Without JDV, what happens to GMA?

GOTCHA, Published in The Philippine Star, Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Sec. Romy Neri swears that Comelec chief Benjamin Abalos offered him P200 million to endorse the overpriced ZTE deal. Yet Malacañang keeps denying sleaze in the $330-million telecom purchase. Does that mean it treats Neri a liar? And so if Neri invented the story, why’s he still in the President’s official family?

That’s another one of many upshots in the ZTE scam that defy logic. Others have long bugged those who’ve been following developments. Like, if the deal was so upright, then why did President Gloria Arroyo cancel it, while she often says she’d rather be right than popular? Or, again if the deal was so dandy, why do Neri, Abalos, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo and Sec. Larry Mendoza refuse to further testify?

Those holes in the official story gape because there can be no perfect crime. The cleanup team is bound to leave traces of dirt.

* * *

It’s inane to ask Joe de Venecia, in the wake of his acrid exposés of Arroyo admin scams, “why only now?” The answer already was in his exit speech as Speaker, in his confession of being a sinner like everyone else. So it’s like niggling Saul for becoming Paul and ending his persecution of Christians only after being blinded on the road to Damascus.

The question to ask is, what happens now to Gloria Arroyo? Bluntly, what faces she after her congressmen-sons’ toppling of her closest political ally Joe?

Her worry, even if de Venecia has joined the Opposition, is not a new impeachment by Oct. Her congressmen-sons anticipated and thus planned for that. They will simply use the pork barrel — taxpayers’ money, all P17 billion of it — to buy Congress’ quashing of any complaint.

What they didn’t calculate in their hurry to exact revenge against de Venecia is the clang of his fall on international circles. The Management Association of the Philippines and the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry had warned them of serious overseas repercussions. They didn’t listen as parochial mentality prevailed.

Businessmen’s fears rested on what they know de Venecia to be and what Arroyo isn’t. De Venecia was Speaker in 1992, when Arroyo was but a three-year-term junior senator. Before that he had “exported” Philippine constructors to the Middle East, while Arroyo was a middle manager at the trade ministry. As founder of the Lakas-Christian-Muslim Democrats, de Venecia is a high officer of the global Christian Democratic Union, in power in most of Europe and South America; Arroyo’s Kampi party has no global political affiliation. As five-term Speaker, de Venecia built first-name-basis friendships with leaders of Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas; Arroyo has no close world leader-friend except perhaps old college classmate ex-President Bill Clinton. (She could have cultivated ties with the US had she not alienated her own ambassador who was well respected in Washington.)

In breaking away de Venecia rattled off some misdeeds of the Arroyo team: the Hello Garci election farce, ZTE scam, and road user-tax misuse. He vowed to bare more. But even if he doesn’t talk, international leaders would judge Arroyo by what she did to de Venecia. Without the latter, and because corruption will surely worsen, official development assistance and military aid will suffer. Arroyo’s tenure will be hard-pressed for money for basic services while its officials steal for retirement in 2010. The public will have no one else to blame but her. Dark clouds of a US economic recession already are threatening to storm the Philippines as well.

Of bad omen for Arroyo is de Venecia’s diatribe, at last, against killings and kidnappings of activists and unionists, journalists and jurists. This will be of prime international interest. De Venecia’s mention of a UN report of paramilitary atrocities in RP was made vivid by his narration of personal experience. At the height of plots to assassinate him and son Joey because of the latter’s exposé of the ZTE overpricing, de Venecia wrote to Arroyo for help. After all, the three generals reportedly planning to rub them out were executive branch officials.

What happened next points up what’s in store for ordinary mortals. “Should not the President order the PNP (Philippine National Police) to investigate and render me a written report?” de Venecia disclosed, in effect saying lower citizens are in grave danger. “How can the complaint for the (extrajudicial) murders be given due course by security (officials) when even my appeal to the President she chose to ignore.” The UN will surely look closer now at Arroyo’s spotty human rights record.