Abalos to snub Senate hearing

MANILA, Philippines – Former Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Benjamin Abalos yesterday said he would not attend the Senate’s Blue Ribbon committee hearing on Tuesday.

Abalos, who was a guest at the No Holds Barred Forum at the National Press Club (NPC), cited a Supreme Court (SC) ruling that prohibits him from attending the hearing.

“There is an SC decision that if there is a case filed against you before a court, you could not be compelled to appear. I think I am facing either seven or eight charges before the Office of the Ombudsman,” said Abalos.

The former polls chief, said to be a close friend of First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, is accused of having a hand in brokering the controversial NBN deal.

Businessman Joey de Venecia, Neri and former Philippine Forest Corp. president Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr. mentioned his name as the man behind the contentious project during the Senate investigation.

Earlier, Abalos said he would file charges against his accusers, but has deferred the filing up until yesterday. When asked about the delay, he said it was part of their “strategy.”

His lawyer, Salvador Panelo, said some of the charges they have considered filing against his client’s critics are perjury, libel, false testimony, incriminatory machination, and grave oral defamation.

Lozada could even be liable for graft, according to Panelo. “He admitted under oath his acts of graft and (these are) backed up by the documents. He really has a big problem because if he is convicted he would be spending several years in prison.”

Lozada reportedly committed graft when he acquired 35 purebred Australian Boer goats.

Abalos and his lawyer said they also decided to put their legal actions on hold because Lozada shifted the venue of his attack. From the halls of the Senate, he “brought the issues to the streets, students and the media. It appears if we would concentrate on filing the charges against him now, we would be left behind. So we decided that we would just face him anywhere.”

He said they have wanted to face Lozada and De Venecia in a debate or forum, but the two always back out whenever they learn that he and Abalos are coming. This reportedly happened in discussions supposed to have been held at De La Salle University and a radio station dzMM.

“Actually, I am flying to Davao, Cagayan de Oro and Zamboanga to bring the issue there. Before he arrives there, I will face him. I will even face him in Iloilo on March 14,” he added.

Panelo believes that Lozada does not want to face him because he does not have the evidence to back up his allegations. “They have destroyed several reputations.”

Lozada alleged during the Senate inquiry that Abalos threatened to kill him if he is seen in Mandaluyong. “Immediately, we looked at the records at the Wack Wack (Golf and Country Club) and saw that a week after being threatened he was there. This means that every week thereafter, for more than a year, he kept on going there with his family.”

Because of his alleged exposé, the ZTE star witness has been receiving a lot of support and has been idolized by the youth.

Abalos said, “I pity the kids in school. He is declared as a hero because he admitted his faults. But he did not voluntarily admit those mistakes, he only admitted them after he was confronted with documents.”

He was also alarmed by a recent news report that Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Ma. Sison is reportedly calling on Filipinos to come out and force President Arroyo out of Malacañang.

“We would take caution with Joma’s statement. Everybody knows he is a communist. Does that mean that the Philippines, supposedly the no. 1 democratic country in the Far East, would be overrun by the communists?” Abalos said.

He also assured the public that while he and his wife recently won a cruise in a raffle, he has no intentions of leaving the country.