A tragi-comic Senate show

Was it a comedy of errors? It would seem like that, if you listen to the declarations of government men, generals, colonels and cabinet members among them, trying to quash down the testimony of Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr., a.k.a. J Lo, before the Senate committees yesterday. Despite the fact that the Senate show lasted for almost ten hours, its audience didn't seem to tire of it, and some even watched again the portions replayed in the night's news programs.

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There really was something comical about it all. There's this guy who knows too much about a government deal involving billions and the fact that he does became known to some people. Naturally, those avidly peering into the circumstances behind the scandalous NBN transaction with the Chinese firm ZTE, geared up to bring him before the Blue Ribbon Committee, to make him reveal what he knows that would confirm what they were trying to prove against the officials involved.

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Now, this Jun Lozada (not the Jun Lozada of our 5 th District whose first name is Apolinario), like his friend Romy Neri, formerly of the National Economic Development Authority, or NEDA, but who was shunted off to the Commission on Higher Education for unclear reasons, happens to be one official who has a limit to how much can go to so-called commissions. The two of them seem to be naïve enough to believe that there is a cap to the greed of some people, especially those in high offices.

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That was why Neri, when he was being baited by another high official with a P200 million share if he acts like a good boy and recommends the approval of the NBN-ZTE broadband deal, innocently told his boss, the President no less, about it. As he narrated later, she told him not to accept it, but to approve the transaction, anyway. In the case of Jun Lozada, he also discussed the matter with his friend Neri, who, he was later to say, asked him only to “moderate the greed”. Whose greed, I think your guess is as good as mine.

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That was why the Senate was so anxious to get hold of Lozada who seemed to be playing a cat-and-mouse game with them. When they issued a warrant to fetch him, he flew off to Hongkong, although the announcement was that he went to London . As he admitted later, he agreed to leave on an ante-dated order and on a false mission, because he was afraid of being grilled in the Senate as he would not be able to tell a lie.

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It was when he flew back to RP soil that his travails started. Right at the tube, as he was deplaning, he was accosted by four men, one of whom appropriated his bag and his passport and swept him through a special passage to a waiting vehicle. From there he was taken on a long, long trip that ended only when, as his abductors said “The media was getting hot”. The rest of that story is well known by now, but what was quite comic was the revelation by the police officers during the Senate hearing yesterday, that what Lozada and his family called abduction, they had only done for his protection! In fact all of them, Gen. Avelino Razon, Ret. Gen. Angel Atutubo, Col. Mascareña, and the rest, seemed resentful that they had been suspected of kidnapping inspite of their good intentions.

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I heard a very familiar name during the hearing, and sure enough the lawyer involved was THE Antonio Bautista whose name is known to DAILY STAR readers for featuring in at least one headline story about some shenanigan he had been involved in as a law professor. Obviously Sen. Ping Lacson knew about it because he asked Bautista why he was no longer teaching at Ateneo, and if he had been charged with sexual molestation of a student. The lawyer look startled, but tried to brush it off, saying it was only libel filed against him. But we know better, and, if Sen Lacson and the others want to know more, they should contact former Judge Harriet Demetrieu, who can tell them all. In fact the DAILY STAR had published a one-page apology from Bautista, as part of the conclusion of that case. Tsk, tsk.

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Again it was clear that Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Joker Arroyo and Miriam Santiago were not only unbelieving but actually disdainful of Jun Lozada's story. Santiago already had documents tending to besmirch Lozada's reputation, but it seemed he disarmed her by admitting to whatever sins she named. At this point, what we can say is, like in the telenovela: Abangan ang susunod na kabanata.*

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