Reporter

THE conflicting statements of President Arroyo and her aides on the botched national broadband project only served to reinforce the suspicions that contract was tainted with fraud which they are trying to cover up, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said on Thursday.

In a statement, Pimentel pointed out that Malacañang was “deceiving the public” by first denying media reports that the President admitted that she was told that the $329-million ZTE-national broadband network (NBN) contract was flawed on the eve of its signing, only to retract this statement later.

“GMA’s contradictory statements prove the truism that lying is difficult to sustain,” he said. “She and her lackeys are now entangled in webs of deception. The more they lie, the more the noose of truth tightens around her neck.”

He recalled that Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita earlier acknowledged that the President, in a radio interview on Saturday, used the word “anomaly” to describe the ZTE-NBN deal.

But this ran counter to a subsequent statement of Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye, claiming that the President did not say that the deal was flawed.

In a radio interview, the President volunteered the information that on the eve of her trip to Boao, Fujian, China, on April 21, 2007, a person she did not identify informed her about the alleged anomaly in the ZTE-NBN deal. But the President said she desisted from canceling the deal right away because she did not wish to offend China.

“Kaya itong proyektong ito, oras na may pag-uusap na may anomalya, ay agad-agad kong kinansela, agad-agad na gumawa ako ng hakbang para kanselahin,” Pimentel quoted Arroyo as saying in the same radio interview.

This developed as Senate President Manuel Villar Jr. assured that walk-in witness Dante Madriaga, who testified that President Arroyo and her husband were part of the “Greedy Group plus plus” that shared the alleged $41-million advance kickback for the aborted deal, will be given safe haven in the Senate.

“There will be room in the inn,” Villar said after directing to the investigating committees and the Senate Sergeant at Arms to make security arrangements for Madriaga and his family.

Terrorists threaten to disrupt Friday rally

THE military warned on Thursday against the possibility of terrorist groups’ sowing violence during Friday’s expected rally of anti-Arroyo groups in Makati City.

SENATE investigators are tapping Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) to follow the money trail of the alleged $41-million kickbacks advanced in three tranches by China’s Zhong Xing Telecommunications Equipment Co. Ltd. to Arroyo administration officials and cronies for the aborted $329- million national broadband network (NBN) deal.

THE conflicting statements of President Arroyo and her aides on the botched national broadband project only served to reinforce the suspicions that contract was tainted with fraud which they are trying to cover up, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said on Thursday.

THE Delegation of the European Commission (EC) in the Philippines has set out indicative priorities in the country for the next four years under the €61-million (P3.66 billion) development cooperation programs focusing on sustainable reduction of poverty.

MRS. EDITHA BURGOS on Thursday presented before the Court of Appeals (CA), which is hearing her petition for writ of amparo, a confidential report of the Philippine Army (PA) showing that her son Jonas, a suspected member of the communist New People’s Army (NPA), “has been neutralized.”

ZAMBOANGA CITY—Armed Forces Western Mindanao Command (Wesmincom) investigators have absolved the soldiers accused of killing eight people in a coastal village of Sulu on February 4, a military official disclosed.

ZAMBOANGA CITY—The Army commander, Lt. Gen. Alexander Yano, said the investigation for alleged corruption of a senior military official will be completed in a few days.