Ombudsman to treat Salonga complaint on NBN deal separately

MANILA, Philippines – The Office of the Ombudsman will treat separately the complaint filed by former Senate president Jovito Salonga from seven other complaints against President Arroyo in connection with alleged irregularities in the botched $329 million national broadband network deal with China’s ZTE Corp.

“It (Salonga complaint) is being treated separately since it lacks important details,” a source at the Ombudsman told The STAR.

“Our panel headed by Deputy Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro instead referred the case to field investigation office for fact-finding,” he added.

He also said that consolidating Salonga’s case with the others might delay the investigation.

“We can’t include it in the consolidated case because it might cause delay,” the source said in Filipino.

The Office of the Ombudsman confirmed over the weekend that it has started looking into a criminal complaint filed by Salonga against Mrs. Arroyo regarding the NBN controversy.

Salonga’s complaint seeks to indict the President for plunder and for violations of Republic Act 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.

In his complaint, Salonga argued that while the President enjoys constitutional immunity from prosecution in court while in power she does not have immunity from being investigated on criminal charges.

Representing Kilosbayan and Bantay Katarungan, the former senator based his complaint on Mrs. Arroyo’s Feb. 23 interview over radio station dzRH in which she admitted that the NBN deal was flawed as well as on the Senate testimony of former National Economic and Development Authority head Romulo Neri.

Salonga’s complaint was the second NBN-related case with Mrs. Arroyo as respondent.

The first one, filed by former vice president Teofisto Guingona in October last year, is included in the consolidated complaint.

Guingona accused Mrs. Arroyo of “dereliction of duty and obstruction of justice” for signing the NBN contract and for allegedly attempting to cover up alleged irregularities.

Mrs. Arroyo scrapped the NBN deal late last year at the height of a Senate inquiry that unraveled possible complicity of First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo and top officials including then elections chief Benjamin Abalos and Neri.

Much of the damaging Senate testimony came from Rodolfo Lozada Jr., a friend of Neri’s and former president of Philippine Forest Corp.

The Ombudsman panel, composed of Overall Deputy Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro as chairman; and Deputy Ombudsman Emilio Gonzalez III, Deputy Special Prosecutor Robert Kallos, Assistant Ombudsman Rodolfo Elman and Director Caesar Asuncion as members, will decide if there is probable cause to justify the filing of criminal charges against respondents before the Sandiganbayan.

Abalos is a respondent in six of the seven cases.

The seven complaints include one filed by the National Bureau of Investigation against Emmanuel Ang, the commercial attaché who supposedly lost the NBN contract the night after it was signed in Boao, China, on April 21, 2007.

Nueva Vizcaya Rep. Carlos Padilla also filed a case in August 2007 against Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza and two assistant secretaries for “giving undue advantage” to ZTE.

Executives of the Chinese firm were also named respondents.

Lawyer Ernesto Francisco Jr. asked the Ombudsman on Sept. 24, 2007 to investigate the President’s husband and Abalos on their alleged links to the deal. Francisco’s complaint was the first to directly name the President’s husband in the controversy.

Another lawyer, Ruel Pulido, sued for graft on Oct. 8, 2007 then speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. and his son Joey III, the businessman who was the original whistleblower on the alleged anomalies in the NBN deal.