Pinoy VOTE

MANILA, Philippines -- Businessman Jose “Joey” De Venecia III Thursday accused President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of being the force behind China’s ZTE Corp. bagging the $329-million contract for the National Broadband Network (NBN) project, with her husband, brother and cronies led by businessman Enrique Razon Jr. collaborating to seal the deal.

At the resumption of the Senate probe of the ZTE deal, De Venecia also claimed that:

• Ms Arroyo wondered why Romulo Neri, then director general of the National Economic and Development Authority, did not accept early this year the P200-million bribe offered by then Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos Sr. in exchange for his endorsement of the ZTE proposal.

• Ms Arroyo’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, would get $70 million in commission from the ZTE-NBN deal.

• Luis Virata Jr., Nickel Asia majority owner, and Endika Aboitiz, Aboitiz Transport System CEO, had been brokering a peace pact between the President and Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. in the past few weeks.

• Razon and Diosdado “Buboy” Macapagal Jr., the President’s brother and ATR-Kim Eng Capital Partners managing director, had given him advice on his NBN proposal.

Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II was taken aback by De Venecia’s revelations. “He (De Venecia) was not just content with bringing a few people down. He wanted to burn the whole house down. He was not content with using just a gun. He used a machine gun,” Roxas said.

De Venecia said that based on the account of Neri, he knew about the latter’s conversation with the President in which the then NEDA director general told her about the bribe offer even before Neri testified in the Senate on Sept. 26.

Disappointed

De Venecia said he was disappointed that Neri did not tell the whole truth about what he and Ms Arroyo had talked about.

De Venecia then recalled what Neri had said about his conversation with the President. “If I remember it went like this. When Secretary Neri told the President that Abalos had offered him P200 million, the President responded, “Bakit di mo tinanggap? (Why didn’t you take it?)”

(De Venecia has accused Abalos of brokering the ZTE deal in exchange for a commission. Abalos denied the allegation and resigned as Comelec chair on Oct. 1.)

“Secretary Neri’s response to that was, ‘Ma’am, hindi po ako ganong klaseng tao.’ (Ma’am, I’m not that kind of person.) It was only at this point that the President said that ‘Huwag mo nang tanggapin pero i-approve mo ang project (Don’t accept it, but approve the project),” Neri told the Senate committees looking into the ZTE deal.

(Neri invoked executive privilege on Sept. 26 when the senators pressed him during his Senate appearance on what the President had instructed him to do about the ZTE deal after she was told of the bribe offer.)

De Venecia claimed that Neri had told the same story about his conversation with the President to columnist Jarius Bondoc, San Juan Rep. Ronaldo Zamora and TV news anchor Ricky Carandang.

Imagining things

Contradicting De Venecia’s allegation, Neri insisted that the President had discouraged him from accepting the bribe offered by Abalos.

“Totally untrue. She (President Arroyo) told me not to accept it,” said Neri, now head of the Commission on Higher Education.

“I stand by what I said in the Senate. Joey is imagining things or remembers things as to what he wished would have happened,” Neri said in a text message from Hong Kong.

Interviewed over radio dzMM, Neri said he was “shocked” by De Venecia III’s latest statements.

President confirms bribe offer

In a talk with reporters in New Delhi on Oct. 5, the President candidly admitted that she was indeed informed by Neri of the bribe offer. “Yah, I can confirm that,” she said.

But she told Neri to reject the offer. “Of course, I told him not to accept it,” she said. The President did not elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the bribery.

In his testimony, De Venecia insisted that “(Neri) was scared to talk because of what he had told me for the last week and a half and I know for a fact he is living under duress.”

Neri said that he “can move around freely” and that he “can talk to anybody I want.”

De Venecia said he sought Razon upon the advice of his friend, Buboy, to help him in clarifying “what the government processes are and whether a BOT proposal that I had was still appropriate.”

De Venecia’s firm, Amsterdam Holdings, Inc. (AHI), submitted an unsolicited proposal to undertake the NBN project on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme.

But an unsolicited proposal for a priority project was against the BOT law.

Wack Wack encounter

De Venecia said he called Razon to explain his dilemma and told him that Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza was arranging a reconciliation meeting between him (De Venecia) and Abalos at the Wack Wack Golf and Country Club in Mandaluyong City.

“He (Razon) told me to please call him immediately after that meeting so we could discuss what transpired so that he may shed some light on it or even explain,” De Venecia said.

He was referring to the meeting in which he was told by the President’s husband to “back off” from the deal.

After the meeting, De Venecia said he went to Razon’s office at the Manila port where he related the incident with Arroyo.

De Venecia said he was surprised by Razon’s reaction.

“Ricky Razon then said, “P... ina kasi yang Abalos na yan. Sinabi pa niya kay Mike na mayroon siyang $70 million dito. Hindi ito makalimutan ni Mike (Abalos told Mike that he would get $70 million. Mike could not forget this),” De Venecia quoted Razon as saying.

Payoff jacked up contract

De Venecia said the alleged $70-million payoff to the President’s husband jacked up the ZTE contract from $262 million to $329 million.

De Venecia said Razon “reacted negatively to what happened to me and the First Gentleman at Wack Wack and he felt that it was very inappropriate.”

“He had hoped the reconciliatory meeting would state the positions of each party but that didn’t happen. Razon got angry. He was hoping this whole issue of AHI and the Abalos group could be decided. I did meet Razon again two to three days after at the Manila Golf Club. He said the group of Abalos and ZTE will do the project on their own. At least now I know, at least I could pursue my BOT,” De Venecia said.

Speaker and President meet

At the hearing, De Venecia also said that over the past few weeks, Razon and other cronies of Ms Arroyo tried to talk him out of testifying in the Senate and to patch up things between her and his father, House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr.

“Prior to the first Senate hearing, I got multiple calls from Ricky Razon the night before the first hearing. My father told me a few days ago, he was invited through the kindness of Buboy Virata to meet with Endika Aboitiz. Aboitiz said the Palace wanted a ceasefire between them and the De Venecias.

“My father asked ‘What do you mean?’ Endika said the first thing you have to do is “rendahan” (rein in) Jarius Bondoc ... former Congressman (Rolex) Suplico ... and Joey. My father related to me that in exchange for those requests Razon will stop attacking me and others who are involved in revealing onerous parts of the NBN-ZTE controversy,” said the younger De Venecia.

The Speaker declined Aboitiz’s request, saying that he had no control over Bondoc who had hit him when he ran for president in 1998, that Suplico was from the opposition, and that his son had a mind of his own, according to the younger De Venecia.

Screamed at

The businessman claimed that another meeting took place the following day at Aboitiz’s home in San Lorenzo Village in Makati where his father claimed the President “screamed at him.”

When the Speaker took his leave, the President allegedly called out and told him to stay. “He (the Speaker) went back and sat again but nothing conclusive was reached,” said the younger De Venecia.

Asked by Sen. Jamby Madrigal why he did not come out with these information in his affidavit or in his previous appearances at the Senate hearing, De Venecia said he initially felt that what Razon and Neri had told him were “hearsay.”

But the technical working group of the blue ribbon committee convinced him “that I have to say what all I know, because this is also in aid of legislation.”

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, chair of the blue ribbon committee, said that the senators viewed De Venecia’s statements based on other people’s testimony as hearsay.

“As a rule the more names you mention, the easier it is to prove you are lying or to prove you are telling the truth. There are more loose ends,” Cayetano said.

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