Pangasinan readies red carpet for Lozada
By Gabriel Cardinoza
Northern Luzon Bureau
First Posted 04:06:00 04/01/2008
Filed Under: NBN deal, Regional authorities
DAGUPAN CITY – The Catholic archdiocese here is preparing a red carpet welcome for NBN-ZTE deal whistleblower Rodolfo Lozada Jr. when he visits Pangasinan on April 4.
“The poor fellow was offended when he went to Cebu and I understand that it was a Sunday and they could not even have a Mass for Sunday, except at night yata. I’ll try to make up for that,” Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz said.
This will be Lozada’s first visit to Pangasinan, the home province of President Macapagal-Arroyo’s late mother, since he started his tour of Metro Manila and provincial campuses to tell his story of corruption in the government’s National Broadband Network deal with China’s ZTE Corp.
Cruz said he has issued a circular, which was read in Masses in all churches and chapels on Saturday and Sunday, inviting churchgoers to attend the “Mass for Truth, Justice and Peace,” at the Dagupan City astrodome here at 2 p.m. this Friday.
Lozada will speak in a forum after the Mass. Integrated Bar of the Philippines national president Feliciano Bautista and Black and White Movement’s Leah Navarro were also expected to attend.
Cruz said Pangasinan Rep. Jose de Venecia Jr., who is from this city, could not attend the event because he would be out of the country by then.
“The man (Lozada) has good intentions. Up to now, I still believe in him. And I think he tells the truth so I invited him formally to come to Pangasinan and have a forum here,” Cruz said.
He said he expected religious organizations and young people from the archdiocese’s 26 parishes to attend.
“The young people are the stakeholders here. If we leave [behind] a more honest and more truthful Philippines, they will be the one to enjoy it. But if we leave behind a country that is rotten and corrupt, they will also inherit that,” said Cruz, a former president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.
But he appealed in his circular to those attending not to bring children.
Church-based organizers of an anti-Arroyo rally here last month were criticized because about 90 percent of those who attended were elementary and high school students of Catholic schools from the archdiocese.
“Ako man, hindi ko gusto iyon (If you ask me, I also did not want that to happen). Let the children play,” Cruz said.
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