Philippines: Corruption in National Broadband Network contract.

This is from the Daily Tribune. This is a typical case where the government tries to put gag orders on officials and to prevent others from testifying. The

Arroyo government manages to survive many scandals of this order.


Truth out
EDITORIAL
02/09/2008
From the testimony of resigned Philippine Forest Corp. chief Rodolfo Noel Lozada. Jr., the crucial witness to the ZTE National Broadband Network (NBN) project that is being probed by the Senate, it is clear that Malacañang and its aides are into abductions, coercion, suborning perjury, issuing death threats, wiretapping, lying, massive graft and corruption, getting billions of pesos in kickbacks for projects and other criminal activities, along with covering up for the crimes the Palace committed.
All agencies in government are into these criminal activities, which are big-time and which continue to this day.
And for what reason are the whistle-blowers being prevented from testifying to the truth, and at the Senate, which appears to most as the defender of the people in their search for truth?
According to the testimony of Lozada yesterday, it was Energy Secretary Lito Atienza who had told him that if he spills the beans on the ZTE-NBN project, he will just succeed in delivering the government to the opposition.
Even former Secretary Romulo Neri, now chairman of the Commission on Higher Education, who earlier tried to project himself as an “honorable” government official who was ready to tell the truth, but was being stopped from doing so through Gloria Arroyo’s executive privilege, has been found to be no different from his criminal masters, even telling Lozada to get him to “moderate their greed,” as if $100 million was “moderate” enough for the greedy in Malacañang and its aides.
Neri, it will be recalled, was also said to have claimed to the media, which he later denied, that he didn’t want to testify as it would bring about another Edsa people power. And he tries to be a hero, but only to the extent of smearing Benjamin Abalos Sr., as though it was only Abalos who was into the kickbacks, while protecting Big Mike and Gloria, and himself.
What then is this Malacañang-mandated silence imposed on all those linked all about, if not to ensure the survival of this criminal government of Gloria and to ensure that the government does not fall into the hands of the opposition?
So one is made to lie and cheat, just to absolve Gloria and her spouse, First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo, and their “mafia members” of their criminal acts and ensure their survival.
Everyone now knows just how this criminal Arroyo government operates, and yet top-ranking officials in all departments and all bureaus continue to participate in these criminal activities.
There is the Philippine National Police (PNP) that is into abductions, obeying illegal orders from Gloria and her minions, then lying about their ways of abducting witnesses.
There are Lozada’s superiors, who tell him not to testify, for him to leave the country, to antedate all the travel papers and get the PNP to kidnap Lozada, make him sign a prepared affidavit absolving them from any criminal act.
There is Neri, calling Lozada to make his wife calm down as she was making too much noise in the media.
Yet this spineless jellyfish has the chutzpah to even claim that he can’t speak, because he is bound by executive privilege and that he has said all he wants to say to the Senate, when Neri himself is part of the criminal activity and even tells Lozada to calm his wife, so the criminal act of abduction, of committing perjury, or coercion, of signing all those documents against Lozada’s will and of subjecting him to mental torture would all be covered up and they will all be saved from a people’s wrath. What a hypocrite!
And there was, as always, Gloria’s prime operator and trouble shooter, Mike Defensor, getting into the act again, telling Lozada, after he had signed the affidavits they wanted, to hold a press conference, safe in the thought that Lozada would no longer state anything against his principals, since Lozada had already cleared them of any criminal act.
And then all hell broke loose, as Lozada decided to spill the NBN beans, as well as his abduction.
One must ask the Catholic bishops: Is this, too, just rumor and gossip being peddled by the media that, it should be pointed out, helped a man be freed from the clutches of this criminal government.