An accidental hero?

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor CEDELF P. TUPAS Sports Editor (On Leave) RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

The nation continues to be gripped by the ongoing saga of Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada Jr., the star witness of the Senate's NBN-ZTE probe who fled to Hong Kong, and returned to the Philippines only to be taken by government men as he stepped out of the airplane from Hong Kong.

The men who took him insist that they were there under Mr. Lozada's behest, something he has consistently denied ever since he resurfaced in La Salle Greenhills after being taken for a long and circuitous ride by his security detail, or abductors, depending on who you ask.

There is his personal knowledge of the scandalous NBN deal, which he shared with the Senate last Friday, implicating several powerful individuals in government and corroborating the testimony of previous witnesses. There is the question of his “abduction”, which the government insists was completely aboveboard even if the man himself insists that during his joyride with strangers, he was taken against his will and he actually feared for his life. Many speculate that if it had not been for the intense media attention that focused on the disappearance of Jun Lozada, he may not be around to testify at all.

Fortunately for the country, Jun Lozada is alive and able to share with the Senate and the country the barefaced corruption that he witnessed as Romulo Neri's consultant during the course of the infamous NBN-ZTE deal. Because of his testimony in the Senate, along with the deadly serious allegations of government-sponsored kidnapping, all the government officials who have repeatedly spurned the Senate's invitations to attend the numerous probes have suddenly made themselves available. Now that everybody seems to be willing to talk, we can only hope that this Senate investigation concludes with not just the whole truth finally coming out, and the proper charges being filed against the guilty parties, but also with the strengthening of laws that will prevent the outright plunder of our nation's coffers and the ease with which cover-ups can be perpetuated by people in power.*