Friday, October 05, 2007 Ledesma: Who do we trust? And am not referring to condom By Jun Ledesma Sunbursts
IT IS ideal to have public schools including those in remote barangays linked up with a broadband backbone and have an access to the World Wide Web. It is ideal to have all government units linked up with the same telecommunications highway to have an access to WWW and in effect to all government departments and agencies.
The problem with this project is that the primordial concern of the proponents is the prospect of gargantuan commissions rather than how the objectives can be achieved.
The fuzziness of the NBN and the CyberEd broadband projects in the mind of the proponents make these grand plans dubious. That is why in the melee, Sec. Larry Mendoza, the head of the Department of Transport and Communications, has to have a sidekick in the person of Assistant Secretary Formoso to respond to questions which he, Mendoza, has no answer to. And Formoso, who regretted not being offered the same largesse as Joey de Venecia and Secretary Neri, for his part took the senators for a ride when he said that the NBN network cannot linkup with CyberEd because theirs is of different standard and internet protocol. Which is of course a lot of bull.
From that explanation alone emerges a strange conspiracy amongst the proponents. DOTC and DepEd had wanted to undertake their respective broadband network one costing $329-million and the other $460-Million!
Years back, the garrulous and "crusading" Archbishop of Dagupan, Oscar Cruz, with three other bishops established a similar project for all Catholic schools and similar Catholic institutions nationwide.
The purpose was to have a system that would sieve pornographic sites from their (CBCPnet) network. I cannot recall the cost but it ran to several millions of pesos.
The leased several VSATs from Domsatphil which in turn signed up for a satellite transponder leased for $100,000 a month. Cruz was president of CBCP then. They also ordered various computer hardware and other peripherals from various firms.
Of the several thousand schools they hoped will subscribe, only ten did. The project was a flop!!! CBCP sunk in P300-million plus which disappeared into thin air.
Suppliers were sued by their principals for failing to settle obligations which ran to millions of pesos. Most of them closed shop, others went to jail, and those who survived swore never to deal with Catholic bishops again. One of the suppliers was even assured Vatican will send them the money. What of Bishop Cruz?
I am citing this fact in current history to stress the importance of evaluating the impact of the project carefully. PGMA must look into the motives of her people.
The fact alone that the two departments wanted a distinct system of their own is reason enough to kill the plan - or plot. Not because China is kind enough to lend us soft loan and DepEd has the money for it should we rush to do our thing. It is good sense that PGMA cancelled NBN.
While at it she might as well to the same thing to CyberEd project which she ordered suspended. Having done that she must take the initiative of ordering an investigation why suddenly there was this rush to have two broadband networks.
In tandem, it is not a bad idea to evaluate the project proposals of ZTE/DOTC, AHI/Joey de Venecia and whichever does DepEd was partnering with. We want to see the original proposals. Why were these kept from the public? I suspect these are mere generalization spiced with impact engineering and highfalutin statements. I doubt whether these proponents ever conducted a topo-survey of the entire country.
I even suspected that they just lifted maps from corporate presentations of other firms. That Joey de Venecia is the "Father of broadband technology in the Philippines," according to his father, the speaker of the house of reps, is another classic farce in grandstanding among politicians. And Joey DV did not even correct his father. I am sure that the people in the communications industry are laughing themselves to the rest rooms as they puke.
Resurrect the broadband project? Why not? But who will do the feasibility study? Who will make the presentation when we cannot even trust the bishops?
