Joey de Venecia makes it to YouTube
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:07:00 02/20/2008
Filed Under: NBN deal
MANILA, Philippines -- Hello, Ben?
MANILA, Philippines -- Jose “Joey” de Venecia III on Wednesday accused former elections chief Benjamin Abalos Sr. of being behind the posting on the global video-sharing site YouTube of an allegedly wiretapped conversation between him and an unidentified voice discussing kickbacks in the controversial National Broadband Network (NBN) deal.
De Venecia, speaking at the University of the Philippines-Manila on Wednesday, did not deny that it was his voice on the online audio stream talking about a $130-million kickback allegedly demanded by Abalos.
But he said he planned to sue Abalos for wiretapping.
Speaking to reporters, the businessman son of former speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. said he had no other suspect but Abalos, who reportedly boasted to the businessman earlier that he possessed compact discs of his wiretapped calls.
He earlier accused Abalos of demanding a $130 million kickback from the NBN deal.
“I guess the one who wiretapped me is the one circulating it on the Internet. That’s Chairman Abalos. He’s the only guy who told me that my phone was wiretapped,” Joey said.
“He (Abalos) probably uploaded it to YouTube,” he added.
Though he had yet to reveal who he was talking to, De Venecia said it could be anyone from “Romy Neri, Buboy Macapagal and Ricky Razon to Jun Lozada.”
“Basically those are the guys I talked to,” he said.
The chat released on YouTube reportedly had De Venecia complaining about Abalos’ $130 million kickback from the deal with ZTE Corp.
“Of course, I was complaining. What Abalos wanted me to do was to buy equipment from ZTE but part of the equipment would be what you call soft money, meaning there’s no equipment but it looks like there was a sale of equipment. It would be a ghost sale, therefore the P130 million will go to his pocket,” he said. Allison W. Lopez
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