MANILA, Philippines--Rodolfo "Jun" Lozada, Jr., the key witness to the alleged corruption in the national broadband network deal, urged former Speaker Jose de Venecia, Jr. to tell everything he knew about the controversial deal before the Senate and the Filipino people, and not merely to a biographer.
"I hope he will tell it to the public and not to a biographer. (It is) something that he's willing to stick his neck out for," Lozada told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone.
With a laugh, Lozada said his statement sounded like he was looking for "kadamay" (company) or someone who could share his predicament for revealing the anomalies in the scuttled $329-million contract for the NBN project awarded to China's ZTE Corp.
Lozada and his family have sought refuge with the La Sallian brothers, unable to live a normal life for the last nine months since exposing the overpricing and kickbacks in a press conference, and later testifying at a Senate hearing.
Lozada said that PresidentGloria Macapagal Arroyo's husband, Jose Miguel was aware of the brokering being done by former elections chief Benjamin Abalos, Sr., for multi-million peso kickbacks in the scuttled deal with the Chinese-owned ZTE Corp.
Lozada also said De Venecia's own story came "too little, too late."
"I suppose there are still (details) lacking," Lozada said of De Venecia's revelations. "JDV was really in that time, within that circle. I am sure he knows more."
"He should do this for the country which has given him enough already. What's a little sacrifice? The truth is the gift he can give this country," Lozada said in Filipino.
De Venecia revealed details on the controversial deal in his biography, "Global Filipino: The Authorized Biography of Jose de Venecia Jr., the Visionary Five-Time Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Philippines."
The biography to be launched in Washington, D.C. this week and written by veteran American journalist Brett M. Decker, an editor of the Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong, devotes several chapters on the scandals in the Arroyo administration.
Nonetheless, Lozada said that he was glad that the NBN-ZTE issue was once again being given attention to.
"They (government) have been trying to bury this underground, including me, figuratively and literally. But they will never get to do it. There may be a lull but it keeps on coming back. It's like a stench that they will never be able to cover up," Lozada said, adding: "Someone must pay for this crime."
Lozada, then the head of the Philippine Forestry Corp., was tapped by Social Security Services (SSS) administrator Romulo Neri, then chief of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), to be a technical consultant in the government's NBN project.
"Until now, it remains vivid to me how that change of mind (by the President) happened. It manifested after the letter from the Chinese Embassy arrived," Lozada said.
Lozada was referring to the claim of De Venecia that until after the Nov. 2, 2006 secret meeting between him, the President, the First Gentleman, Abalos, and the ZTE executives at the ZTE headquarters in Schenzen, China, Mrs. Arroyo stuck to her word that the NBN project should follow the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) scheme.
However, "backroom negotiations" after the meeting led to the government's BOT policy being set aside and the awarding of the contract to ZTE, De Venecia said.
Lozada recalled that he had told the Senate how Abalos had fumed at the NEDA people, insisting that the NBN project should be a government-to-government deal, to the point of calling up the First Gentleman on the phone to express his displeasure.
He also testified that it was Abalos who convinced the Chinese embassy to release a letter on Dec. 2. 2006, a weekend, that identified ZTE as the project contractor.
"Of course, there was pressure from Abalos," Lozada said on the change from the BOT policy as mentioned by Mrs. Arroyo to a government-to-government contract which the NBN-ZTE deal later became.
