MANILA, Philippines -- President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's admission she allowed the signing of the $329-million broadband deal with a Chinese firm despite knowing it was attended by corruption is a basis for filing another impeachment complaint against her, Senate President Manuel Villar said Sunday.

"If she signed it, then it's a ground for impeachment. That is wrong. Graft is an impeachable crime," said Villar, who was the Speaker who transmitted to the Senate the articles of impeachment against then President Joseph Estrada on Nov. 13, 2000, for trial.

Ms Arroyo has survived three impeachment bids and at least three attempted coups in her seven years in power.

Villar said the earliest that an impeachment complaint could be filed against the President would be in July, or 12 months after a weak impeachment complaint was filed against her to shield her from a stronger one last year.

In a radio interview on Saturday, Ms Arroyo said she was made aware in April last year of possible corruption in the National Broadband Network (NBN) deal with ZTE Corp.

She said she was told about possible irregularities the night before she attended the signing ceremony in Hainan, China.

"How can you cancel the night before when you are negotiating with a foreign country?" Ms Arroyo said. "The signing proceeded, but at the first opportunity, I spoke with the president of China to tell him that we have to cancel the project."

Seizing on her admission, an opposition senator called for an inquiry into the President's role in the corruption scandal.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said he would urge the Senate committees investigating allegations of corruption in the ZTE deal to look into Ms Arroyo's statements and assess whether she violated anti-graft laws.

"What GMA (the President) did or did not do after she learned that something was wrong with the ZTE-NBN deal on the eve of its signing is the smoking gun that links her to the scandal," Pimentel said.

Ms Arroyo scrapped the deal on Oct. 2, 2007, after Jose "Joey" de Venecia III, head of a firm which failed to get the NBN deal, testified in a Senate probe that the then elections chief and the President's husband had ordered him to abandon his bid for the project.

De Venecia said the deal was overpriced by $130 million to fund kickbacks to government officials. (The NBN project sought to digitally link government offices nationwide down to the barangay level.)

Then Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos Sr. was forced to resign after Romulo Neri testified in the Senate that Abalos had offered him P200 million to endorse the ZTE project proposal as the then director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA). Both Abalos and the President's husband deny any wrongdoing.

The scandal was revived earlier this month when Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr., a former government consultant to the NBN project, reiterated the kickback allegations. His testimony has galvanized opposition groups who, along with some Catholic bishops, students and members of the business community, have renewed calls for Ms Arroyo's resignation.

She defended her husband on Sunday. "My family is not engaged in any business in government. It's not acceptable and we know that," she said in a speech after Mass in Malacañang.

Aversion to corruption

Ms Arroyo reiterated that she shared the people's aversion to corruption. She said she swiftly moved to cancel the deal "the moment I learned there was the slightest suspicion of anomaly" in the project.

"We just waited to properly advise the Chinese government about the cancellation of the NBN project," she said.

The President said that like the people she, too, was giving much weight and importance to the NBN issue. "I assure our countrymen that those found guilty here will be punished," she said.

Pimentel said Ms Arroyo's "belated defense was weak and only betrayed her poor sense of judgment and responsibility in preventing irregularities in government projects."

The President has to explain why she agreed to the financing of the NBN project through a loan from China, a deviation from her original position to implement the project through a build-operate-transfer scheme, he said.

Sen. Manuel Roxas II said Ms Arroyo's latest mea culpa echoed her "I am sorry" speech at the height of the "Hello Garci" tape controversy in 2005, which the opposition said proved she stole the 2004 presidential election.

"How can we believe in the sincerity and motives of the President to set things right in the face of Executive Order No. 464, the Lozada abduction and harassment clearly intended to impede truth and justice," said Roxas.

EO 464 bars Cabinet secretaries and other officials of the executive branch from testifying in Congress without the President's permission.

Malacañang's direct hand

Sen. Francis Pangilinan noted that the President turned around and declared that the NBN deal was attended by irregularities five months after declaring that there was no hard evidence for junking the deal.

"If its investigation in September found nothing was wrong, was Malacañang lying then? If the President is saying she found out that there were irregularities only on the eve of the signing, is she lying now? The contradictions are glaring and they suggest that Malacañang had a direct hand in entering into the anomalous deal," Pangilinan said.

In an interview aired over dzBB radio, Villar shot down the President's excuse that it was too late to renege on the deal and that it would be a huge embarrassment for the country.

"She could have made up an excuse that she was sick and the other party would have understood. There is no need to sign something that is clearly illegal so as not to lose face. That's too much for just saving face," he said.

Villar said Ms Arroyo should have opted not to sign the contract because ZTE was not China. "It's just one company, one transaction" and it was more important for the President to protect the interest of Filipinos, Villar said.

"It would have been more acceptable if she waited only two weeks to cancel the deal, but she waited five months before suspending it and only after Joey de Venecia and Secretary Neri had come out to bare the bribes involved in the deal," he added.

Villar wondered why the President would own up to a patently illegal act after going through a grand cover-up using practically all the resources of the government just to keep the details of the NBN-ZTE deal away from the public eye.

Panic

He said Ms Arroyo might have "panicked" into admitting to the deal's flaws just to solve the problem, which has become worse because of the conflicting statements issued by her people to save the deal.

"It's a gamble just like her 'I-am-sorry' speech, but I'm not sure if it will pay off. Her credibility has become even worse after that. In her case, most of the people already believe that the charges of corruption in ZTE are true even before her admission," Villar said.

He reckoned that the President made the admission to address public opinion rather than her legal troubles.

"She is more worried about the outrage against her on ZTE and the Lozada kidnapping. She felt this could soften the people's view on her when she asked for forgiveness," said Villar.

Implicating herself

In the House of Representatives, Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teodoro Casiño Jr. said that by admitting that anomalies had attended the NBN deal but still went ahead with it, Ms Arroyo implicated herself more in the corruption scandal.

"She kept silent and never ordered an investigation despite knowing about the anomalies. That's a violation of her constitutional duty to uphold the rule of law," he said in a phone interview.

He added: "We can't wait until the impeachment. People will have to look for other options, and this is ouster via people power."

Ms Arroyo's allies in the House, including Speaker Prospero Nograles, defended her from insinuations she implicated herself more in the deal. "How can she be implicated when she canceled the deal?" Nograles said in a text message.

To prove she's serious in rooting out corruption, Cibac party-list Rep. Joel Villanueva suggested that Ms Arroyo go on leave, and ask all her Cabinet men to tell all at an ongoing Senate inquiry into the deal. With a report from Reuters