Arroyo caught in web of own lies

By Neal Cruz
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:18:00 02/26/2008

MANILA, Philippines -- So she did know. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was finally forced to admit that she knew as early as last April that the ZTE national broadband network (NBN) contract was anomalous. (My column last Monday, which asked if she knew, was written on Saturday. She made her admission last Sunday.) She said in a radio interview she "moved swiftly" to cancel the deal "the moment I learned there was the slightest suspicion of anomaly" in the project.

"Moved swiftly"? "The moment" she learned? It was five months later, on Oct. 2, 2007, that she scrapped the deal, and only after the stink became unbearable when Joey de Venecia III testified in the Senate and exposed the bribe offer to him and the involvement of her husband Mike Arroyo, and Commission on Higher Education Chair Romulo Neri revealed that he was offered a P200-million bribe. That's "moving swiftly" "the moment" she learned?

On the contrary, she still went ahead and took the trouble to go to China to witness the signing of the contract between Chinese firm ZTE Corp. and our Department of Transportation and Communications instead of canceling it "swiftly."

"How can you cancel it on the eve of the signing?" was her lame excuse. "We would lose face."

Why would we lose face if we cancelled an anomalous deal? On the contrary, she should have been proud to cancel it because she was nipping corruption in the bud.

She should not have gone to China to witness the signing in the first place. She had a good reason not to. Her husband was seriously ill, having just survived a life-threatening heart operation. She didn't have to be there. But no, she left his sickbed and took the trouble to go to China to witness the signing of what she knew was an anomalous contract.

She was afraid to lose face before the president of China but not to 90 million of her countrymen? She is not only losing face now but may also lose her presidency because she was afraid to "lose face" before one man.

The ZTE deal was only one of many contracts to be signed that day. The non-signing of the ZTE contract would not have been noticed. As it turned out, the Chinese president didn't mind when told about it later. "He understood," she herself said.

Despite her admission, I think the President is still not telling everything. She did not say that she did not cancel the deal immediately because she was still hoping it would go through. Sayang naman ang $70 million commission that her hubby was promised. At that time, that was worth P3.5 billion (that's billion!), enough to retire on in comfort in Monte Carlo or on a Caribbean island when she is out of power here. In fact, that must have been the reason she took pains to go to China -- to show that she was behind the deal so it would push through.

That is why she used all her subordinates and allies to justify the deal and deny that there was any irregularity. That is why she officially declared in September last year that "after an investigation" they found "no hard evidence for junking the deal." That is why she prevented her Cabinet secretaries, through Executive Order 464, from testifying in the Senate. That is why she used all the President's men to abduct Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr., threaten him, force him to sign false affidavits and try to bribe him to prevent him from testifying in the Senate.

Only when the people, after hearing Lozada, demanded her resignation and fearing that the protest movements may escalate into another people power that may force her out of Malacañang did she deign to admit that she knew last April of the anomaly. It was an attempt to defuse the anger of the people and perhaps save her. But it only got her deeper in the muck. That's what happens when you lie. You are caught in the web of contradictions of your own lies.

If she knew as early as last April that the ZTE deal was anomalous, then she must have been lying in September when she declared there was "no hard evidence for junking the deal."

And what happens now to Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza and Undersecretary Lorenzo Formoso, as well as other officials who have been insisting that the ZTE deal is above board? With Ms Arroyo's admission that it was anomalous, it is clear that they have been lying through their teeth all along. They should come out now and make a clean breast of it and apologize to the people. It is obvious that Ms Arroyo will not hesitate to sacrifice them to save her neck.

More and more, the ZTE deal is becoming Ms Arroyo's Watergate. Like US President Richard Nixon then, she is sacrificing her loyal men to save herself. But like Watergate, the investigation is peeling layer after layer of cover-up to reveal the ugly secrets. All that is needed now to complete the picture is for one more official (like Neri?) to be stricken by his conscience (and also to save himself) and tell all. And for her allies in Congress to tell her the jig is up. Then she can take the honorable way out and step down like Nixon did.

Of course, what she did -- allow an anomalous deal -- as well as other illegal things she had done earlier are grounds for impeachment. But those who want her impeached better prepare the impeachment complaint early enough, otherwise another Oliver Lozano may beat them into filing a weak impeachment complaint this July to save her, again, from a more serious one.

Presidential adviser Joey Salceda is right, she "is the luckiest bitch alive." She should have been impeached a long time ago were it not for the quickness of the Oliver Lozanos and the slowness of opposition leaders, the immoderate greed of congressmen, the fear and indifference of public officials in the know, and the apathy of many Filipinos. And having Noli de Castro as the Vice President.