MANILA, Philippines - Estranged Arroyo ally and former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. is being eyed as a witness in the graft case against her in the Sandiganbayan.
Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño, the principal complainant in the case, said he would suggest to Ombudsman prosecutors that they include De Venecia in their list of witnesses against Arroyo who is now a Pampanga congresswoman. Arroyo is under hospital arrest for electoral sabotage.
Casiño said the former speaker was a participant in the controversial golf game in Shenzhen, China hosted by officers of China’s telecommunications giant ZTE Corp., which was then interested in the government’s national broadband network (NBN) project.
The “principal” participants were then President Arroyo and her husband Jose Miguel, Casiño said.
“JDV (De Venecia) can be asked to verify the details and the context of the golf game and the subsequent luncheon-meeting with ZTE executives,” he added.
In filing graft charges against Arroyo, her husband and former elections chief Benjamin Abalos, the Ombudsman cited the golf game as part of its evidence. A fourth respondent in the graft case, former transportation secretary Leandro Mendoza, was not in the golf game.
The Ombudsman stressed it was wrong for the former president to have played a round of golf and met with ZTE executives in China.
The Arroyo administration awarded the $329-million NBN contract to ZTE Corp. in April 2007 in ceremonies in Boao, China witnessed by Arroyo and Chinese officials. Mendoza signed for the government.
Arroyo was later forced to cancel the deal at the height of a Senate probe on alleged anomalies in the agreement. De Venecia, then a Pangasinan congressman, had expressed willingness to appear before the Senate to testify.
In previous interviews, the former speaker said Arroyo had originally wanted the NBN project undertaken on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis so that no taxpayers’ money or government loan guarantee would be required.
He said Arroyo changed her mind about the BOT scheme after she met over lunch with ZTE officials at the ZTE headquarters in Shenzhen on Nov. 2, 2006 after playing golf at the Shenzhen Golf Club. De Venecia said he took part in the golf game.
After the ZTE meeting, De Venecia said Arroyo inexplicably abandoned the BOT scheme and expressed preference for a government-to-government loan for NBN.
He said it was Arroyo’s husband who convinced her to favor the latter arrangement.
“The luncheon meeting with ZTE officials was the turning point for the NBN project,” he said.
He recalled that he was vacationing in Hong Kong with his wife Gina when Arroyo, who passed by Hong Kong after a short trip to China, invited him for a round of golf.
He said he was surprised to see Abalos, who was with ZTE executives, welcoming them at the Shenzhen Golf Club.
De Venecia’s son Joey III is the whistleblower in the NBN controversy. Joey claimed Abalos was the broker of the ZTE contract. Abalos denied the accusation.
Former economic planning secretary Romulo Neri, a witness in the Senate investigation, said Abalos offered him P200 million in exchange for his endorsement of the NBN project and its award to ZTE Corp. The former Comelec chief denies Neri’s claim.
Another Senate witness, Rodolfo Lozada Jr., who worked as a technical assistant of Neri, claimed that as much as $200 million in commissions and kickbacks had been made available for officials behind the project.