MANILA, Philippines—Malacañang Wednesday expressed relief that a Senate inquiry failed to extract confirmation from its “surprise witness” to alleged payoffs to the First Couple and sparked instead a potential confrontation between Senators Panfilo Lacson and Juan Ponce Enrile.

Other senators were divided in their assessment of Leo San Miguel’s testimony.

In a TV interview, ousted Speaker Jose de Venecia shared the senators’ assessment of the witness.

“I don’t want to dignify whatever he’s saying. He’s an agent of Malacañang, that’s what many of the senators are saying,” said De Venecia, whose businessman son Joey, a failed bidder for the NBN deal, had exposed alleged anomalies in the contract.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita quoted President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as saying “that’s good” when he told her that the Senate hearing on the aborted $329-million National Broadband Network (NBN) deal with China’s ZTE Corp. on Tuesday got nothing from cable TV executive and ZTE consultant Leo San Miguel.

“She was elated,” Ermita said. “As the drama unfolds, let’s hope there is closure to it.”

Enrile dared Lacson to take the hot seat himself and reveal what San Miguel had told Lacson during their meetings before Lacson took San Miguel to the Senate hearing.

Said Enrile: “If I were him, I’d take the witness stand and reveal and disclose what they talked about.”

Lacson said he found Enrile’s challenge “demeaning” and accused Enrile of “parroting Malacañang’s line.”

“I still respect him as a person, but I’d like to caution him that patience has its limits,” Lacson said. He warned that he had a lot to say about Enrile if he wanted to get back at him.

‘Common friend’

A day after the hearing, Lacson was still smarting from the royal rebuff he got from San Miguel. He is now talking of bringing out a “common friend” to get his reluctant “surprise witness” to talk.

For 12 hours on Tuesday, San Miguel fought off attempts to confirm claims that ZTE gave bribes of up to $41 million to the so-called “Greedy Group plus plus” to get the NBN contract.

In exasperation, Lacson scolded San Miguel for “lying all day long” and accused him of having engaged in bribery in the deal to hook up electronically by an Internet broadband the Philippine bureaucracy.

Lacson said he had four meetings with San Miguel prior to his Senate testimony. However, he said his conversations with San Miguel were not taped. The only witness to the meetings was a common friend whom Lacson did not identify but considered bringing to the Senate some time later.

Who’s common friend?

Lacson said it was not retired Philippine National Police Director Quirino de la Torre who, an earlier witness, Dante Madriaga, said was a member of the “Greedy Group plus plus” that he claimed also included Ms Arroyo and her husband, former Election Commission Chair Benjamin Abalos and businessman Ruben Reyes.

San Miguel has known Lacson since the senator was still in the PNP himself. Lacson was a former PNP chief. San Miguel had helped the PNP acquire an Internet service, which De la Torre had once operated. San Miguel later hired De la Torre, a computer expert.

Lacson said that at the proper time, he would ask the common friend to divulge what San Miguel had told him about the NBN deal, which was substantially more than he let on in his Senate appearance.

Contrary to the media buildup to his Senate appearance, San Miguel insisted he was not aware of the alleged bribes or kickback given to the First Couple and Abalos.

San Miguel merely confirmed that he was granted .5-percent success fee of the $329-million contract as ZTE consultant. After being belittled by Sen. Jamby Madrigal as a mere fixer, San Miguel laid down his credentials: His company was the first to introduce the cable Internet which was the country’s first broadband.

Mixed assessment

Sen. Loren Legarda said that while she did not see any reason to doubt San Miguel, she noted that he had held back some information because he felt that this was speculation and not his personal knowledge.

Sen. Richard Gordon said that San Miguel’s testimony bolstered the need for the Senate to compel witnesses to make a full deposition before appearing in a hearing.

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano said that while some called San Miguel’s testimony a dud, “it was a good and productive public hearing overall and his testimony moved forward the investigation.” He said San Miguel confirmed many events, the participation of certain personalities, and gave “a complete picture of how the NBN deal was put together. ”

Cayetano said the committee on accountability of public officials and investigations would resume its NBN probe either on the last week of March or first week of April.

Who believes Malacañang?

Sen. Francis Pangilinan said that it appeared that it was only Malacañang who believed San Miguel’s testimony. But “who believes Malacañang on the issue of ZTE-NBN deal?” he asked.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said that San Miguel was obviously holding back a lot of things that he had previously told Lacson.

“Shortly before the appearance of San Miguel, it was bruited about that a witness would tell us how the money was transferred from ZTE to the so-called ‘Gang of Four’ and how the money got funneled to some other people in high positions in government,” Pimentel said.

“It was obvious he spilled the beans privately to Senator Lacson but would not speak publicly, which is unfortunate,” he said. With a report from Norman Bordadora