SENATE WILL NOT GIVE UP ITS ROLE
IN CHECKING TAINTED GOVT DEALS

Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today said the Senate will be abdicating its constitutional duty to check wrongdoing in government if it will succumb to pressures to terminate the inquiry into the national broadband network-ZTE deal even if is far from completed. Pimentel disagreed with the view of some of his colleagues that the Senate has spent more than enough time to investigate the broadband controversy and it has gathered sufficient information to warrant the filing of charges erring parties, if any, for the alleged rigging and overpricing of the $329 million contract awarded to China's ZTE Corporation. The alleged anomaly prompted Malacañang to cancel the deal altogether.

"What has transpired so far is the gathering of evidence that can implicate certain people who transacted the ZTE contract. But the evidence linking other personalities to that contract still has to be unearthed," he said.

Pimentel said he was saddened when some senators called for an end to the inquiry because "that's the administration line."

He said there are still certain angles of the botched deal that should be looked into.

He said Commission on Higher Education Chairman Romulo Neri should return to the witness stand to finish his testimony, specifically on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's involvement in the awarding of the NBN project to ZTE to be funded by a Chinese government loan that did not conform with her original position to undertake the project through the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) law.

Pimentel reminded Neri, former director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), that he had promised to come back after he requested to be excused during an executive session on Sept. 26 because he was not feeling well.

He said he also wanted Evelyn Silagon to be summoned by the investigating panels to answer allegations that she was fronting for Benjamin Abalos for business transactions he was involved in during his stint as Chairman of the Commission on Elections.

Pimentel said he was interested not in the alleged extra-marital affairs between Abalos and Silagon but in their "economic relationship."

"I don't want to prejudge Silagon but I want to find out if there is truth to the report that they have had business tie-ups," he said.

Abalos was forced to resign as Comelec head in the aftermath of the allegation of businessman Jose de Venecia, III majority owner of losing bidder Amsterdams Holding Inc., that the former tried to bribe him so that he would no longer pursue the awarding of the NBN project to his company. If the Senate inquiry into the NBN-ZTE deal is abruptly stopped, Pimentel said the involvement of other personalities in the tainted transaction will remain a secret.

"That perhaps is the reason why they are trying to prevent us from pursuing the investigation. And I disagree with that," the minority leader said.

"What we do not want to happen is that the probe does not end with the culpability of Ben Abalos. And Ben Abalos is a good sacrificial lamb. But we have to find out who sacrificed him and for what purpose."