The ZTE-NBN Deal and Lozada’s Misadventure and Misfortune
Expose the Bankruptcy of the Political System
The political crisis created by the ZTE-NBN scandal has again reached a new height with the attempted abduction of Rodolfo Lozada, Jr., one among key witnesses to the attempted plunder.
The botched $329.5 M RP-ZTE deal was mired in various controversies right from the start. First, it was embarked on against the recommendations of a group of economists from the UP School of Economics, who saw no need for such a project. Second, the deal was entered into without a bidding and without an executive agreement to back it up, yet would tie up the Filipino tax payers to further millions of dollars of indebtedness . Third, the signed agreement was “lost” in a hotel in China just hours after signing. Fourth, the GMA government took all measures to deny the public, including the Senate, complete knowledge of the deal.
Jose de Venecia III’s exposure of the multi-million dollar corruption behind the deal put the issue at center stage. De Venecia pointed an accusing finger to Benjamin Abalos, then Comelec chairperson, for having gained millions of dollars for brokering the deal and to the First “Gentleman” Mike Arroyo, for being the hand supporting Abalos, for obvious reasons.
Malacanang lost no time, and spared no effort, in ensuring that the truth about the deal will not be exposed to the public. It immediately gagged its men especially those in the know about the case. But not before Romulo Neri, NEDA chair at the time of the deal’s approval, had testified in Senate, that even he was offered by Abalos a bribe of “200” (which he and everybody else easily reads as P200M) to ensure that the deal is pushed through. Worse, he testified that he informed Mrs. Arroyo of Abalos’ bribe offer. Yet the deal was pushed through, with Mrs. Arroyo herself flying to China, even when Mike Arroyo was in the hospital, just to sign the deal. Meanwhile, Neri was taken out of NEDA, the agency charged with studying new projects, and transferred to CHED after the encounter with Mrs. Arroyo on the case.
Margarito Teves, Secretary of Finance, corroborated in Senate Joey de Venecia’s allegation of meeting with Abalos and Mike Arroyo. With the investigation going deeper and getting closer to Malacanang, Mrs. Arroyo canceled the controversial deal.
The ZTE-NBN issue became one of the issues in the impeachment case against GMA. And in the midst of the impeachment hearings, multi-million pesos in public funds again changed hands, this time in the form of pay-offs to congressmen and local government officials. The pay-off, exposed by Governor Ed Panlilio of Pampanga, set another round of investigations.
But the two investigations were soon overtaken by the Glorietta explosion, which left 8 people dead and more than a hundred wounded, and the Batasan bombing, which killed 4 including a congressman and wounded at least 11 people. Investigations were again conducted. Both explosions have not been resolved up to the present. But both have served to divert the people’s attention from the raging issues at the time.
The ZTE-NBN controversy and ensuing controversies have already claimed their casualties. Benjamin Abalos had to retire early. Jose de Venecia, Joey’s father, was unseated as Speaker of the House of Representative. Governor Panlilio is now the object of a recall movement. People have died and were wounded in the explosions. But more had to come.
The Senate’s Blue Ribbon Committee investigation, which resumed after its holiday recess, stirred anew the controversy. The administration’s minions in Congress, Miriam Defensor Santiago, Joker Arroyo and Juan Ponce Enrile among them, used all their skills to block further digging. Opposition senators, most of them aspirants for the presidency come 2010, could not be dissuade.
So Rodolfo Lozada, Jr., a former consultant in the NEDA who was asked by Neri to “moderate the greed” in the NBN project, became the reluctant central figure. The sought-after witness, he was torn between saving his neck from the expected ire of his former masters if he talked and the telling the truth he knew to the senators and the public. Understandably, he had not wanted to testify. And his bosses in government used their powers to ensure that he could not. They sent him on an “official business” to Hongkong to evade testifying and upon return, summarily abducted him in NAIA and driven him away from his waiting family and the media. Public pressure, especially through the media, forced the government forces to finally take him to the sanctuary of the Catholic Church.
A composite force was involved in the abduction – NAIA security, police forces, ex-officers of the AFP and a member of the Presidential Security Group. Legal covers, as requests for security, were made and signed by Lozada and his family under duress after the fact of abduction.
Mr. Lozada did not know much; he was not an insider. But he knew enough to warrant such government mobilization of forces – cabinet secretaries (even an ex, like Defensor), various security agencies – to ensure he would not tell what he knew. Such involved money (he was given P50,000 by Defensor) and force – amred men he did not know.
But Lozada told what he knew. Now, the full force of the state machinery is upon him. His career in government has been ended; a replacement to his post has been named. The cabinet secretaries and generals have filed cases against him in court. The NBI has rummaged through his papers in his office obviously to build up a case against him. Threats to his and his family’s life abound. He may be a “dead man walking”.
Yet in the end, this is not simply about Lozada’s persecution nor the ZTE-NBN deal nor the payola case nor the bombings. So many have been persecuted before, some in the worst forms of extra-judicial killings and forced disappearances. So many scams have been reported and exposed before, and especially during, GMA’s rule – the IMPSA scam, Diosdado Macapagal highway, the fertilizer scam, the aviation fuel scam, the Philhealth scam, the Comelec computerization scam. So much has been lost from the public cofferes – Marcos Swiss accounts, the Jose Velarde accounts, the Jose Pidal accounts, So many violations of rights have been done before – the CPR, the EO 464, the SNE declaration.
There is now a clamor for truth – truth behind the ZTE-NBN deal. The people deserve it. But the people need to look beyond this case and all the other cases. We need to know the truth not just about each case but why such cases – such plunder and persecution happen, not just now but at every period of our history. We need to look beyond the tree, each tree, to see the forest.
The underlying issue here is power – the power to collect taxes, to build up the public coffers and to use the public funds. The power to commit the Filipino people to indebtedness. This is about power – the power to legislate, to form the courts and use the law for one’s end.
This is about power - the power to form security/armed forces, fund them with people’s taxes and use them to harass one’s adversaries. The underlying issue here is the viability of the present political system as an instrument for the people’s interest.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her family, in their greed, in their lust for power and wealth, have exposed the bankruptcy of the existing political system. They have shown how power can be grabbed from, and used against, the people for the interest of an elite few. They have shown how legal processes can be rendered futile and inutile for pursuing people’s interests and welfare. It is thus no wonder that they turn to, yet display such contempt for, the legal processes. For they have effectively used the legal political processes to systematically divest the people of all sovereignty and worse, of faith in their own capability to effect change within such system.
Understandably, the people are fed up with the present political system. Marcos, under this system, had his share of power abuse to benefit him and his minions. So did Aquino, Ramos and Estrada. But being fed up need not mean living with it. The people, the millions of Filipinos who bear the brunt of this system, who suffer the consequences of policies and programs formed and laws enacted, have the option to change it and make a new system serve their interest. After all, the people’s sovereignty is made real only by the people’s assertion of it.
Search for the truth, not only about the ZTE-NBN imbroglio but on why such cases happen!
Assert the people’s sovereignty against elite sovereignty!
Struggle for a government of the people, by the people, and for the people!
Enough of GMA and other elite!
Power to the people!
