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What
started out as a righteous, albeit indignant, Senate
inquiry into high-level corruption within the
sacrosanct, though sanctimonious, corridors of the
Executive has, by deliberate design, degenerated into
the absurd.
The
insidious plan to turn the last bastion of democracy
into a carnival is ingenuous and its purpose, though not
immediately apparent, has been achieved.
For one,
false messengers flourish. Simply introduce
uncorroborated testimony and the process of the Senate’s
search for the truth behind the broadband scandal
falters. For convenience, poke around and rummage
through the scum-infested gutter along the northern
banks of the Pasig where these proliferate.
For Sen.
Mar Roxas, chairman of the Senate Committee on Trade,
and Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, chairman of the Senate
Committee on Defense, it is easy enough to steer clear
of unsubstantiated political testimony as the objectives
of both are neither inherently partisan nor the kind
that falls prey to rabid bloodlust.
Unfortunately, the blue-ribbon committee, under Sen.
Alan Peter Cayetano, is more vulnerable, gullible, even,
and prone to being suckered in.
Imbued
with broader investigatory powers that need not lead to
legislation and, by nature, unhampered by the limited
parameters that confine Roxas’s and Biazon’s, it can
fall victim to dubious deposition.
Evil
prevails not because of its merits but because it is
devious. That, of the three committee chairmen, Cayetano
appears to be the most accommodating exposes his
committee to counterfeit witnesses. Worse, the committee
often inherently deals with crooks and, thus, like a
crusty cliché, it invites all sorts and sundry as
resource persons. After all, it takes one to catch one.
When
righteous, albeit incendiary, indignation spreads like
wildfire throughout the country, the issues rightfully
go beyond the national- broadband controversy. They
resurrect past sins, accumulate and spread them like an
epidemic, and like putrid methane from continuous
discharges unable to seep out, they build up. In the
resulting horror, diligence takes a back seat and the
boilerplate comes close to exploding. Reckless panic
results.
Like
pestilence, the motley join cockroaches crawling out of
rotting woodwork, stirred by constant reverberations,
seeking putrid diets and attracted by the stench of the
Pasig and its denizens.
The
recent absurdity in the Senate can best be appreciated
by the stark discrepancy between flimsy testimonies
against their impact on a public already victimized by
the constantly refrained bogusness of economic
development. Cheap testimonies versus the high cost of
losing critical business partnerships are the tradeoff
that now challenges us.
Arguing
from outside a three-ringed circus but fully exposing
its cost breakdowns to responsible agencies, Zhong Xing
Telecommunications Equipment Co. Ltd. (ZTE)
was hurting. According to Zhang Shuming, ZTE director
for global sales management, in August 2006, they
submitted to the Commission on Information and
Communications Technology a proposal costing $262
million. Asked by the government to scale up technology
and network coverage, ZTE revised and submitted a
$329-million proposal in February 2007.
On
September 20, 2007, based on separate certiorari suits
the controversy had spawned, the
Supreme Court promulgated a
temporary restraining order. One week later, through
an urgent omnibus
motion, inter alia, ZTE said that the company was
losing millions.
As a
development partner, the company was China’s flagship
investor in local telecommunications. Founded as Zhong
Xing Semiconductor Co. Ltd. in 1985, it is publicly
traded in two exchanges and operates in over 130
countries. It has a historic revenue growth of 24.6
percent, a return on equity of 18.4 percent and a rather
modest total return of 14.1 percent on revenues of $2.6
billion. It is
China’s second-biggest telephone-equipment manufacturer
following the larger Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.
ZTE
epitomizes the confidence of Chinese companies in our
investment environment. Unfortunately, the controversy
now brings unforeseeable downsides on all bilateral
commitments as all projects by Chinese companies are
placed under suspicion.
Even
competitors are worried. An official of the local
subsidiary of Sun Microsystems said, “This issue will
send the wrong message to foreign investors that it’s
not good to undertake IT projects in the Philippines
because it’s too risky.”
Risky,
indeed. The relationship was never consummated. The ZTE
contract was only a supplier’s contract, a requisite for
a loan. It had no forward obligation authority that
guarantees the sufficiency of repayment funds.
Arrayed
against confidence in our economy, look at the emergent
absurdity. A stranger alights from the sidewalk
uninvited, and through Internet blogs and testimonies
that he refuses to concretize with a definitive
deposition, claims that ZTE is a bribe-giver. He also
says that the true cost was $50 million, an amount even
Amsterdam Holdings would be hard-pressed to offer.
Finally, he introduces into the equation a third
personality.
It was
this resource person who introduced into the probe
another whose contrarian testimonies necessitated a mad
scramble to impeach the subsequent silly senselessness
suddenly suckering in the Senate.
By
politicizing beyond the confines of trade and security
issues, while important because of the blue-ribbon
committee’s role, the Senate’s Achilles’ heel is
revealed when it is suckered in by preprogrammed deceit
and uncorroborated hearsay.
Traitors
make the best zealots. For allowing such testimony
undocumented by requisite legal depositions, the Senate
allows in not only possible nut cases, but also
insidious Trojan horses that it must now discredit. |
