In Defense Of Lies
Lies, and more lies. Gloria Arroyo has no more logical defense against the fact that she is involved in The scrapped $329 million National Broadband Network (NBN) Deal. The lies have succumbed to more lies, and the viewing public is once again given a bunch of irreconcilable excuses for which no amount of logical defense can be made. The truth has been squeezed out of the hands of the corrupt, and it is because of these terrible blunders of lies, that we can finally get some inkling of truth to come out.
So she knew, but she signed in hopes that it would get canceled. Lies.
To save face she signed, but would later cancel. More lies.
She knew, but had everyone of her cabinet officials deny any irregularities. The deal was scrapped, but according to them because of political pressure. More lies.
She knew the night before the signing, but Neri had told her of the bribe offer of P200 million even way before the signing. More lies.
New comment from the Administration, she never said the deal was flawed. I guess what Gloria said was not what she meant. More lies.
Arroyo caught in Web of Own Lies:
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was finally forced to admit that she knew as early as last April that the ZTE national broadband network (NBN) contract was anomalous. (My column last Monday, which asked if she knew, was written on Saturday. She made her admission last Sunday.) She said in a radio interview she “moved swiftly” to cancel the deal “the moment I learned there was the slightest suspicion of anomaly” in the project.
“Moved swiftly”? “The moment” she learned? It was five months later, on Oct. 2, 2007, that she scrapped the deal, and only after the stink became unbearable when Joey de Venecia III testified in the Senate and exposed the bribe offer to him and the involvement of her husband Mike Arroyo, and Commission on Higher Education Chair Romulo Neri revealed that he was offered a P200-million bribe. That’s “moving swiftly” “the moment” she learned?
Despite her admission, I think the President is still not telling everything. She did not say that she did not cancel the deal immediately because she was still hoping it would go through. Sayang naman ang $70 million commission that her hubby was promised. At that time, that was worth P3.5 billion (that’s billion!), enough to retire on in comfort in Monte Carlo or on a Caribbean island when she is out of power here. In fact, that must have been the reason she took pains to go to China — to show that she was behind the deal so it would push through.
That is why she used all her subordinates and allies to justify the deal and deny that there was any irregularity. That is why she officially declared in September last year that “after an investigation” they found “no hard evidence for junking the deal.” That is why she prevented her Cabinet secretaries, through Executive Order 464, from testifying in the Senate. That is why she used all the President’s men to abduct Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr., threaten him, force him to sign false affidavits and try to bribe him to prevent him from testifying in the Senate.
Over the long weekend, the President personally said she was made aware of possible anomalies in the ZTE national broadband network (NBN) contract on the eve of the contract’s signing. She then claimed that she proceeded to move to rescind the deal, after smoothening whatever feathers might be ruffled on China’s part.
Immediately, people saw the flaws in the President’s “admission.” As veteran journalist Inday Espina-Varona put it, the President’s disclosure required full disclosure and good faith, but her weekend remarks were characterized by neither. She did not find out about the anomalies the night before.
“That is a lie. That is not even a half-truth. It is an outright lie,” Espina-Varona wrote in her blog last Sunday. “Anyone who has followed the Senate inquiry into the ZTE scandal knows that her former economic secretary … Romulo Neri, claimed to have told her long before the contract signing of the P200-million bribe offer from then Commission on Election Chair Benjamin Abalos. Neri also told the Senate inquiry that Ms Arroyo brushed off his report, telling him not to accept but to approve the project. It was also clear that Neri — and Finance Secretary Margarito Teves — had vehemently opposed the deal, because it veered away from Ms Arroyo’s directive to focus on build-operate-transfer projects and spare the government having to offer guarantees.”
Not to mention the flimsiness of the President’s excuse that while she made up her mind, immediately, rescinding the deal took five months, and it was blamed on her critics and not on any flaws in the deal.
Indeed, all official statements revolved around the stubborn insistence of the President’s alter egos, in her Cabinet and down the line the bureaucracy, that they had investigated the deal and found the charges baseless. Although as Espina-Varona noted, no one could recall, when asked, if they’d ever actually been asked about the deal. In other words, a ghost investigation, leading to a ghostly substitute for real findings, was what took place. And let no one forget the Palace’s stubborn insistence, until Saturday, that the deal was a casualty of “political noise” and nothing more.
Not to mention the insistence, until last Saturday, that the deal was sound and everyone implicated in it was blameless, too.
We are getting the timeline of lies here. Months before the signing she was told of bribery involving the deal, but apparently she heard about it but she did not know. She was told by Neri, but her brain did not register it, thus she did not know. It’s called Presidential selective amnesia (PSA) or Presidential Selective Deafness (PSD).
Next, she finally knew of irregularities the day before the signing.
Next, she signed the contract for the anomalous NBN deal anyway.
The next five months would then be littered with statements from her own Administration that the deal is above board and that there are no anomalies in the deal.
Next, Joey and Neri testify, the deal is scrapped, investigations by the Administration “prove” there was no irregularity.
The next months leading up to last Saturday, the NBN deal was still above board.
Saturday. Gloria drops a bombshell on herself. She knew. She knew of the irregularities.
IRRECONCILABLE LIES. All of them. And these are the kind of lies that are just too indefensible. And of course, these are the kind of lies that are impeachable. Impeachment complaint anyone? Lozano, sit down!
tags: arroyo administration, gloria macapagal arroyo, nbn deal
