abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak

It’s been about seven months since the Senate hearing on the broadband deal was launched. So far, it has achieved two major results. One, President Arroyo scrapped the $329-million broadband deal with ZTE Corp. Two, Benjamin Abalos resigned after Romulo Neri’s allegations.

But the President has not been directly linked to the bribery scandal. Observers say that Neri could provide the missing link as he was the head of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) when the project was approved.

Neri has found a reprieve in the Supreme Court. The High Court has yet to decide on whether Neri could testify in the Senate and answer questions that he claims are covered by executive privilege. These include the issue of whether President Arroyo directed him to approve the deal knowing that it was tainted by bribe offers.

The Senate hearing on Tuesday (March 11) is expected to take another turn. The four “influence peddlers” that witness Dante Madriaga named—Abalos, former police  Gen. Quirino De La Torre, Ruben Reyes, and Leo San Miguel—and certain ZTE officials were summoned to appear. These four men were supposedly privy to the fat kickbacks that accompanied the deal.

Abduction

Testimonies by Jose De Venecia III and Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada did not directly implicate President Arroyo in the broadband deal. If at all, Lozada’s alleged abduction in the airport was linked to Malacanang, but not President Arroyo herself.

Deputy Executive Secretary Manuel Gaite admitted in a Senate hearing that he gave Lozada P500,000 when he was in Hong Kong . (Lozada flew to Hong Kong the day he was expected to testify before the Senate.)

It was another witness, Madriaga, who directly dragged President Arroyo into the controversy. He alleged that ZTE Corp. advanced to the First Couple at least US$10 million after the broadband deal was approved.

He also said that President Arroyo’s personal appearance during the signing of the deal in China was a demand by ZTE Corp. before advancing another $30 million purportedly to finance the campaign of administration candidates in the 2007 senatorial elections.

Madriaga was met with skepticism, however. He was earlier accused of soliciting P5 million to P10 million in exchange for his testimony.

Lozada said he has not encountered Madriaga, who claimed to be a consultant of ZTE Corp., during the time that the deal was packaged.

Lozada, the new Chavit

Early in the year, before Senate key witness Rodolfo Noel “Jun” Lozada showed up, Sen. Alan Cayetano—chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee—was about to prepare the committee’s final report on the botched broadband deal with Chinese company ZTE Corp.

The Senate was stumped back then, lacking a witness to corroborate testimonies by the son of former Speaker Jose De Venecia Jr., Joey, and former National Economic and Development Authority chief Romulo Neri.

De Venecia pointed to First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo and former Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair Abalos  to be behind the controversial broadband deal. Neri also incriminated Abalos by alleging that the latter offered him P200 million in bribe money to approve the deal.

In an interview with Abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak on February 9, the weekend after Lozada first testified before the Senate, Cayetano admitted that he was about to give in to pressures to terminate the Senate hearing back then.

But Lozada showed up, giving a dramatic turn to the investigation. He did not only corroborate De Venecia and Neri, he supplied the details that the senators expected Neri would divulge. Neri then invoked executive privilege and refused to attend succeeding Senate hearings.

A consultant of Neri, Lozada admitted to being involved in packaging the deal with ZTE Corp. He said that the broadband deal was brokered by Abalos, with the support of the First Gentleman.

That Lozada was abducted purportedly to prevent him from testifying in the Senate enabled him to get the public support that Joey De Venecia was unable to get. Several groups began to see Lozada as the new ‘Chavit Singson’—the whistleblower against ousted President Joseph Estrada whose testimonies during the impeachment trial led to public outrage resulting in the second People Power that eventually ousted Estrada.

Various groups have attributed the growing attendance in protest rallies seeking the investigation of the botched broadband deal to Lozada, too.

In Aid of Legislation?

On Feb. 9, Abs-cbnNeWS.com./Newsbreak asked Cayetano how many more hearings they will hold. “I don’t know. It depends,” he said. If they can present more witnesses, the hearings will continue.

Various civil society groups—including the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, Black and White movement, the UP College of Law—who expressed doubts on the parallel investigation on the botched broadband deal launched by the Office of the Ombudsman and the Department of Justice have expressed support for the Senate investigations.

“The Senate Blue ribbon is the extraordinary remedy of last resort,” Cayetano said. “All others are partially failing.” He said that if the justice department and the National Bureau of Investigation are “functioning well,” complaints need not go to the Senate.

But among senators, calls for the termination of the Senate hearings persist. Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, for instance, in the previous hearing said, “We have enough materials in my opinion.” He was supported by administration Senator Joker Arroyo, who criticized the committee for devoting too much time on the issue.

Administration allies have also attacked the Senate hearings as “propaganda” to fire public outrage against President Arroyo.

Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera, who acknowledged the power of the Senate to conduct investigation “in aid of legislation,” said that the Senators may be going beyond their mandate.

“If we want to establish evidence to prove crime, [we can go to the] Office of the Ombudsman,” she said. “We have to clarify the objective of the investigation.” Beyond the purpose of aiding legislation, “it should go to a different office,” she said.

The Senate has no prosecutorial powers. 

“We want to hear what we want to hear,” Devanadera said. “If we don’t hear what we want to hear, we say that he’s not telling the truth,” she said.

Cayetano said that the objective of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee is to make “heads roll.” He was supported by Sen. Manuel Roxas II. “Without knowing exactly what happened in the NEDA meeting, we cannot divine what went wrong,” he said.

“Our objective is not to make the President resign,” Cayetano said. “But it can be a reaction…. Strong institutions and public opinion should be ready to move mountains,” he said.

Spratlys deal

Over the weekend, former Philippine National Oil Company chief Eduardo Manalac was floated to be the new Senate witness. Manalac denied this.

It is not clear what Manalac knows about the broadband deal. But the hotshot geologist was the one who brokered the Philippine’s joint marine seismic undertaking (JMSU) with China and Vietnam —another controversial project with China that seeks to explore for oil deposits in the disputed Kalayaan Group of Islands .

Several groups have claimed that President Arroyo may have compromised the Philippine’s claim over the disputed territory by allowing the agreement.

The plot thickens.