Case filed vs DOTC chief : NBN deal

[explorer]

I was not happy that Erap made billions from jueteng...but if you compare it to these recent scams, Erap's scam is nothing...these recent scam is sucking all the tax payers money and more and more budget deficit (budget is now in P1.3+ trillions)...give it one or two months time and Filipinos can easily forget it...not enough to throw her out of malacanang...sad but true...filipinos deserve a president GMA and comelec chair abalos.

[jeffrocks]

Same old story,tactics etc...do we mean pinas gone to the dogs? if they have the sufficient evidences bring it & filed a case to the courts.Are we not civilized country?Media lang ang natutuwa,mabinta naman ang kanilang dyaryo at ibpa...theres no sacred cow...tingnan nyo si erap at ibang magdalo...kalabuso...

[sirmykel]

dito ako nanghihina, lahat tayo apektado lahat ng tax na binabayad naten
nawawala na lang bigla. kahit magalit ako talagang mahirap kapag mag isa lang.
isipin nyo na lang wala na yung kontrata pero go pa rin yung deal.

isa pa, nagreconstruct ng new contract pero anu sabi???
"confidential"!!! pu^&ng *na talaga ayaw ipakita sa taong bayan
ang mga proyekto nila grabe

[explorer]

Worsening stink

Editorial - Inquirer
Last updated 02:45am (Mla time) 09/08/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- The Chinese company that bagged the contract to build the $329 million national broadband network (NBN) for the Philippine government says it has nothing to hide. “There was complete transparency in the proposal, evaluation and approval of ZTE’s application for the Philippines’ NBN contract,” the company said in a statement issued earlier this week.

Transparency, however, is the last word that comes to the mind of anyone who has followed the controversy as it has slowly unfolded since the contract was signed in April this year. Up to now, Filipino taxpayers know little about the NBN contract beyond the fact that they will be paying close to P1 billion a year for over 20 years for a project that may not be necessary and which the government is ill-equipped to operate and maintain, according to two economics professor from the University of the Philippines.

Everything that the Filipino people know so far is either what ZTE’s competitors have revealed or what the media have extracted bit by bit from government officials. At one point, Cabinet officials even tried to mislead the public by denying that a contract had already been concluded and claiming that what was signed in Boao, China, last April was either a memorandum of agreement or a memorandum of understanding. More is probably known about the negotiations and how top officials, like Comelec Chair Benjamin Abalos, allegedly helped broker the deal and tried to hush up ZTE’s unhappy competitors for the project, or got bribe offers amounting to hundreds of millions of pesos.

But a contract does exist and it was signed and sealed in the presence of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in China. And what it says and what it does not say probably explain why the Arroyo administration wanted to keep it under wraps.

One interesting item in the contract, for example, gives the two parties plenty -- even unlimited -- elbow room to adjust the price. It says: “The Priced Bill of Quantities shall be revised in accordance with the actual requirement to be determined and approved by the purchaser and the contractor during the detailed engineering stage.” In other words, the $329 million contract price, which is already too much, according to ZTE’s rivals, can still go higher. Could this be the reason the government signed a $400-million loan, so that it will have an extra $71 million to cover what is called a “change order”? This is a ploy often used to jack up the price so that greedy officials can get more from an already graft-ridden project.

What is even more unusual is that the contract does not say exactly what the government will be getting for $329 million. The scope of work is left undefined. The contract merely says that ZTE “shall prepare and complete the detailed engineering services, the plans, specifications and designs” for the government’s approval. If there are no plans, no specification and no designs, what is the government committing to pay $329 million for?

Only an idiot would pay for a car without knowing what kind of engine he is getting or how many passengers it can take, but that is not much different from what the administration is doing in regard to the NBN project. The only difference is that it is not the signatory, Transportation and Communication Secretary Leandro Mendoza, or the witness, President Arroyo, who will be stuck with the bill, but the Filipino people. And the administration would not even want them to know what they will be paying for. It wants the people to take on blind faith that the project is necessary and the terms of the contract are the best anyone can get. Thus, it has gone ahead and signed the contract without opening the project to public bidding. And the excuse it is giving is that this is a government-to-government transaction.

That is true of the loan agreement signed last week in Manila. It is not the case with the supply agreement with ZTE, unless that company has declared its independence from China.

A growing number of lawmakers have been calling for the abrogation of the contract, and the investigation of everyone involved in it. The business community has voiced a similar demand. Now that the onerous details of this funny contract are becoming known, there is even more reason to trash it. The stink is just too much for anyone to ignore.

[A121]

I have some questions...

What are the other companies that we're allowed to bid for the NBN project? What are the values of their bids? How big are the companies? How are these other companies related to prominent government officials? Can these companies pay-off if they suddenly go bankrupt while doing the NBN project?

[rdecruze]

Same old story,tactics etc...do we mean pinas gone to the dogs? if they have the sufficient evidences bring it & filed a case to the courts.Are we not civilized country?Media lang ang natutuwa,mabinta naman ang kanilang dyaryo at ibpa...theres no sacred cow...tingnan nyo si erap at ibang magdalo...kalabuso...

No wonder why oppositions tactic is winning the minds of Pinoys!! Next election presidente na si Lacson. Kaya nyang paikutin ang mga pinoy...galing talaga!

[kinyo]

do we mean pinas gone to the dogs?

yes! since 1972 ... but you won't know that if you are born after that year

[explorer]

from: http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquirer...ticle_id=90097

No excuse

Inquirer EDITORIAL
Last updated 02:04am (Mla time) 09/23/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- Haste makes waste -- and lays waste to the cause of good government. It was with apparent haste that reporters were summoned yesterday to hear Trade Secretary Peter Favila and acting Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera announce the latest instructions from the President: Both the ZTE deal and the Cyber Education Project have been suspended.

This is like the President saying, at 4:40 in the afternoon, she’s issued a decree ordering the sun to set later in the day. Of course, there will be a sunset, but only a fool would attribute it to the President. But the Palace obviously thinks there are plenty of fools. For only foolish minds would confuse the President’s instructions with anything substantial. What has put the ZTE deal on hold took place prior to the President’s issuing her instructions. The deal was put on hold, and remains on hold, because of a TRO issued by the Supreme Court.

Therefore it really doesn’t matter at all, what the President’s instructions are—even with regard to the Cyber Education Project, which we already predicted will be the next focus of congressional and public inquiry. So the obvious thing here is, this is a public relations move, but it does not affect basic government policy.

And we say haste lays waste to good government, because pressed on what government intended to do next, and why the administration suddenly reversed itself on two huge projects, the two secretaries were at a loss for words. Favila simply stated the President told them what to say. Devanadera, obviously less politically suave, then told the media that the ZTE deal was legally defensible; Favila then told the media that the President’s decision was triggered by “bad publicity”—see how it’s basically a PR move?

The question then becomes, will the President’s weekend attempt to take credit for an act of the Supreme Court be enough to defuse tensions? Will it be enough, for example, to maintain the brittle peace within her ruling coalition? Could it stop a potentially explosive Senate hearing on Wednesday, where former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri is due to testify under oath?

Newsbreak has put forward this version of events. The Comelec chair, its report says, approached then Neda chief Neri for “help” with the ZTE deal. Neri replied he’d take a look. Abalos, the report says, took this to mean Neri wasn’t interested, so he quickly said, “There’s 200 for you here.” Neri asked what he meant. Abalos allegedly replied, “200 million.” End of conversation.

Neri, the report says, then went to the President and told her about the offer. When Neri told her that he refused it, the President supposedly told him to forget the money but to approve the deal. Two days later, Neri was removed from the National Economic and Development Authority.

This is a version of events that requires investigation. With both Abalos and Neri scheduled to appear before the Senate, now, more than ever, the hearings should proceed.

The administration pulled out all the stops to try to deflect attention and reduce the focus on the NBN controversy, using fair means and foul. Everything and everyone—from presidential daughter Evangeline “Luli” Arroyo’s display of cattiness, to the AFP chief of staff’s blowhard statements of a destabilization plot and how martial law is a necessary tool in government’s legal arsenal, to this, the latest clumsy move by the President— have been tried.

The Senate then must ponder if it wants to be an accomplice to this effort to sweep things under the rug, or if it will pull the rug out from under the feet of some extremely nervous officials. The President said the ZTE contract would be suspended—“no ifs, ands or buts.” What there should be no ifs, ands or buts about is that the public interest requires a continuation of the Senate hearings.

The hearings themselves, after all, not only subject executive officials to much-needed public scrutiny, they also put the senators under the microscope. This can only be healthy for the body politic. This is what public accountability is all about. May we remind the President of one of her favorite expressions: “Let the chips fall where they may.”

Even at the very desk of the President of the Philippines, if necessary.

[explorer]

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquirer...ticle_id=90274

Probe deeper

Inquirer EDITORIAL
Last updated 01:47am (Mla time) 09/24/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- The decision to “suspend” what Trade Secretary Peter Favila rather defensively called the “much-talked-about and much-maligned broadband project” (as well as the other controversial Chinese-funded initiative, the Cyber Education Project) is an obvious attempt to pull the rug from under the Senate committees investigating the allegedly anomalous deal.

In making the announcement on Saturday, Favila was accompanied by Acting Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera, who suggested, most tellingly, that perhaps the Senate investigation was no longer necessary. “What more can they [the senators] ask when everything has been answered and explained? It’s my personal opinion that everything has been covered.”

We’re glad she hedged her answer by qualifying it as her personal opinion, because if it were her department’s official opinion, we would have reason to ask the government’s chief lawyer to resign her brief.

By no stretch of the imagination could the seven-hour hearing at the Senate session hall last Thursday be considered to have “covered” everything. (Unless, of course, “cover” means “cover up.”) Many questions are begging to be asked. What kind of lawyer has Devanadera become, if she suggests that these questions have not only been asked, they have been definitively answered?

The suspension of the ZTE arrangement (or “contract in the process of becoming,” as Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile described the controversial document regarding the proposed National Broadband Network last Thursday) will lead to its cancellation; but is the suspension (a cancellation, so to speak, in the process of becoming) enough reason to conclude the Senate investigation?

Not for all the tea in China. If anything, the decision to suspend the arrangement should embolden the senators, on both sides of the aisle, to get to the bottom of the controversy.

We all already know this, but for the benefit of Solicitor General Devanadera, let us list down a few of the questions that must be asked, and that must be answered to the satisfaction of the Senate and the people, in the next hearing.

First, and most important: Why is Commission on Elections Chairman Benjamin Abalos brokering for ZTE? Even the most elastic testimony last Thursday, that of Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza, cannot disguise the unusual interest Abalos has shown in ZTE’s proposal. Assistant Secretary Lorenzo Formoso would have us believe that he and businessman Jose “Joey” de Venecia III discussed NBN business under Abalos’ benign and disinterested gaze; perhaps he is merely protecting himself, but the mere fact that the discussion took place right in Abalos’ office in the Comelec, and in Abalos’ presence, is on its face already questionable. Considering what others involved in the project, however peripherally, have said about Abalos’ interest, Formoso’s characterization of Abalos’ role in those fateful meetings becomes highly suspect. If Abalos went out of his way to discuss the NBN project with Finance Secretary Margarito Teves, the Senate must determine the scope and extent of the Comelec chairman’s interest in the ZTE deal.

Second, glaring discrepancies exist between Mendoza’s testimony and the young De Venecia’s. Who, in fact, is telling the truth? Even a simple matter like who introduced whom must be resolved: Did Speaker Jose de Venecia in fact introduce his son to Mendoza for the first time early this year, as Mendoza claims? Did Mendoza in fact organize a “reconciliatory” meeting between “the old man” (Abalos) and the De Venecia scion? Did a waiter at the Wack-Wack club house in fact witness the alleged “Back off!” incident, where Jose Miguel Arroyo allegedly tried to intimidate the young De Venecia? (This is Sen. Jinggoy Estrada’s call, and we hope, for the sake of the waiter and his family, that he had thought it through before making the announcement during the first hearing.)

Third, what did President Macapagal-Arroyo know, and when did she know it? Even without Abalos’ impeachable involvement, the ZTE “contract” remains suspect. How, for instance, was the NBN decision converted, quite seamlessly, from build-operate-transfer initiative to government-project-funded-by-concessional-loan? That conversion requires the imprimatur of the President, nothing less. Perhaps Secretary Romulo Neri can―finally, finally―enlighten us.

“Everything has been covered”? Not by a long shot.

[jpdm]

--Pag ganito mga nababasa mo, sa kabila ng nagkakandakuba ka na sa pagbabayad ng tax dahil sa panawagan ng pamahaan na tulungan ang bayan, yan ang isusukli ng gobyerno sa bayan--parang gusto kong ma-juramentado...

--Grabe na talaga sobrang kapal ng mga opisyales sa gobyerno!!!

--lalo na itong mga sangkot sa NBN talagang wala ng takot sa Diyos!!!