Pimentel warns China exerting pressure on RP due to broadband contract

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. on Tuesday said China's order to suspend the importation of frozen chicken and pig parts from the Philippines could be part of its efforts to get back at the Philippines.

This, Pimentel said, is a result of of the ongoing moves by the Philippine government to investigate a questionable telecommunications deal and to restrict the entry of Chinese toys and agricultural products believed to be tainted with toxic chemicals.

China has suspended the importation of frozen chicken feet, pig ears and other animal products for Philippine-based company Iexco. The same ban was imposed on nine food companies in the United States and Vietnam.

Pimentel linked the Chinese government's order to the move in the Philippine Congress to investigate the $330 million national broadband network (NBN) contract between the Department of Transportation and Communications and China's ZTE Corporation in view of allegations that it is disadvantageous to the government and fraught with irregularities.

The senator from Mindanao himself has called for the scrapping of the NBN deal on the ground that it was awarded to ZTE Corp. without a public bidding and it deviated from the Arroyo administration policy to rely on the private sector for funding of capital-intensive telecommunications projects through the build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme.

"This move of China may be a warning against efforts to investigate ZTE broadband contract," Pimentel said.

He added, "We should not allow other nations no matter how powerful to browbeat us into disregarding our own laws, for example, on the need for open, transparent, honest bidding. If ZTE does not see it that way, then, so be it. It is in our national interest to ensure that our own laws are followed in our own land."

Pimentel urged the Department of Justice to undertake an honest-to-goodness inquiry into alleged irregularities that have tainted the telecommunications deal, including the purported overpricing and the national security implications of awarding the NBN project to a Chinese firm.

"As the administration body tasked with looking into the questioned ZTE contract, the DOJ should go full blast into the investigation instead of sending signals that it might capitulate to pressure to slow down on its job," the minority leader said.

He noted that, "If we cannot do that, we might as well become another province of China. In the meantime, our authorities should also see what can be done to prevent the importation of toxic toys and tainted agriculture products from China."

Pimentel added: "Toxic toys pose a grave danger particularly to our kids. And tainted agriculture products put our people in general to health risks."