NBN-ZTE whistle-blower Jun Lozada freed

MANILA, Philippines —  Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada Jr., the star witness who revealed irregularities in the botched nationwide broadband project during Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s presidency, and his brother have been out of the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) for two months now, according to the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor).

Jun and his sibling Orlando were released on May 9 after the Board of Pardons and Parole approved their parole applications, having already served their minimum sentences, BuCor confirmed to The STAR yesterday.

The Sandiganbayan Fourth Division convicted the Lozada siblings of one count of graft in 2016 after Jun unlawfully granted a six-hectare leasehold right to Orlando when he was head of state-run Philippine Forest Corp. in 2007 and 2008.

They were sentenced to six to 10 years in prison.

The Supreme Court denied their appeal in a ruling dated July 28, 2021, but only publicized on March 23, 2022, with justices affirming the Sandiganbayan’s verdict that elements of graft were present when both men “conspired with each other so that the lease of idle public land would be awarded to Orlando.”

Authorities confirmed on June 2, 2022 that the siblings surrendered to the National Bureau of Investigation.

They were transferred to the NBP on June 10 that year.

In his column yesterday, The STAR columnist Jarius Bondoc detailed how life in prison made Jun “more discerning and devoted to Truth.”

According to Bondoc, Lozada spent his first year in prison at the NBP’s Reception and Diagnostic Center, where prison gang lords made him “bosyo” or “mayor.”

He then stayed at the medium security compound for seven months, where he taught illiterate cellmates to read and write, before settling at the minimum-security area for a year.