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Manila: A witness has told the Senate that President Gloria Arroyo's husband and allies pushed for the approval of a $329-million (Dh1.1 billion) telecommunications contract in 2006 because it would give them $130 million (Dh472.7 million) in payoff.
Rodolfo Lozada, an electronics engineer who was formerly with the team that evaluated the Philippine government's project claimed to have told the "greedy ones" to halve their demand.
"The trouble started in September 2006 when former Commission on Elections Chief Benjamin Abalos came to me to sell the proposal of ZTE Corporation, a private firm that was chosen by China to implement its overseas development project in the Philippines," said an emotional Lozada.
Lozada said it was Abalos who told him, "You have to protect our 130."
Sticking out
He admitted that Abalos did not specifically say if he referred to $130 million.
Lozada reportedly told the former, "That [payoff] would stick out but we might be able to get 65 [million dollars instead]."
Lozada added that Economic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri who headed the government's evaluation team had instructed him (Lozada) to "moderate their [Arroyo's husband and allies] greed".
Neri's team had also approved the project to be funded by China's ODA, and not through the Philippine government's build-operate-transfer (BOT) investment scheme that would have allowed private investors to fund the project.
Lozada said he met ZTE officials, Chinese embassy officials, Mr Arroyo, and Joey de Venecia, son of the former Speaker of the House of Representatives Jose de Venecia, to discuss the project.
Lozada said that ZTE allegedly overpriced the project to accommodate the payoffs that were demanded by Philippine government officials and power brokers.
When asked why he did not last long as a facilitator of the project, Lozada said, "This is not worth risking my life for."
But pro-administration Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago alleged that Lozada was disgruntled because he was also after getting kickback from the project.
Charges
Opposition senators were disappointed when Lozada said he would not press charges against the policemen who secured him after his arrival from Hong Kong at Manila‚s international airport on Tuesday.
"They did not harm me," Lozada reasoned. He admitted that Catholic priests and nuns secured him after policemen released him following a Supreme Court order on Thursday.
The Senate had an arrest warrant for him after he failed to attend an inquiry, which was scheduled last week.
Lozada's testimony reinforced the statement of the young De Venecia, that Abalos and Mr Arroyo were after kickbacks in the government's broadband project. But obsevers said that Lozada was a tainted witness for role as the project's facilitator and for being part of the team that approved the project.
Abalos was ousted from office because he brokered the deal while working as a government official. The older De Venecia was recently ousted as head of the House of Representatives.
Last year, President Arroyo scrapped the project when she went to China, following a Senate inquiry into allegations of bribery and kickbacks.
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