Thursday, March 13, 2008 Editorial: Surprise witness, surprised senators
TEXT messages, obviously from supporters of President Arroyo, say witnesses showing up in Senate hearings are products of one school: the Ping Lacson Academy.
That claim is unfair to Sen. Panfilo Lacson and the Senate witnesses because it insinuates that the testimonies are manufactured, with Lacson as the manufacturer.
But the dig on the manner witnesses in the Senate inquiry on the national broadband network (NBN) deal are being presented should not be lost on the senators.
This was apparent in the testimony of “surprise witness” Leo San Miguel, an electronics and communications engineer, who surprised Lacson more than anybody else.
Scraping the bottom
San Miguel’s testimony was surprising only because Lacson claimed the witness had knowledge of the cash advances in the cancelled contract with China’s ZTE Corp.
Instead, San Miguel denied knowledge of kickbacks and even contradicted portions of the testimonies of previous witnesses, including that of Rodolfo Lozada Jr.
This tended to show that the Senate inquiry on the NBN-ZTE deal is already scraping the bottom of the effort to prove the allegedly corrupt acts of President Arroyo.
Untouched subjects
The San Miguel episode already looks forced and if this continues whatever gains the Senate inquiry may have had will be lost and the process would be trivialized.
If the inquiry is really in aid of legislation, then senators should not tarry too long on this part of the proceedings and proceed to the more substantial part of the probe.
Some suggestions have been presented, like inviting independent experts to look into the details of the contract, including costing, which is still largely untouched.
Legislation
Though unmasking who got advance kickbacks and who would have received “commissions” had the deal pushed through is important, other agencies can pursue that.
Instead, senators should look into the other aspects of the deal and understand fully its intricacies, an enlightenment needed to come up with legislation that matters.
But then again, it would be naïve to believe that is the intention of the inquiry.
