GOTCHA By Jarius Bondoc, The Philippine Star, Friday, September 21, 2007
It’s open season on Joey de Venecia for apologists of the “ZTE scam”. That’s to be expected after he, under oath, implicated presidential spouse Mike Arroyo, Comelec chief Ben Abalos and Transport-Communication Sec. Leandro Mendoza to lobbying and kickbacks for ZTE Corp. of
There’s a “news feed”, easily verifiable yet stretched for maximum impact, that Joey supposedly rehearsed his Tuesday testimony in the Senate on Monday night at the office of Sen. Jinggoy Estrada. There are text messages about drugs and debts. There’s even insinuation of an alleged plot to shake the Arroyo government — as if Joey ironically will be the first victim-indictee under the Anti-Terror Law.
The most oft-repeated attack is that Joey allegedly violated Section 5 of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act. But critics conveniently quote only the first half of that law, to wit:
“Prohibition on Certain Relatives. — It shall be unlawful for the spouse or for any relative, by consanguinity or affinity, within the third civil degree of the President of the Philippines, the Vice President of the Philippines, the President of the Senate, or the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to intervene, directly or indirectly, in any business, transaction, contract or application with the Government”:
If that first half alone of the section were to be applied, Joey could be charged for letting his Amsterdam Holdings Inc. bid to build a national broadband network, when his father Joe was the Speaker.
But there’s a second half of that section, which explains why the first ends with a colon and not a period, namely exceptions:
“Provided, That this section shall not apply to any person who, prior to the assumption of office of any of the above officials to whom he is related, has been already dealing with the Government along the same line of business, nor to any transaction, contract or application already existing or pending at the time of such assumption of public office, nor to any application filed by him the approval of which is not discretionary on the part of the official or officials concerned but depends upon compliance with requisites provided by law, or rules or regulations issued pursuant to law, nor to any act lawfully performed in an official capacity or in the exercise of a profession.”
Joey entered telecoms in 1989 as auditor-finance specialist with Arthur Andersen Consulting. Six years later he founded Multimedia Telephony Co. with foreign partners to page snap financial information to 40,000 corporate clients nationwide.
The old man was Speaker in 1992 and 1995 after Joey joined telecoms. The dad ran in vain for President in 1998 and left politics — for a while. In 1999 Joey’s MTI got its licenses for broadband, and decided to concentrate on that slice of telecoms. A year later he set up Broadband Philippines. Only in 2001 did the dad become congressman and Speaker again, and then also in 2004 and 2007.
Joey’s unsolicited offer thru AHI for a government broadband setup was made under the Build-Operate-Transfer Law. That law sets a process of evaluation and bidding by the executive branch, in which a Speaker has no say. Apparently Joey didn’t use kinship. In fact, he complains, government even broke the law. The transport-communications department never initiated a study of Joey’s proposal, as the B-O-T Law requires, but instead rushed to award to ZTE, apparently to accommodate Abalos. There never was a bidding because the justice department later said ZTE’s was a government-to-government deal.
But Joey says he has lost interest in the broadband project. He says that if ever there would still be a bidding, AHI no longer would participate. He would be content with having exposed the overpricing of the ZTE deal, and the onerous loan that Filipinos will have to repay for 20 years after instantly enriching the kickbackers.
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Reader Roger Manalastas wonders: “Since this case will drag for many more months, will private citizen Abalos still be held accountable for his role in this controversy after he leaves office in Feb.?
Reader Onofre Espanola has an answer of sorts: “From news reports, Abalos admitted taking trips to
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