Only GMA can banish broadband issue–Senator Mar Roxas

February 27, 2008

Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas 2nd said only President Gloria Arroyo can make the controversy over the allegedly graft-tainted national broadband network project go away. If President Arroyo refuses to do so, Roxas added, her government will be practically engaging in a “cover-up” of the truth behind the aborted $330-million broadband project.

For President Arroyo to be able to banish the controversy, Roxas on Wednesday suggested that she “help” the Senate end it by revoking Executive Order 464. Through this order made last year, she barred Cabinet members and police and military brass from testifying before congressional investigators without her permission.

The senator, in a statement, said the President can “also help” by instructing the National Economic and Development Authority to release documents from meetings of the agency that finally approved the broadband project before Mrs. Arroyo flew to Boao, China, to sign a contract for it. Roxas issued the statement on the 11th hearing of the broadband controversy.

Roxas urged the President to lift the executive order and allow Malacañang and security officials to testify before the Senate on the canceled broadband project. He also asked her that “if necessary, suspend those who are not cooperating in ferreting out the details on this anomalous transaction.”

Roxas, in the statement, hinted that Mrs. Arroyo was being cavalier when recently she simply admitted that she knew of alleged irregularities in the broadband project but approved it anyway. He presented a “timeline to the events” culminating in the signing of the contract for the project with China’s ZTE Corp.

Roxas said the Senate hearings started in September 2007; the contract was signed in Boao on April 21, 2007; Executive Order 464 was issued on September 3, 2007; a temporary restraining order was issued by the Supreme Court on September 11, 2007; the first hearing of the Senate on the contract was held on September 18, 2007; and Malacañang suspended the contract on September 22, 2007.

This timeline, the senator said, showed that the executive was not sincere in suspending or stopping the contract. Roxas added that this supposed insincerity began to show starting April 2007, when Mrs. Arroyo said she had heard of anomalies in the broadband project. Meanwhile, he said, the contract had not been rescinded, Executive Order 464 was imposed, and it took the High Court to issue the restraining order.

“What appeared to be just another example in a long list of examples of anomalous government contracts has metamorphosed into a complex cover-up now involving the abduction of our own citizens. And now like an unstoppable virus, it has spread forth, and our Republic, our government, is in crisis,” Roxas said. Rodolfo Lozada Jr., supposedly a key witness to alleged brokering for bribes from the broadband deal, said he was abducted by government men upon his arrival from Hong Kong on February 5.

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez defended the President’s admission on her approving the broadband deal despite the alleged irregularities. He said Mrs. Arroyo could not have possibly sign any contract in China because she would have needed to take 16 or 17 steps first before she could do so. What the President did in Boao, Gonzalez added, was part only of her observing the diplomatic process.

The Justice chief, though, said his office, which is also investigating the broadband deal, will study the statement of Mrs. Arroyo to determine her possible liability

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