MANILA, Philippines -- Commission on Higher Education Chair Romulo Neri called President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo “evil” and considered resigning after she told him to endorse the $329-million National Broadband Network (NBN) project despite bribery claims, Rodolfo Lozada Jr. said Monday at the continuation of the Senate hearing on the scuttled NBN deal with China’s ZTE Corp.

Lozada, a former government consultant to the NBN project, recounted how Neri described Ms Arroyo while the CHEd chair was giving a presentation to Senators Panfilo Lacson and Jamby Madrigal on the country’s oligarchy-dominated economy last December.

“When he (Neri) said she (Ms Arroyo) was evil, he was describing the web or ecosystem of corruption in the country and that she was actually right in the middle of it,” Lozada said in emotional testimony at the 10th Senate hearing on the NBN deal, which was allegedly overpriced by $130 million to fund kickbacks for certain people, including Ms Arroyo’s husband.

Lozada said Neri gave the presentation at a restaurant at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) in Makati City on Dec. 7, 2007, two months after Neri had testified in the Senate that former Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos Sr. had offered him P200 million to endorse the ZTE proposal to undertake the NBN project, which sought to digitally link government offices nationwide down to the barangay (village) level.

Neri wanted to resign early last year as then director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) after he told Ms Arroyo about Abalos’ bribe offer, according to Lozada.

Moral authority lost

Asked why Neri wanted to resign, Lozada replied: “Because the President has lost all moral authority over him.”

“He was told not to mind Abalos but approve the project anyway. He told the President that the issue could be a hot item in media as it had become controversial. But the President just told him that it was just a gimmick of Joey and his father,” Lozada said.

Joey is Jose de Venecia III, who blew the whistle on the ZTE deal. He headed Amsterdam Holdings Inc., which offered to undertake the project under a build-operate-transfer scheme.

His father, Pangasinan Rep. Jose de Venecia Jr., lost his post as Speaker of the House of Representatives early this month as a result of the fallout from the scandal.

Lozada said he saw Neri texting and calling the President on the phone and it was during this exchange that Neri told him about the President’s order to ensure that the entire cost of the NBN project would be fully covered by a loan from China, which was about to be signed soon.

Agonizing

Lozada said Neri had wanted to resign “right away” after his conversation with the President.

“He was just like me. He was torn between resigning or not. He was agonizing on it because the President had lost all moral authority over him,” Lozada said.

Asked by Lacson if he wanted to appeal to Neri to break away from “the company of what he called an evil person,” Lozada said: “Yes, but I’d rather he (Neri) make that decision. I trust him.”

After being assured by Sen. Francis Pangilinan that his conversations with Neri were not hearsay, Lozada recounted what Neri had told him about the President’s orders.

Patriotic money

Lozada said the AIM meeting was Neri’s idea because he was concerned that he might be kicked out of government if he finally revealed what he knew about the NBN deal.

“Neri was thinking that if he speaks in the Senate [again], he might have nowhere to go and he did not want to beg. And he was trying to ask me to raise patriotic money from those ready to help him have a new source of livelihood after his stint in government. That is why we had a meeting over dinner and I was the one who paid for it and he presented his idea,” Lozada said.

He said he asked his brother, Art, to contact his friend Lacson.

Crooked system

“A Madrigal was there [at the meeting] because of patriotic money,” Lacson said.

In the presentation, Neri gave “the entire view” of corruption in the country and the role oligarchs and government institutions played in propping up the “crooked system,” Lozada said.

He said he was reluctant to name the oligarchs mentioned by Neri in the presentation because he was already facing too many libel cases.

“There are a lot of people angry with me. Even Donald (Dee) is calling me a loose cannon. I think this is too much. I am already exhausting what Mr. Neri could have said,” Lozada said.

Lozada suggested that Lacson refresh him about the meeting. “I can’t add anything more, because I was a mere audience there,” he said.

Razon et al.

But upon prodding by Lacson, Lozada named International Container Terminal Services chair Enrique Razon Jr., Alsons group head Tomas Alcantara, and Chinese-Filipino businessman Lucio Tan.

Madrigal reminded Lozada that Neri also mentioned an Aboitiz, a name the witness confirmed.

“What I told you is not about me. I only heard it directly,” Lozada said. “Neri is a good man, he is against businessmen who burden the country. He is against monopolies like ports, air transport, sea cargo and even smuggling.”

Oligarchs fund politicians

Based on Neri’s presentation, Lozada said the oligarchs were funding the election campaigns of politicians, leaving them no choice but to follow the dictates of the oligarchs. “Which is why most of our laws are blind or are siding with them,” Lozada said.
He said one reason the country was not exploding “no matter how many anomalies” were uncovered was that Filipinos, specifically the middle class, were going abroad instead of getting angry.

“We call it an exhaust valve. The middle class is insulated because their money is not from the government. It comes from overseas,” he said.

The Senate inquiry into allegations of bribery in the deal has prompted renewed calls for Ms Arroyo’s resignation and sparked the biggest protest since 2005, when tens of thousands of people demonstrated against her amid accusations of election fraud.

Lozada said Madrigal had not offered “patriotic money” to him or Neri to convince them to testify on the deal.

“No,” he said when asked by Madrigal if she had given him money to testify at the Senate inquiry into the NBN deal.

Madrigal posed the questions in view of insinuations that she had given “patriotic money” to either Lozada or Neri during their meeting in Makati last December.

Stingy Madrigals

She said nobody would dare approach her because the Madrigals from the Bicol region were known to be “kuripot” (stingy).

“Here at the Senate, they laugh at me because I wear my clothes Monday to Thursday. I can’t buy clothes. I have only two handbags. I don’t change every day. My pair of shoes has holes in them,” she said.

Madrigal asked Lozada why he thought Neri desperately needed financial security if and when he decides to testify on the deal and loses his government job.

“That’s a normal reaction. Neri is a creature of habit. I guess he has developed certain habits in his more than 50 years in life. Maybe, he has to maintain a certain lifestyle,” he said.

At the hearing, Madrigal appealed to Neri to tell everything he knew about the deal.

“Secretary Neri, please come out, and show the Filipino people that you’re not part of the evil of this regime, as you had claimed.”

Burden on Neri

Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II said the burden was on Neri to dispute Lozada’s testimony in the Senate.

“What’s important here is that Secretary Neri has sought refuge from the courts. That is why we in the Senate are aggressively pursuing this case, that the Supreme Court order him to come here and to say exactly what he knows, in the interest of the truth as well as public interest,” Roxas said.

Senate President Manuel Villar believed that Neri would “eventually” appear in the Senate because he has to rebut Lozada’s allegations.

“There might be two other senators in the meeting but we also want to be fair. It’s better to hear it from Neri himself,” he said.