Now, Palace says P.5M from ‘private source’
By Michael Lim Ubac
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:14:00 02/21/2008
MANILA, Philippines - The P500,000 cash given by Deputy Executive Secretary Manuel Gaite to Rodolfo Lozada Jr. before the latter testified at the Senate on the scrapped broadband deal came from a “private source,” Malacañang said yesterday.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita made the statement a day after Gaite said the P500,000 came from his own pocket.
“He (Gaite) produced the amount, but it does not necessarily mean that it came from his pocket,” Ermita said at his regular press conference.
Ermita said Gaite, the head of the Office of the Executive Secretary’s legal department, would be able to explain how he was able to pool the P500,000. But Ermita left to his subordinate the burden of filling up the missing details.
Pressed to divulge the private donor in an ambush interview, Ermita said: “I cannot tell that to you. As I told you, he (Gaite) is willing to divulge that at the proper time, at the proper forum.”
Ermita said there was an “ongoing legal process” and he was not in a position to expound on the issue.
“But he’s not saying that it came from his own pocket,” Ermita said. “Don’t force me to say it. You might succeed.”
Gaite statement
Gaite refused on Tuesday to face the media but issued a statement in which he portrayed himself as the proverbial Good Samaritan who lent a hand to Lozada, only to discover later that the man had turned against him.
Pressed to face hearing
“Being our senior legal officer, he [Gaite] can very well take care of himself. If he is called to the hearing, he will attend the hearing. He is prepared to face the hearing,” the executive secretary said.
The Senate, which will resume its hearing next week on the scrapped $329-million National Broadband Network (NBN) deal with China’s ZTE Corp., is expected to summon Gaite and other people mentioned by Lozada at the hearing on Monday.
Sealed envelope
Lozada turned over the sealed envelope containing the P500,000 to the Senate blue ribbon committee during Monday’s hearing.
He testified that the price of the NBN deal ballooned because of the $130 million in kickbacks demanded by Benjamin Abalos Sr., chair of the Commission on Elections when the NBN project was under review by the National Economic and Development Authority.
He also linked the husband of President Macapagal-Arroyo to the deal.
Lozada, who had an arrest warrant then from the Senate for refusing to attend its hearing, claimed that he was sent to Hong Kong by Malacañang on Jan. 30 so he could not testify in the Senate. He stayed there for about a week.
At the time, Lozada was the CEO of Philippine Forest Corp., an attached agency of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Credit card
Lozada said he told Gaite when he was in Hong Kong that he was running out of funds and was using his credit card for his expenses.
He said Gaite gave his brother P500,000 at the Shangari-La mall. But Lozada did not get the money until he returned.
As the most senior deputy executive secretary, Gaite earns a salary of about P40,000 a month, excluding allowances.
Not true
Gaite said that Lozada had sent him a text message on Feb. 3, saying, “it was so cold where he was (which I assumed was London), with not even proper winter clothing and running out of funds.”
But Gaite said he was surprised when he learned that Lozada was coming home on Feb. 5. “Did he really need the money or was he just baiting me?” Gaite asked.
“It is not true, as claimed by Lozada, that the money I gave him through his brother was meant to prevent him from appearing in the Senate hearing nor make him tell a lie if he appears in the hearing,” he said.
Gaite said it was his own money, which “I considered he has to account for when he comes back from London.” His statement included what appeared to be a photocopied receipt signed by Owe Lozada for the P500,000.
Twisted
Gaite described as “unfortunate” that all his efforts to help Lozada “have been twisted by him or made to appear as part of a scheme to prevent him from testifying in the Senate hearing on the NBN/ZTE project.”
Asked if Lozada was merely “baiting” Malacañang when he asked for the money from Gaite, Ermita said: “First, he did not say that he was paid by the Palace. Second, if he said that, he only wanted to—as you said—bait (Malacañang).”
“In the end, I suppose the owner of that fund has a right to claim that,” Ermita said, adding that it was sufficient for the moment to state that the money did not come from government coffers.
Ermita said Gaite and Environment Secretary Lito Atienza had “felt bad” because it appeared that the two officials were just taken for a ride by Lozada.
Out of goodness
Ermita said Gaite and Atienza were merely extending help to Lozada out of the “goodness of their hearts.”
“Imagine, (Lozada) complained that he was so cold in London as if he were in a freezer, with no money, only for them to discover that he was in Hong Kong all along?” Ermita said.
“Think, why didn’t he go to London? Did he ever go to London?” Ermita asked, pointing out that Lozada had the ticket and the visa to fly to England.
Ermita said Lozada should answer if the conference he was supposed to attend indeed took place. The Inquirer earlier reported that Lozada had left for London to attend a conference on biofuels.
No British visa
Lozada later testified in the Senate that he had no British visa and could not go to London.
Upon his return to Manila from Hong Kong on Feb. 5, police personnel and possibly Presidential Security Guards grabbed Lozada and took him for a ride to Laguna against his will.
Lozada was turned over to his family at the La Salle Green Hills in Mandaluyong City after his wife told the media that her husband had been abducted.
Surrounded by nuns, La Salle brothers, a bishop and other supporters, Lozada called a press conference on Feb. 7 and revealed the corruption that attended the NBN deal and the threats to his life.
|
