Friday, September 28, 2007 Ledesma: Abalos indecent proposal was not good enough By Jun Ledesma Sunbursts
BY SIMPLE math the estimated overprice in the scandalous broadband deal with ZTE is about $111-million. Converted to pesos that will be about P4.9-billion. This is based on the original offer of the ZTE when made the unsolicited project proposal which later ballooned to $329-million.
In the entire 11 hours of the Senate grand inquisition they forgot to point this out. If they did they could have realized that the bribe offer was insultingly low. Before we make heroes and heels out of the accused and accuser let’s contemplate on their motives.
Joey de Venecia made an offer to DOTC when his father Joe DV invited Larry Mendoza for breakfast. Speaker JDV casually asked Mendoza to look into the offer of his son which turned out to be a broadband deal. At that stage, it cannot be said that it was an unsolicited proposal. If it isn’t, then the government has to borrow money to fund it.
Mendoza must have endorsed this to NEDA where Neri was then secretary. I surmise that a proposal with such a huge appropriation cannot be kept from public eye. Comelec Chairman Ben Abalos must have learned about it. By his own testimony and that of Neri, both of them are golfing buddies. Abalos who has intimate friends inside ZTE must have sounded his Chinese friends.
ZTE offered an unsolicited project proposal which jibed well with the wishes of the President who wants the project but under the BOT (build-operate-transfer) scheme. Under BOT, no one from among the local suppliers, that includes Joey DV, and the president’s men make money.
I suspect that the agreement signed by Secretary Mendoza and witnessed by GMA in China was along the concept of a BOT. And then, mystery of mysteries, the agreement was lost. Months later it re-surfaced already “re-constructed.” It was then that we knew that the project cost had increased to $329-million. We never knew, because we never saw it anyway, what the original document was. I maintain that the “re-constructed” version is a farce. The Philippine Commercial attache’ in China who was supposed to be criminally charged for losing the document is even forgotten in the senate inquiry.
Between the time the document was lost and the time it was reconstructed and surreptitiously signed anew there were meetings taking place in Wack Wack. There was Neri, Gary Teves, Joey DV, Mendoza, Abalos and the mystery man who later turned out to be the FG Mike Arroyo.
I am sure they were there not to talk about handicaps and umbrella girls. They were there not to talk about how many holes Abalos can play. They were there to talk about P5-billion overprice. Who was doing the talking? He who does the offering. Secretary Neri quoted Chairman Abalos as saying, “may 200 ka rito.” Joey DV, by his own confession, was offered by Abalos $10-million to back off. He was angry because he was told by the mystery man to “back off!”
Anyway, if you sum up the offer it will run to about $10,005,000.00. Abalos still has a lot to offer, about $100-million more, assuming that he was given the mercy mission task. But he has stoically denied the allegations of the “alligators” if you get my drift.
Now let’s indulge in some assumptions by raising the questions.
If you were Abalos, would you confirm or deny that you were brokering for ZTE?
If you were Neri, will you not inform the President that you were offered a bribe by Abalos?
If you were Joey DV will you accept $10-million indecent proposal when you know that there’s $111-million?
Who else was offered by Abalos?
Did the missing document the same as the “reconstructed copy?”
Well, this inquisition has become convoluted. The senate is back to the quagmire where Sen. Franklin Drilon had dragged the senate in the past.
Meantime in his Tanay rest house, a President convicted of plunder is offered absolute pardon. Some senators digging into the broadband scam openly endorse that he be freed. Isn’t this tragic?
