Category: NBN/ZTE

By Randy David
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Because it is easier to imagine it, corruption has taken center stage in the public’s appreciation of the current national crisis. Against the backdrop of mass poverty, the quantities are truly mind-boggling: $130 million in kickbacks for a government project worth $329 million, a bribe offer of P200 million for a single signature, cash gifts of half a million pesos each for politicians who attend a breakfast or lunch meeting with a President facing impeachment, half a million pesos in pocket money for a government functionary who flies to Hong Kong in order to evade a Senate inquiry, and many more. But it would be a mistake to think this is just about corruption. This is, more importantly, about the long-term damage to a nation’s social institutions.

From GMA-TV News

Update:Gloria Arroyo continues to spin tales. She said the five-month delay in the cancellation of NBN/ZTE deal was because the Chinese government had to be informed properly.

Arroyo says corruption probe will spare no one. (How about herself?) But she also cleared herself and her husband saying no one proftted from the deal.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Saturday said she learned that something was wrong about the Philippine government’s $329.48-million National Broadband Network (NBN) project with China’s Zhong Xing Telecommunications Equipment (ZTE) Corp the night before she witnessed the signing of the NBN-ZTE contract.

Luneta protest moved to Makati

by Regina Bengco

Malacañang yesterday said government would allow its critics to hold a prayer rally on Friday but the justice department would monitor it for seditious statements.

“Hintayin natin ang mangyayari. Hindi namin sila pipigilan,” said chief presidential legal counsel Sergio Apostol.

I.The Godmother: fight the Philippine Mafia – a film showing

May we invite you to cover the “Premiere of the Godmother: Fight the Philippine Mafia”, a press conference and forum exposing the Philippine president and her “mafia” and revealing human rights violations under the present administration on February 22, 2008, Friday, 9:30 AM at the Sta. Ana Room, 3rd Floor, College of Law, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City.

Text going around: “Yesterday, evil. Now, a bitch.”

From ABS-CBN online:

It was may have been a joke but it made its mark nonetheless, especially now that President Arroyo is being besieged by ouster calls amid allegations of corruption in her administration.

On Wednesday, one of the President’s economic advisers referred to her as the “luckiest b*tch around” during a forum attended by businessmen and business leaders.

by Gerard Naval
Malaya

Archbishop Angel Lagdameo yesterday expressed disappointment over the Church’s involvement in ousting Joseph Estrada, a president they perceived to be corrupt, only to replace him with Gloria Arroyo who was tagged the most corrupt president in a recent survey.

“In People Power 1, we were very satisfied with the result,” Lagdameo, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, said when asked if bishops are regretting their participation in Edsa 2.

“The second one, we were somehow disappointed because People Power 2, with the help of the Church, installed a president who later on was judged by surveys as the most corrupt president. That is embarrassing. Yun yung sinasabi ko na parang disappointed… na we went from one frying pan to a worse frying pan,” he said.