Committee report on cancelled NBN deal hangs

Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Richard Gordon are at odds as to who should make the committee report on the investigation into the national broadband network (NBN) anomaly involving the government and Chinese firm ZTE Corp.

It is in the committee report where the names of persons that must be charged, if any, are contained, along with other recommendations, including bills that must be passed to reform the system since investigations in Congress are primarily in aid of legislation.

As this developed, NBN star witness Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr. expressed frustration over the continued reports of corruption within the government. But he said that though nothing seemed to be have changed in the system now, he did not have any regrets over his decision to testify at the Senate, believing that the “fight is not over yet.”

Cayetano, former chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, said his successor, Gordon, should take responsibility in preparing the report. But he said he was willing to help Gordon since he was the one who took charge of the hearings on the NBN controversy.

Gordon got the chairmanship of the Blue Ribbon after the Senate reorganization following the ouster of then Senate President Manuel Villar Jr. A new majority emerged and Cayetano, being an ally of Villar, became part of the minority whose members would not get major committee chairmanships.

“The committee report is the responsibility of the committee and the chairman,” Cayetano said in a telephone interview. “The chairman should do it because he enjoys the trust and confidence of the majority.”

Cayetano expressed apprehension that the majority would not sign the committee report that he would prepare.

He said Gordon should also continue the investigations into other issues like the fertilizer fund scam, the alleged bribery of congressmen and local officials in the Palace and others pending before the committee.

He said former House speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. could still be invited because of his possible knowledge of President Arroyo’s participation in the NBN deal.

“We owe it to the people to get to the bottom of it. I don’t understand why Senators Richard Gordon and Panfilo Lacson are asking me about the report when (Senator) Gordon had taken over the committee,” Cayetano said.

But Gordon said Cayetano should do the report because he had 12 hearings and six meetings of the technical working group regarding the matter.

“That was the Cayetano committee and he must make the report. On my part, I am through with the fertilizer fund scam and I will make the report,” he said. – Michael Punongbayan, Reinir Padua