MANILA, Philippines -- “I do not know what these people are trying to do to me,” former Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos Sr. said Thursday.

Abalos was reacting to testimony that he had demanded $130 million in kickbacks which swelled the cost of the government’s $329-million National Broadband Network (NBN) deal with China’s ZTE Corp.

He said he had not heard the allegations of Rodolfo Lozada Jr., a former consultant tapped by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) to examine the project early last year.
Lozada was the third person to point an accusing finger at Abalos, who resigned from his Comelec post when the scandal broke out last year.

In September, during the Senate hearings on the ZTE deal, businessman Jose de Venecia III and ex-NEDA Director General Romulo Neri said Abalos had pushed for the deal between the Philippine government and ZTE Corp.

Neri said Abalos had offered him P200 million in exchange for approving the ZTE proposal for the NBN project, which NEDA reviewed.

Waiting for copy

De Venecia told the Senate that Abalos had offered him $10 million to back out of the project.

“Please give me the privilege of getting first the copy of the tape,” Abalos told reporters outside Wack Wack Golf and Country Club in Mandaluyong City after he played golf at around 11 a.m.

“I don’t want to comment on something that was hearsay. I want to get it from the horse’s mouth,” he said, answering the media’s questions from inside his silver SUV.

He returned shortly, however, and got out of the vehicle to face reporters.

Pressed to comment on Lozada’s statement that he received a kickback of $130 million, Abalos said, “$130 million? You know how much that is?”

Abalos sought to discredit Lozada and raised doubts about the veracity of his statements.

Discredit witness

“After more than a year, he is speaking only now. You’re saying, allegedly, there are threats. Would you still believe that?” he said.

Abalos said he knew Lozada because the latter was a member at Wack Wack.

He said he would consult with lawyers and check Lozada’s press conference transcript before responding point-by-point to the allegations leveled against him.

Similar accusations

De Venecia, the chief of Amsterdam Holdings Inc., the company that lost the project to ZTE Corp., also told the Senate that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, would get $70 million in commission from the ZTE-NBN deal.

De Venecia said Abalos cursed and threatened him because of his continued opposition to the ZTE proposal.

Lozada made similar accusations against Abalos, saying the close Arroyo ally repeatedly cursed him and threatened him when he voiced his reservations about the project’s price tag.

Abalos bristled when asked why his name continued to crop up in the controversy. “Bahala na, bahala na (Whatever),” he said, adding that everyone, including the media, was blaming him.