Golf, dining nothing to do with ZTE deal, says Abalos

THE “SOCIALIZING, restaurant meetings and golf games” had nothing to do with it, former Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos said, of the purported  wooing by Philippine government officials of Chinese communications executives to obtain a $329-million telecommunications contract during the Arroyo administration.

Moving to have the remaining graft case against him in the Sandiganbayan antigraft court dismissed—after his acquittal in a separate charge in May—Abalos said the deal between the government and ZTE Corp. of China was aboveboard despite the “fantastic tales woven” by whistle-blowers Rodolfo Lozada and Jose de Venecia III.

In an 18-page demurrer to evidence, Abalos asked the court to acquit him and his coaccused in the case, who included former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, her husband and former first gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, and Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza.

Abalos stands accused of graft for allegedly trying to broker the contract with ZTE to link the entire country through a national broadband network using equipment supplied by ZTE.

A demurrer to evidence is a pleading filed by an accused seeking acquittal midway through a trial after the prosecution had presented its evidence. DJ Yap