoral system, this would only open up another opportunity for a controversial purchase of equipment, which could then put every subsequent electoral exercise under a cloud of doubt. Our political skies are too overcast for this at the moment.

What would a rushed automation of barangay elections next month achieve? An army of dubiously elected ward leaders eager to do the President’s bidding in 2010.

If we are to automate, let’s do it right, under a Comelec untainted by the most disgraceful set of commissioners since the Marcos years. If we are to automate, let’s give a sector that’s pretty much more respected and distinguished than our election officials—the IT sector—a chance to arrive at a consensus on the best form of automation to undertake. If we are to automate, and if we are (sensibly) to use the barangay elections as a laboratory to debug an automated system for voting, then let’s not rush into it pell-mell; let’s give it a year, no more, no less.

A happier confluence of events is possible. The President has a chance to fill the vacancy in the Comelec chairmanship that will occur in February next year—and other vacancies that may perhaps come up (we can only earnestly hope that the current Comelec commissioners see the light and resign en masse, together with their disgraced and disgraceful chairman)—with a credible appointment.

Electoral watchdog groups and the IT sector have a chance to show they can do more than make noise, they can achieve a consensus on solutions and, who knows, even on possible Comelec appointments. Our legislature can institute much-needed reforms, not on the basis of partisanship, but in acknowledgment of the public’s yearning for cleaner elections. There is an obvious opportunity here, for the executive and legislative branches to achieve a kind of redemption—or, at least, recovery of their standing—before the people.

While we’re at it, postponing the barangay elections by a year would also allow Congress to consider a much-needed reform. We endorse the manifesto signed on Sept. 5, in Baguio City, by educators and students calling for the abolition of the SK. The manifesto, signed during the annual training convention of student council leaders in public schools, proposes that the current revenue allotment for the SK—10 percent of every barangay’s budget—be re-channelled to public education instead.

The student-educator manifesto points out that all the SK has achieved is to put in the hands of young people large sums of money that they are not prepared to handle; and to serve as a take-off point for dynastic control of local politics. Money is power; and young people all over the country are getting a corrupt and corrupting introduction into power politics by means of the SK. In contrast, student governments represent a more integrated approach to representative government, without the tempting access to large sums.

Omerta

Omerta

Reports earlier this week said President Arroyo had created not just one but two bodies to promote transparency in government. She should show that she means business by starting with the controversial $329-million broadband deal with Chinese firm ZTE Corp.

The other night Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza, who had signed the deal with ZTE executives in the presence of President Arroyo in Boao, China during the campaign period last April, stonewalled when asked by congressmen to shed light on the broadband project. The deal will require public funds to repay a loan from the Chinese Export-Import Bank that will be used to finance the project. Members of the House appropriations committee who were deliberating on the proposed national budget for 2008 wanted to know the details. Their interest in the funding was valid, but Mendoza, citing the advice of his lawyer, said a restraining order from the Supreme Court on the implementation of the ZTE deal prevented him from commenting on it.

The order of the high tribunal is the latest excuse invoked by the administration for its failure to come clean on a project that will saddle Filipinos with a $329-million debt burden for the next two decades. Administration officials say the document inked in China was stolen shortly after the signing. To this day different government officials have different versions of what exactly was signed. The nation learned of the purported theft of the original document only through a slip of the tongue of one of Mendoza’s underlings.

Malacañang has maintained a stony silence amid reports linking Chairman Benjamin Abalos of the Commission on Elections to the ZTE deal. Would his involvement have anything to do with disputed election results? There is no way of knowing. Officials implicated in the deal are either threatening to sue for libel or invoking orders from the President herself preventing them from facing congressional efforts to unearth the truth. This is not transparency but the code of omerta.

Magnificent

Magnificent

The motion of defense counsel to dispense with a full reading of the Sandiganbayan decisions in the perjury and plunder cases against Joseph Estrada has allowed the ex-president, his family and his allies to fudge the truth--and confuse the public.

This is unfortunate, because the rulings, especially the 262-page decision in the plunder case, are a clear example of solid, straightforward legal reasoning. There are certain errors, to be sure, such as an innocent confusion between the two Estrada vs. Sandiganbayan decisions upholding the constitutionality of the plunder law, but in the main the three Sandiganbayan justices outdid themselves: They sift confidently through the mass of evidence, organize the most salient, set forth their findings of fact--and then apply the law.

Every single assertion made by Estrada and his supporters since Wednesday's promulgation can be answered directly from the decision.

Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, for instance, assailed the court (the same court which acquitted him) for convicting his father on the illegal gambling charge. Since when did jueteng money, he asked for argument's sake, become public funds?

His question is irrelevant, because the plunder law penalizes any public official who systematically amasses ill-gotten wealth. The "public treasury" is only one of six possible sources of illegal wealth specified by the law. The sixth, in fact, can be understood as a catch-all condition: "By taking undue advantage of official position, authority, relationship, connection or influence to unjustly enrich himself or themselves at the expense and to the damage and prejudice of the Filipino people and the Republic of the Philippines." (The decision quotes this ringing line toward its conclusion.)

We have to remember that the plunder law--Republic Act 7080, as amended--came into being as a legislative reaction to the excesses of the Marcos regime. (Now that was plunder, on a grand, one-for-the-Guinness-book-of-world-records scale.) As Justice Josue Bellosillo of the Supreme Court wrote, over a decade after RA 7080 became law: "Drastic and radical measures are imperative to fight the increasingly sophisticated, extraordinarily methodical and economically catastrophic looting of the national treasury."

In its own decision, the Sandiganbayan quotes at length from the Explanatory Note to the Senate bill that helped lead to the plunder law. One passage reads: "The acts and/or omissions sought to be penalized do not involve simple cases of malversation of public funds, bribery, extortion, theft and graft but constitute plunder of an entire nation resulting in material damage to the national economy."

In this dark light, centralizing jueteng operations in Malacañang certainly qualifies as plunder.

Estrada himself took the court to task for issuing a "political" decision, saying he could not blame the justices because the Sandiganbayan's special division was "programmed to convict" him. A close reading of the decision on the plunder case, however, will show that--despite obvious pressure from both the Arroyo administration and from Estrada's political camp--the three members of the Sandiganbayan stuck scrupulously to the law's straight and narrow.

They acquitted the younger Estrada and the lawyer Ed Serapio because, in their assessment of the evidence, the prosecution failed to prove the case against the two co-accused beyond a reasonable doubt. They found that the Velarde account contained unimaginable wealth, but said the prosecution failed to prove the money was ill-gotten--except, that is, for P189 million, which they identified, beyond any doubt, as the commissions Estrada received from the purchase of Belle Corp. shares by the Social Security System and the Government Service Insurance System. The language of the decision reflects the quality of the reasoning: measured, assured, humane, just.

The Sandiganbayan's plunder decision reminds us again that, through the turmoil of the last seven lean years, beginning with Estrada's aborted impeachment trial in the Senate, the courts have played a leading role in holding our democracy together.

Lesson of Erap case lost on officialdom

Lesson of Erap case lost on officialdom

There’s a big lesson in the Joseph Estrada verdict. If a President can be prosecuted and convicted for graft, so too may lower bureaucrats. And so too other Presidents.

Will that sink into their minds and strike fear in their hearts? They don’t show it.

Red tape and petty sleaze have declined of late due to stricter civil service rules. Anti-graft watchdog Transparency & Accountability Network gave that good news last month. But TAN hastened to add that the secrecy that shrouds high-level government deals has given rise to grander, more lucrative corrupt practices.

TAN executive director Vincent Lazatin pointed out the irony during a workshop on dishonesty. Malacañang’s issuance last year of an anti-red tape executive order dramatically reduced under-the-table transacting and undue delays. But it is also Malacañang that prevents the scrutiny of major deals decried as onerous or overpriced.

Lazatin’s observation came amid cries to reveal the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement and the broadband supply from China’s ZTE Corp. Malacañang has since relented to prior ratification of the pact by the Senate before enforcing, as the Constitution requires. But contrary to constitutional rule for transparency, it still refuses to show the ZTE contract to aggrieved competitors, telecoms experts, businessmen, legislators and the media. And it’s been five months since the contract was signed on April 21 in Boao, Hainan, China, with President Gloria Arroyo no less witnessing.

Last Wednesday Trade Sec. Peter Favila snubbed the Question Hour on ZTE at the House of Reps because he didn’t get presidential clearance to talk. Transport and Communication Sec. Larry Mendoza declined, although he is the contract signatory and thus accountable officer. Expect the same to happen on Thursday at the Senate, where Finance Sec. Gary Teves, former economic czar Romy Neri, and seconds have been invited. A Malacañang factotum yelled to them to secure Arroyo’s assent to go, or else. Teves has gone anew on medical leave.

Opacity marked many recent government acts, among them the sale of sequestered assets. All run to hundreds of millions or billions of pesos. All are being questioned in Congress, the courts, or coffeeshop murmurs. But the worst embodiment of government contracting is the ZTE deal. It not only is being hidden from the public, but also is overpriced, based on the ignored offers of two rivals. An exclusive government broadband setup is even needless and would end up a white elephant, economists aver. Yet it would force Filipinos to repay a loan of $330 million (P16 billion) for 20 years at 3-4 percent interest.

Early this year the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy asked businessmen to rate government corruption from 0 as best possible score, to 10 as worst. They graded the Philippines 9. A Social Weather Station poll in March also found high disenchantment due to graft. Lazatin said it was becoming tougher for anti-graft groups like TAN to wring information and access documents from the Arroyo administration. Among such papers are the supposedly public statements of assets and liabilities of government men.

The situation is not about to improve. Last week five major business groups denounced “a growing culture of impunity” in the government. They wondered how Comelec chief Benjamin Abalos could travel at least four times to Shenzhen last year courtesy of ZTE executives, when he was supposed to be busy preparing for clean and orderly elections. They also warned Mendoza against belittling the outcry against secrecy in the deal.

The middle-class Black-and-White Movement also decried the officials’ “acquired narcissism.” People in high places, it noted, find it easy to behave in bizarre ways, as if election or appointment entitles them to do as they please, and operate under different rules because of stature.

Mendoza’s refusal alone to divulge the contract should be grounds for censure. The Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards requires officials to reply to requests within 15 days. The Red Tape Law further makes them produce complex papers within ten days. Yet Malacañang is silent about his silence.

Abalos’ admission of free travels also breaches the Code of Conduct. Yet the Comelec refuses to investigate him.

Estrada’s apologists maintain that if ever he took jueteng payola, he never stole from the public till. That may be hair-splitting. But the Arroyo administration has yet to explain fully the fertilizer scam that presaged the Garci tapes of the 2004 elections. More than a billion pesos were misspent on that. And now it has to explain the ZTE scam that presaged the Bedol affair of the 2007 balloting. About $70 million (P3.5 billion) reportedly was illegally raised for the campaign this time around.

Truly, the lesson of the Erap verdict is lost on officialdom.

Once may be coincidence, but twice?

Once may be coincidence, but twice?

Will we be saying goodbye to Medy Poblador soon? Surely she will be sum-moned by the Senate for the inquiry on the "Hello Garci" tapes. On Friday when she was tagged by intelligence agent Vidal Doble as the Palace operative who offered him money in exchange for not testifying in previous investigations, her office said she was not in. The next day, the Palace said she was on her own in dipping her hands in the wiretapping scandal.

Today, the first working day after Vidal’s testimony, we would not be surprised if no trace of Medy, undersecretary in the office of the press secretary, can be found. She likely could have boarded a commercial flight during the weekend to destinations beyond the reach of Senate process servers.

The Palace men in charge of damage control ought to have learned their lessons after the misadventures of former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano and former agriculture undersecretary Joc Joc Bolante. Garcillano had to be spirited out via a private jet and could not return for months while the heat was on. He’s now ensconced in his farm in Bukidnon but has to continue living the lie he never went abroad.

Bolante’s case is more complicated. He slipped in and out through the airports despite a warrant of arrest issued by the Senate, presumably with the assistance of immigration officials. His status as a fugitive caught up with him when he landed in Los Angeles. He’s safe for the moment as a guest of Uncle Sam while he is fighting deportation. And even if he is, there are bets his destination of choice will not be Manila.

Bolante. Garcillano. Poblador. Specific examples of the length the Gloria administration would go to block the pursuit of the truth about its cheating, lying and thieving ways.

Those who can’t or are unable to contemplate living abroad, possibly for good, meanwhile, continue to hide under the skirt of executive privilege to evade appearing before legislative inquiries. Former AFP chief of staff Gen. (ret.) Efren Abu and Rear Adm. Tirso Danga, former chief of the Intelligence Service of the AFP, were no-shows Friday as they invoked MC 108.

Why invoke executive privilege when the issue at hand is the illegal wiretapping mounted by uniformed men in the service of the state? And why does Gloria agree to extending her mantle of privilege when the issue is how to ensure that nobody, especially agents of the state, listen to communications among public officials as well as citizens?

What is the message the administration wants to send across? That its people are above the law? The issue has gone beyond cheating, lying and thieving. At stake in the current inquiry is no less than respect and obedience for the law.

The bigger perjurers

The bigger perjurers

Like good lawyers, Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Joker Arroyo and Dick Gordon yes-terday attacked the credibility of intelligence agent Vidal Doble. They said that Doble, under oath, had told a House hearing that he did not wiretap the conversations of former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano and that he, also under oath, had told the Court of Appeals during a habeas corpus proceeding that he and his family were not held against his will by his old unit, the Intelligence Service of the AFP.

At yesterday’s hearing, the three senators said Doble was now singing a different tune. How could a self-admitted perjurer be believed now?

First, because there were those "Hello Garci" tapes whose existence could not be banished by the tiresome invocation of its inadmissibility as evidence under the Anti-Wiretapping Act. Second, because the administration has time and again demonstrated that it would stop at nothing in blocking the search for the truth about the wiretapping.

Given this background, Doble’s admission that he was part of the Isafp wiretapping team but that he was ordered to lie makes his testimony most credible.

Balanga Bishop Soc Villegas’ letter to the Senate joint panel holding the inquiry into the wiretapping is most revealing. He said he agreed to fetch Doble from San Carlos seminary because he was told by a Palace emissary, Remedios Poblador, that the military was determined to take Doble by force.

If Doble was a crank or a peddler of tales, why was the military ready to storm church grounds, a show of force not contemplated since the military raided the Jesuits’ house in Novaliches at the height of martial law, just to get hold of him?

Subsequently, Doble and his family were sequestered at the Isafp compound inside Camp Aguinaldo. These circumstances certainly were not conducive for a soldier in active service to accuse his superiors of violating the law.

Fast forward to the present. If Doble is now lying, why don’t his superiors appear before the Senate inquiry and controvert his allegations point by point?

The former head of Isafp, Tirso Danga, was a no-show. Likewise, former AFP chief Efren Abu. Their excuse for snubbing the Senate hearing? Executive Order 464 which has been reincarnated as Memorandum Circular 108 after the former was declared as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Clearly the stone-walling and the cover-up are continuing. Who then is the bigger perjurer?

Doble or those who continue to insist the "Garci tapes" are legally non-existent and who are as determined as before to hide the truth about the wiretapping.

Policy reversals and the NBN

Policy reversals and the NBN

egitimate issues about the project to install a government-owned Internet NBN—a national broadband network—are being drowned out by exciting but peripheral noises. This is unfortunate.

Allegations of bribery and other forms of corruption, violations of the law, the incompetence of officials who lost their copies of the contract, questions about whether there is indeed a contract between the government and the ZTE corporation, etc. have been making the headlines.

They give a lot of titillation. But they keep the public from understanding the proposed government-owned NBN project and what sound reasons there are for not going ahead with it.

If there is indeed a deal, the government’s national broadband network is supposed to be installed by China’s ZTE corporation. The Internet NBN is supposed to serve as the backbone of a multi-media communications system among the Philippine government’s multitudinous branches, extensions and smallest local units and subunits in our archipelago of more than 7,100 islands.

Most experts agree that there is a need for such a backbone to insure fast Internet and multi-media interconnectivity among government offices.

An issue we would like to raise is the question of whether this government-dedicated NBN should be owned by the government.

There are at least two private sector Philippine corporations that can provide the NBN—PLDT and its Smart subsidiary. Globe, ABS-CBN/SkyCable and others can also form consortiums and do everything that ZTE (or its Chinese and American competitors) can do.

Have we abandoned the principle of allowing the private sector to do the work and allow business to profit from the country’s infrastructure projects? Are we about to launch a new period of state capitalism?

Does this mean that government should now also go into shipping? The leading companies in the passenger and cargo shipping industries are not expanding fast enough to meet the economic-productivity and basic-commodity price reduction and price stabilization goals of the Arroyo administration. Should the government therefore also fund and operate a mammoth national shipping network and compete with, or even swallow up, the existing shipping companies? We are sure China will only be too happy to provide the multibillion US-dollar loans for this supershipping project.

Is government going to dispense with the services of the many private contractors hired to build our roads and highways that year in and year out have to be repaired after every rainy season?

Another issue that has not been raised in the media is the claim of proponent government officials that a government owned NBN will save the government half of the P4 billion it now spends on “communications expenses.” This claim seems to ignore the meaning of savings. If you have a budget of P4 billion to achieve some work and you spend only P2 billion you have indeed made a saving of P2 billion.

But in this case, the government has to spend about P16 billion (exclusive of the 3-percent annual interest) to pay for ZTE’s setting up of the NBN. Government will also have to spend for the network’s operation. Where then are the savings? And IT is constantly advancing so that prices are always going down. Wouldn’t the P4-billion communications costs today be much less three years from now using private-sector facilities?

Apparently President Arroyo herself had questioned the need of a “government broadband.” This was, apparently, during a meeting of the Cabinet and the experts of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) in Malacañang in November 2006. The NEDA had told the President and the Cabinet that it was indeed necessary to link all the central government agencies with all government sub-units. But Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri batted for creating the connectivity through the private sector. The President herself then insisted that the NBN be handled as a build-offer-transfer project, not a government-owned project to be financed with a loan that the national treasury would have to shoulder for years. Why has this policy been reversed?

These policy reversals are very serious issues. They have far more enduring consequences for our nation’s future than the exciting side issues surrounding the ZTE deal.

The truth about the bribery, overpricing, incompetence and other sensational matters must, however, also be exposed.

No longer amusing

GAME shows and quiz programs are closely monitored in other countries because the fabulous cash prizes could promote cheating. In 2001 it was discovered that the winner of the 1-million pound prize in the British Who Wants To Be A Millionaire had been coached by a fellow contestant. In the 1950s, several contestants on the US quiz show Twenty One admitted they were coached by the producers.

Sen. Mar Roxas, chairman of the Senate Committee on Trade and Commerce, has filed a resolution seeking an inquiry, in aid of legislation, to strengthen protection of consumers or contestants who join TV game shows.

“Millions of Filipinos watch these game shows and send text messages or purchase products so they could become contestants, hoping that they win and uplift their lives with the prize money,” he said.

Allegations of cheating erupted over a recent edition of the popular ABS-CBN game show Wowowee. The host had reportedly switched the winning numbers to avoid giving away P2 million to a contestant. The studio blamed the incident to a “technical glitch.” But some viewers and a rival studio took potshots at the Wowowee host and producers.

With the proliferation of game shows and the millions given away, we must ensure fairness and transparency on TV and determine the government action needed to regulate them and ensure the protection of consumers and contestants. The Roxas resolution is timely.

Web gets wider

Web gets wider

TWO OF THE MOST FORMIDABLE, IF NOT intimidating, lawyers in the Senate took turns trying to beat Vidal Doble’s credibility (arguably shaky at best, to start with) to a pulp. Sen. Joker Arroyo tried to point out the contradictions between Doble’s past testimony and the version he gave the Senate. Arroyo seemed eager to spotlight Doble’s having had a civilian lawyer, which would suggest that the testimony was beyond military pressure—until Doble pointed out that his civilian lawyer was provided by the Philippine National Police.

Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile focused on Doble’s habeas corpus petition filed with the Court of Appeals, a document prepared by opposition-affiliated lawyers. Doble, however, revealed that he had been reminded, before he testified, that the long and short of whatever he said was that he remained under the authority of his unit, the Intelligence Service of the AFP. So, Doble said, with that pointed reminder still ringing in his ears, he lied.

Instead of demolishing Doble’s credibility, Arroyo and Enrile simply clarified the tremendous pressure—Doble himself bluntly said it was duress—that tainted not his latest, but his previous, testimony.

Arroyo and Enrile—as unlikely a pair of comrades-in-interest we would ever hope to find, but politics indeed makes for strange bedfellows—had to retreat with obviously ruffled feathers, in the manner of Estelito Mendoza and his confrontation with Clarissa Ocampo. We are far from saying that Doble is an Ocampo. But the way he stood his ground, and made a shambles of the two senators’ virtual cross-examinations, is a comparable demonstration of how a witness, instead of being impeached, can impeach the prosecutors.

But it is, perhaps, with regard to Doble’s testimony that he had been approached by presidential aide Medy Poblador, that his most recent testimony truly became more than a rehash or revision of his previous statements.

Doble said Poblador approached him, after he was spirited back to military custody under the auspices of Bishop Socrates Villegas, and offered him money in exchange for his refusal to testify before the House of Representatives. The public might just be willing to give the military the benefit of the doubt, for successfully retrieving one of its own who had, essentially, become a rogue agent. An aide of the President offering incentives to a witness to refuse cooperation with the House, on the other hand, is another matter altogether.

Poblador acts as a liaison between Congress and the President. She was perhaps most obviously in her role as presidential fixer during the first impeachment attempt, where she lurked in the lounge behind the Speaker’s chair in the plenary hall, for reasons best left to congressmen to reveal. There is no doubt she holds a favored place in the President’s innermost circle of can-do people.

The question now becomes, whether Poblador acted in a manner resembling US President Richard Nixon’s aides, to keep E. Howard Hunt, implicated in the Watergate break-in scandal, quiet in exchange for money. In the United States, the result of Nixon’s authorizing the bribe effort resulted in one of the articles of impeachment filed against him. We cannot emphasize how serious the allegation of Poblador’s potential involvement could be, precisely because it’s so reminiscent of the Nixon case.

Doble’s allegations concerning Poblador, who seems to have used family ties with Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, the Archbishop of Manila, to get Bishop Villegas involved, brings up questions about how the administration wields its clout with the Catholic hierarchy. Either the prelates naively acted in good faith, or were co-conspirators in crimes that range from intimidating a witness, including coercing the witness to commit perjury, to (possibly) outright kidnapping and the creation of a situation where an aide of the President could make an offer Doble couldn’t refuse.

At the heart of it is an insight into motive: If Doble were simply a liar, no government would have gone this far, possibly broken so many laws, or risked wrecking so many reputations. That it did suggests Doble really has the goods on them.

What else is new?

What else is new?

A foreigner visiting the Philippines for the first time reads the papers and watches TV news, gets alarmed, and asks his Filipino friend: “What the hell is going on in your country?”

To which the Pinoy replies, “Nothing to worry about, pal. These are normal times in the Philippines.”

Normal means our senators are running all over the place to initiate one investigation or the other, and our congressmen probing their favorite anomaly.

It means a number of Cabinet and sub-Cabinet members are getting embroiled again in scandals and the administration is circling the wagons in self-defense.

The police are helplessly looking for the slippery suspects in cases that threaten to join the Hall of Unsolved Crimes.

The military must fight in two or three fronts because no president has succeeded in smashing the 40-year-old New People’s Army insurgency and the three-decades old Muslim insurgency.

The foreigner takes a look at the headlines and the opinion columns and sees—day after day—new revelations and charges flying around the flavors of the month: the $329-million national broadband network project, the cyber-education program and the replay of the “Hello, Garcia” soap opera.

Coming soon: a reopening of the Kuratong Baleleng rubout by the police in Quezon City a dozen years ago and the kidnap-murder of PR guru Bubby Dacer and his loyal driver.

The police, meanwhile, could not solve the rape-murder of a seven-year old girl or the death of a UP student after a hazing ordeal in school. The authorities could not explain the whereabouts of the missing activist Jonas Burgos.

The 100,000-strong Armed Forces is tied down by the Abu Sayyaf—who number less than 200—in Sulu and Basilan. If you recall, the Philippine National Police, also with more than a hundred thousand officers, has the added responsibility of fighting the insurgency.

You have more than 200,000 troops and lawmen chasing the ragtag Abu and 7,000 NPA regulars. They are receiving expert training and advice from US soldiers who are also building camps in parts of Mindanao and Sulu.

The Bureau of Immigration has admitted at least 700,000 Illegal aliens are working and running their businesses in the country. The number of unwanted guests is increasing everyday.

The photo of the week appeared in the Malaya newspaper yesterday: a group of children staring at the body of a man shot and killed by the police reportedly for carjacking in Quezon City.

The foreigner grabs his friend and asks, “Where can we relax? This place is scary.”

Whereupon the Pinoy takes him to a dimly lit girly bar where teenage girls dance naked in front of rich businessmen, politicians and policemen looking for sex.

Culture of impunity

Culture of impunity

If this administration has learned any lesson from the history of social upheavals in this country, it would give serious consideration to the sentiments of major business groups. In a paid advertisement that came out yesterday, the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines, the Makati Business Club and Management Association of the Philippines, together with two other groups, condemned the “growing culture of impunity” in government “that appears to have spread to an extent exceeding that of all past administrations.” That is a damning observation that cannot be ignored.

The business groups singled out the government’s $330-million broadband deal with Chinese firm ZTE Corp., which Commission on Elections Chairman Benjamin Abalos allegedly brokered in exchange for favors and a possible huge kickback from ZTE. The businessmen urged Abalos to resign and Transport and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza to rescind the deal.

After surviving two impeachment attempts and seeing Filipinos lose their appetite for people power despite allegations that she cheated her way to a six-year term, President Arroyo should resist the temptation to behave as if she and her officials can now do anything they want, without worrying about public accountability. As the business groups have pointed out, if the President cannot “rectify blatant wrongdoings of public officials,” she could be accused of condoning them.

Already the President’s former socio-economic planning secretary Romulo Neri has said he had informed her of a P200-million bribe offer to approve the ZTE deal. Bribery is a criminal offense, yet the President reportedly ordered Neri to simply ignore the offer and approve the deal anyway. The other day, amid allegations of corruption and overpricing, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita announced that the ZTE deal would push through. Finance officials had earlier said the deal was not yet final.

Taxpayers, who will bear the burden of repaying a $330-million foreign debt, with interest, for the next two decades, have yet to see exactly what Mendoza had signed with ZTE executives in Boao, China last April in the presence of President Arroyo. The lost document is supposed to have been reconstituted. Why is it so difficult to bare this document to the public? If the President goes along with this policy of secrecy, suspicion will inevitably focus on how high up the alleged anomalies go. A culture of impunity cannot flourish without blessings from the top.

Worsening stink

Worsening stink

The Chinese company that bagged the contract to build the $329 million national broadband network (NBN) for the Philippine government says it has nothing to hide. “There was complete transparency in the proposal, evaluation and approval of ZTE’s application for the Philippines’ NBN contract,” the company said in a statement issued earlier this week.

Transparency, however, is the last word that comes to the mind of anyone who has followed the controversy as it has slowly unfolded since the contract was signed in April this year. Up to now, Filipino taxpayers know little about the NBN contract beyond the fact that they will be paying close to P1 billion a year for over 20 years for a project that may not be necessary and which the government is ill-equipped to operate and maintain, according to two economics professor from the University of the Philippines.

Everything that the Filipino people know so far is either what ZTE’s competitors have revealed or what the media have extracted bit by bit from government officials. At one point, Cabinet officials even tried to mislead the public by denying that a contract had already been concluded and claiming that what was signed in Boao, China, last April was either a memorandum of agreement or a memorandum of understanding. More is probably known about the negotiations and how top officials, like Comelec Chair Benjamin Abalos, allegedly helped broker the deal and tried to hush up ZTE’s unhappy competitors for the project, or got bribe offers amounting to hundreds of millions of pesos.

But a contract does exist and it was signed and sealed in the presence of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in China. And what it says and what it does not say probably explain why the Arroyo administration wanted to keep it under wraps.

One interesting item in the contract, for example, gives the two parties plenty -- even unlimited -- elbow room to adjust the price. It says: “The Priced Bill of Quantities shall be revised in accordance with the actual requirement to be determined and approved by the purchaser and the contractor during the detailed engineering stage.” In other words, the $329 million contract price, which is already too much, according to ZTE’s rivals, can still go higher. Could this be the reason the government signed a $400-million loan, so that it will have an extra $71 million to cover what is called a “change order”? This is a ploy often used to jack up the price so that greedy officials can get more from an already graft-ridden project.

What is even more unusual is that the contract does not say exactly what the government will be getting for $329 million. The scope of work is left undefined. The contract merely says that ZTE “shall prepare and complete the detailed engineering services, the plans, specifications and designs” for the government’s approval. If there are no plans, no specification and no designs, what is the government committing to pay $329 million for?

Only an idiot would pay for a car without knowing what kind of engine he is getting or how many passengers it can take, but that is not much different from what the administration is doing in regard to the NBN project. The only difference is that it is not the signatory, Transportation and Communication Secretary Leandro Mendoza, or the witness, President Arroyo, who will be stuck with the bill, but the Filipino people. And the administration would not even want them to know what they will be paying for. It wants the people to take on blind faith that the project is necessary and the terms of the contract are the best anyone can get. Thus, it has gone ahead and signed the contract without opening the project to public bidding. And the excuse it is giving is that this is a government-to-government transaction.

That is true of the loan agreement signed last week in Manila. It is not the case with the supply agreement with ZTE, unless that company has declared its independence from China.

A growing number of lawmakers have been calling for the abrogation of the contract, and the investigation of everyone involved in it. The business community has voiced a similar demand. Now that the onerous details of this funny contract are becoming known, there is even more reason to trash it. The stink is just too much for anyone to ignore

Inoculation

Inoculation

Someone submitted an impeachment complaint to Congress against Chairman Benjamin Abalos of the Commission on Elections yesterday. Going by the record of the complainant, however, this looks like another one of those inoculation operations that critics say have served President Arroyo well. A defective complaint, meant to be thrown out by the majority bloc in the pro-administration House of Representatives, is filed, thereby ensuring that the subject of the complaint cannot face another impeachment effort within one year. That one year gives Abalos ample time to retire in peace in early 2008.

The House can still prevent this inoculation of Abalos by rejecting the complaint filed by Oliver Lozano, a lawyer identified with the Marcos loyalists. But if the performance of the 13th Congress were to be a gauge, Lozano’s complaint is meant to bring closure, however messy it might be, to all the accusations of impropriety and criminal acts leveled against the Comelec chief. The complaint dwells only on the Comelec’s P1.2-billion poll automation contract with the private consortium Mega Pacific, which the Supreme Court nullified. Lozano suggested that his complaint be incorporated with any formal charge that may be lodged by congressmen who are studying the impeachment of Abalos in connection with the government’s $330-million broadband network deal with Chinese firm ZTE Corp.

Abalos has denied involvement in the ZTE deal and has said he is ready to face Congress. His impeachment does not necessarily mean he will be removed from office; it will merely be the first step in a process that will bring any complaint against him to the Senate for trial. Removal from office as a result of the trial is uncertain. Depending on the evidence presented, Abalos can also be cleared or merely censured by the Senate. But in a case that has been marked by a complete lack of transparency, the process will allow the truth to be known, quicker than it will take if the case goes through the snail-paced judicial system. The truth will never be known if the House allows a defective complaint to sabotage the process.

Making sense of the broadband deal

Making sense of the broadband deal

The administration seems to be backtrack-ing on the $329 national broadband deal. Some more pressure from the public and we would not be surprised Gloria Arroyo would appear on nationwide television one of these days to announce the project had been cancelled.

The people who packaged the deal are now facing the real possibility of being haled before the Sandiganbayan on plunder charges. Perhaps not during Gloria’s time. But in three years, it’s a near certainty that whoever would run on a platform of good governance would have the inner track to Malacañang. "Ikulong ang mga magnanakaw!" would be an unbeatable campaign slogan.

Now we’re hearing from Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya that the $329 million thievery is not yet a done deal. No loan agreement has been signed with the Chinese Export-Import Bank. Why, Andaya said, the project is not even included in the proposed 2008 budget.

So why did Transport Secretary Leandro Mendoza keep on saying the deal was good as done? That the National Economic and Development Authority has vetted the project. And the paper work is all that needs to be done. Trade Secretary Peter Favila was also quoted as saying during the Asean economic ministers meeting here that the Chinese foreign minister had signed a credit accommodation for $1.3 billion, within which the $329 million for the broadband project would be accommodated.

How do we explain the seemingly conflicting statements?

We tend to believe Mendoza’s explanation. The project has secured an imprimatur from the highest level, that is, Gloria. That’s all that’s needed. Everything else is mere procedural requirements.

There are two main hurdles remaining. First is the actual signing of the contract. Second is the Monetary Board approval of the loan to be secured from the Chinese Eximbank. The two hurdles can be cleared in a week after Gloria says "go."

The deal is not being pushed now because of the ongoing controversy. Election Chairman Benjamin Abalos has been tagged as the Chinese proponents’ "padrino." The quid pro quo is assumed to be Abalos’ "cooperation" in last year’s elections and continuing silence over the "Hello Garci" tapes.

The Palace is watching how the storm plays out. If this attempted thievery does not trigger widespread outrage, then the deal will push through. If this scandal threatens the continued stay in power of Gloria or her precious liberty after her exit, then this deal will be scuttled.

Which way would it be? We’ll know soon enough. We have gone out of the business of speculating, however well-reasoned, when it comes to this administration. There is no rationality in decision-making. It seems every decision now depends on which side of the bed Arroyo wakes up on any given morning.

Fore!

Fore!

Many tales have been told and retold about megabuck deals hatched and struck on the fairways. In the four to six hours that golfers in the same flight are stuck together, they run out any new thing to say about the weather. They are all by themselves in the middle of the course. Nobody is eavesdropping. So there’s the perfect opportunity to talk business.

But if we are to believe Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos, he and officials of ZTE Corp. not for once talked about the latter’s $330 million national broadband project. Not at Wack Wack when Abalos was hosting; not at Shenzhen in China when the ZTE officials were reciprocating.

Abalos, reacting to a privilege speech of Rep. Carlos Padilla where he was tagged as having brokered the deal, said his only role was to introduce ZTE officials to Finance Secretary Margarito Teves. He did not talk to Gloria Arroyo or to Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza, the Cabinet man who is now on top of the broadband project. For making the introduction, Abalos said, he deserves the gratitude of the nation, not accusations of lining his pocket thick with "commissions" from his Chinese golfing buddies.

Without jumping to any conclusion, we have news for Abalos. Expecting gratitude from the people for what he did is at a par with wishing before May that he expected to leave as legacy a record of clean elections.

The ZTE deal is alleged to be overpriced. The government says it isn’t. Critics do not accept the government’s claim on its mere say-so. They demand that the agreement be made public. The government says the original document was stolen. It has since been reconstructed, but the government to this day refuses to make public the terms of a contract that will cost taxpayers P14 billion and change.

Abalos could well be innocent of Padilla’s allegations. But his stint at the Comelec has been marred by so many anomalies people will always believe the worst of him.

Remember the P1.3 billion election automation project? Or the "Hello Garci" scandal? Or, closer to the present, the farcical elections last May in ARMM?

Any of these scandals would have prompted a man with "delicadeza" to resign. In the case of Abalos, his reaction to all these scandals was to dare his critics to file a case against him if there was any evidence of wrongdoing.

At least, Gloria Arroyo said "I’m sorry" at the height of the "Hello Garci" scandal.

Not in his worst nightmare would Abalos probably see himself being compared with Arroyo. And Gloria ending up better in comparison to him.

The truth . . . in trickles

The truth . . . in trickles

He kept mum as stories swirled about an official of the Commission on Elections who visited China about four times since last year at the expense of ZTE Corp., a company that was seeking a $330-million broadband deal with the Philippine government.

Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos finally spoke up only when all the other poll commissioners had denied that they were the official alluded to. Even then Abalos gave details of his links with ZTE in trickles, initially denying that he was familiar with the controversial broadband deal. After he was linked to the project by Nueva Vizcaya Rep. Carlos Padilla, Abalos finally admitted that ZTE executives in Manila were his golfing partners, and they had shouldered his expenses during his visits to China since last year. Abalos said ZTE executives helped his daughter source materials for her import business.

It is not clear if the daughter was present when Abalos introduced ZTE executives to Finance Secretary Margarito Teves. The finance chief distinctly remembers that the broadband deal was discussed.

What other admissions are in store from the Comelec chief as more people come out to jog his memory? Perhaps he could tell the nation if the project, signed by Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza with ZTE officials in the presence of President Arroyo in Boao, China last April, violated an election ban on such contracts. He would not know, Abalos claimed, because the project was never cleared with him in connection with the election ban.

Mendoza, one of the President’s most trusted lieutenants, now faces graft charges for the deal together with two other officials of his department as well as several ZTE executives. Abalos can be removed only through impeachment, but he is not immune from prosecution for graft. The project is double the price offered by ZTE’s closest competitor, and will be financed through a soft loan to be provided by China’s Export-Import Bank. At current exchange rates, that’s P15.4 billion that Filipino taxpayers must repay with interest for the next 25 years. The public deserves to know the full details of this deal, including who brokered it and why. So far the official response to demands for transparency is: Uncover the truth… if you can.

Obstruction

Obstruction

If the “Hello, Garci” tapes had never surfaced, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would be firmly in charge, there would be, at best, a token opposition, and she wouldn’t be, today, the Richard Nixon of Philippine politics. But the tapes surfaced, and the country then, as now, must ask: Why does the chief victim of the wiretapping, the President, seem the least inclined to get to the bottom of the matter?

When the first (modified) versions of the tapes appeared, let no one forget that the Palace began by trying to muddle the issue with its own doctored version. Then it proceeded to wield its own interpretation of the law like a club. It threatened media with prosecution if they broadcast the tapes or published transcripts. It then issued executive issuances that were found defective by the courts, but which provided a shield for vulnerable Cabinet and military officials. It embarked on a divide-and-rule strategy by resisting both a truth commission and impeachment, until it had lobbied enough support to block both.

The President herself tried to grovel before the people. When that failed, she proceeded to do her best to intimidate those who wouldn’t be induced into cooperating with her. We should never overlook the reality, however, that throughout this time, until the present, she has acted as the primary defendant, instead of the foremost victim, and that is because whether she instigated the wiretapping or not, at the heart of the tapes is the revelation of a larger crime, the subversion of democracy.

The public instinctively knew then, and on the whole continues to believe, that these revelations stripped the President of legitimacy. While the public has also, on the whole, been willing to keep an open mind, all efforts to resolve this paramount question have failed. This failure has given the President an uneasy tenure.

But there is a difference between what we, the people, knew about the “Hello, Garci” issue in 2005, and what we know today. Someone has stepped forward to testify how it was done, by whom, and to whom. That someone is Vidal Doble Jr.

In 2005, he was the kind of fugitive over whom various camps conducted a tug-of-war that the intelligence establishment won. Today, he is acting as a whistle-blower. And now the public wants to see if his allegations can be debunked, or if they can withstand sustained scrutiny.

Instead of finally resolving matters, the Palace has reached into its old bag of tricks. It has dismissed the whistle-blower out of hand, threatened to recycle discredited executive issuances, proclaimed its own interpretation of the law as the only valid one, and tried to rally its old reliables in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Doble has finally done what he didn’t do in 2005, which is to give testimony on the vital questions of who were wiretapped, by whom and how, all of which suggest a possible answer, at long last, to the question of motive. Who was interested in getting the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to eavesdrop on such a wide-ranging group as a member of the Cabinet (Michael Defensor), a constitutional officer (Virgilio Garcillano) and members of the opposition? In 2005, the public could only wonder, but now we are inching closer to suspects, and the chief suspect seems to be a member of the President’s official family.

These are allegations that demand an investigation. We are told that Congress can investigate with one of two purposes in mind. It can investigate in order to exercise oversight over the executive branch, or it can investigate in aid of legislation. Every aspect of these allegations touches on these two justifications to hold a Senate hearing.

Former senator Francisco Tatad warns of a constitutional crisis if the Senate proceeds to investigate the case. The separation of powers, he says, means the Senate cannot investigate a president unless articles of impeachment have been approved by the House.

Tatad is being true to the spirited defense he made of then-embattled President Joseph Estrada. But we are not convinced by his reasoning, and we’re glad that the Senate committee on rules voted that hearing by the committee of the whole is in order.

To be sure, the Senate, at the end of the hearings, can only recommend action or amend existing legislation or pass new bills. It cannot remove the President from office without an impeachment. But it can, and should, ask: Why the President, who may have been victimized by her own people, coddles them. Why did the law prove impotent to prevent such a situation? And is it being used to protect the culprits?

Murphy’s deal

Murphy’s deal

With the ZTE deal, everything that can go wrong has gone wrong. Is it any wonder, if the lurid reports ultimately prove accurate, that a Commission on Elections (Comelec) official was actually involved in the deal?

The Comelec should have nothing to do with the ambitious but fatally flawed plan to construct a National Broadband Network -- unless, that is, previous participation in another ambitious but fatally flawed computerization contract (think Mega Pacific) was a prerequisite. But, if the reports are accurate, the hiring of the election official to lobby for the contract was a masterstroke of cynicism: during an election period, the influence of election commissioners is second to none.

As it is, the entire NBN scandal has all the hallmarks of a Comelec project under the chairmanship of Benjamin Abalos.

Like the infamous claim of Maguindanao election supervisor Lintang Bedol, the scandal involves stolen documents. To be sure, the ZTE deal wasn’t the only such contract stolen in Boao, China, last April, hours after it was signed in the presence of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. At least five other contracts were filched, too. But like Bedol, officials of the Department of Transportation and Communication waited an inordinately long time to report the alleged theft.

The scandal also features clueless government officials, in the mold of Abalos himself. The President’s chief lawyer, Sergio Apostol, announced that there was, in fact, no contract. Transportation and Communication Secretary Leandro Mendoza, whose department will manage the network, kept a studied if embarrassed silence. And the Department of Justice ruled that the contract between ZTE and the Philippine government was valid -- without, however, actually seeing a copy of the contract.

Like the Maguindanao vote recount, the scandal is marked by a thorough lack of transparency. The contract for the network mysteriously ballooned in the course of a few months, ending as a $330-million project. In the process, the competitive and in fact superior bids of two other companies were virtually ignored.

Above all, and like Abalos’ oft-repeated claims of his commitment to clean and honest elections, the scandal involves a betrayal of the project’s very objective. Instead of an infusion of foreign capital to produce a functioning network, we will get the opposite: an unnecessary and expensive piece of government infrastructure, paid for by Filipino taxpayers.

Last March, officials of ZTE, described in news releases then as China’s largest listed telecommunications equipment provider, pledged (together with officials of another Chinese company) to invest heavily in the Philippines. “Officials of Pioneer Metals Group of Companies based in China and Hong Kong and ZTE Corp. ... told President Macapagal-Arroyo in separate calls in Malacañang of their intentions to invest here….”

This notion of investment, however, has been stood on its head. A few days ago, the Philippine government took out a loan from China’s Import-Export Bank, including a $400-million allocation for the National Broadband Network. What does this mean? It means ZTE is not in fact investing in the Philippines; it has bamboozled the Philippine government into taking out a loan from the Chinese government to fund ZTE’s “investment.”

Surely this “investment” is not what the President and her economic officials had in mind, when they discussed the need for a “privately funded government broadband network” in November 2006, and resolved that “the government connectivity and infrastructure should be developed at no cost, and with savings, to the national government.”

For these or similar reasons, Rep. Carlos Padilla of Nueva Vizcaya has filed graft charges against Mendoza, two of his assistant secretaries, and at least four officials of ZTE, for violating anti-graft and government procurement laws. “The officials I have charged are liable for misleading the public and executing this anomalous contract and should be punished accordingly,” Padilla said.

Let’s hope Murphy’s Law, at work in this controversial deal at every stage, does not extend to the prosecution of Padilla’s case.