Bishop’s Ire

February 16, 2008

TWO CATHOLIC bishops yesterday scored Malacañang for allegedly attempting to cover up and divert attention from the $329 million national broadband network scandal.

Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez slammed Malacañang over “ploys” to divert public attention away from the broadband deal with China’s ZTE Corp.

Iñiguez said stories about a plot to kill President Macapagal-Arroyo and the move to amend the 1987 Constitution could be among the Palace’s tactics to take the spotlight off the allegedly anomalous deal.

“That’s very possible. Ang obserbasyon natin sa regime na ito at sa ibang panahon isa ‘yan sa crisis management tactics, divert mo ang attention,” he said.

Iñiguez, head of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines public affairs office, also said that it could be possible that mass actions against the alleged overpricing of the aborted NBN project might already be a form of “communal action” that the CBCP had been calling for.

“Kung ito pinag-usapan, there was a common discernment and decision, this is already part of that communal action,” Iñiguez said.

Manila Bishop Teodoro Bacani, Jr. said that if the controversy over the ZTE telecommunications deal causes the downfall of the Arroyo administration, it would not be so much because of the revelations of witness Rodolfo Noel Lozada, Jr. but its attempts at a cover-up.

Bacani branded the actions of Palace officials in the Lozada abduction as “blatant and patent obstruction of justice.”

“These Lozada revelations may indeed bring down the Arroyo administration. If they do, it is not only because of what Lozada has so far revealed, for many already knew these before, but because of the blatant and patent obstruction of justice that the machinery of government and some members of media are trying to pull off in order to save PGMA and her husband Mike Arroyo,” he said.

Bacani stressed that all these elaborate but bungled operations were meant to prevent the truth about the ZTE deal from emerging.

“Lozada is telling the truth. And it is the truth that this administration fears most. The longer the hearings last, the clearer this becomes, what with the stupid, though well planned, answers those involved in the abduction have been giving,” he said.

Bacani is the spiritual adviser of the influential religious group El Shaddai.

He urged the people to take the lead in the campaign for truth.

“Let us not wait for the bishops to lead the action. It is the laity who should take the leading role, and assert themselves, without waiting for the bishops’ go signal, and without wanting to hide behind the habits (cassock) of the bishops, priests, and religious,” he said.

“It is the truth which will set us free. I do hope that we Filipinos will not let this matter die down, but that we will come together, pray together, discuss together, decide together, and act together, to this end, that the truth may prevail, as the CBCP has been urging us,” Bacani said.

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