GOTCHA By Jarius Bondoc, The Philippine Star, Friday, September 28, 2007
Constancia de Guzman, Presidential Anti-Graft Commission chief, and I were guests at Tina Monzon Palma’s Talkback on ANC Monday night. Noting that I had exposed the ZTE scam since March, Tina asked what the office that probes sleazy presidential appointees has done. De Guzman said they promptly investigated. I refuted her, recalling that they had fired on June 18 the examiner who wrote me for documentary proof. I reminded de Guzman that it wasn’t Vida Bocar who breached their confidentiality rule, but me. (I published Bocar’s e-mail to stress that since someone finally was looking into the stink, the DOTC had better start producing the hidden ZTE contract. Two days later, the DOTC would claim the papers were “stolen” hours after the signing in
De Guzman insisted that Bocar had defied internal rules in writing me about a probe of Sec. Larry Mendoza and Assistant Sec. Elmer Soñeja. I rebutted that they didn’t accord her due process. It was as if they meant to stop her from doing her job.
De Guzman then said that her PAGC had to stop its inquiry because the superior Ombudsman already has acquired jurisdiction over the case. Again I refuted her. Rep. Carlos Padilla had filed graft charges against
At this point, De Guzman said they did continue to probe, but that they didn’t talk to me anymore because my sources started giving them info. Really? Who? Not one of my two-dozen or so unidentified sources for this exposé ever told me s/he entrusted documents to the PAGC. And if the office did get such papers, did it turn these over to the Ombudsman? Prove it.
I point out this sad episode in the ZTE story in light of new claim that Malacañang discreetly had conducted an internal probe. And that the probe supposedly yielded unsubstantiated stories of bribery.
Malacañang announced the “internal probe” on Tuesday, timed to appear on Wednesday’s newspapers and coincide with the resumption of the Senate inquiry. There was no word on who exactly did the examining, assuming there really was one. Malacañang can claim secrecy about that. But what it couldn’t explain is why not one of the key players in the ZTE broadband plan was queried about it. The internal probe thus looks like a farce.
Sen. Pia Cayetano unraveled this when, in Wednesday’s hearing covered by national TV, she asked the following persons if any Malacañang inquirer ever approached them:
Mendoza, who signed the ZTE contract; Asst. Sec. Lorenzo Formoso, who witnessed the signing and is tasked to implement it; Ramon Sales, ex-chief of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology that endorsed the ZTE deal;
Comelec boss Benjamin Abalos, who is accused of brokering the deal; former economic secretary Romulo Neri, who swore that Abalos attempted bribing him with P200 million; businessman Joey de Venecia, who testified that Abalos offered him $10 million to withdraw his superior bid;
Iloilo Vice Gov. Rolex Suplico, who questioned the legality of the ZTE deal before the Supreme Court; and me, as the scam exposer.
The only person missing in the list is First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, whom de Venecia accused of forcing him to back off the bidding. But it’s unlikely that any internal investigator would ask him, considering that he is away in Europe and, before that, was convalescing from near-fatal heart surgery.
And so, like the PAGC that claims to have examined the ZTE scam, Malacañang must be asked: where’s the report?
Meanwhile, secrecy still surrounds the $330-million (P16-billion) deal. Subpoenaed to submit Annexes A to K of the 39-page supply contract, ZTE lawyers gave one set to the Senate Blue-Ribbon Committee. When the committee staff began to photocopy the papers for distribution to senators, the lawyers stopped them, invoking privacy of proprietary information.
The annexes contain the bill of materials and unit costs — the bases to determine if there’s overpricing or not. But ZTE refuses to reveal details, for study by telecoms experts. Could it be that the Chinese firm is afraid of discovery of its scam?
On the other hand, it may be a ruse — to put the public in suspense of nothing. After which, a surprise waits. For all we know, those annexes have been “cured” — after five months of shameless hiding from public, including the “theft” story. It’s no different from Formoso’s unreliable figures at an Ateneo-Makati roundtable on June 20.
Recall that in last week’s hearing, Sen. Mar Roxas asked Formoso, as DOTC technical guy, how many barangays the national network aims to cover. For five minutes, Formoso hedged, claiming, he either doesn’t know, forgot, or will just submit next time the all-important number to justify the huge tag price. I had to pull out the hard copy of his June 20 PowerPoint report, in which he said the network would cover a combined 23,549 barangay and municipal offices. That’s only half of the 45,000 or so barangays, hardly national in scope. Still, since the paper allegedly was stolen (Sen. Panfilo Lacson has proof it wasn’t), that claim may be bloated.
Even then, the eleven contract annexes must be made public. This, if only to show that three generations of Filipinos cannot be made to pay P16 billion, plus interest over 20 years, for something they don’t know.
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