The ZTE-NBN senate hearing...

Yesterday I decided to sit down and watch the senate’s probe regarding the ZTE-NBN deal. It ran for almost 11 hours plus, I was just curious what the hoopla was all about. For those unfamiliar what I’m talking about let me give you a brief summary.

What’s going on: a scandal erupted on the news when one businessman (Mr. Jose De Venecia III) went on media saying he got booted out from government sanctioned bidding for a broadband deal. He said that the government already made a deal with ZTE a Chinese based company surpassing any bidding requirement proceedings. He also stated that he got a bribe offer from COMELEC Chairman Benjamin Abalos, offering him loads of cash to back out from the bidding. Exposing conspiracies of corruption and power play within the realms of the government. To cut it short. Okay it got out to the media, people got named, and conspiracies got out. Now our senate got word about this, so this all goes back to what I was talking about here, the hearing.

Like any good old story the plot was to find out what really happened, why it did, and what will this entire probe do. Okay, to put it bluntly the whole exercise was nothing but a bunch of baloney. I was really expecting a courtroom like debate and interrogation. But what I saw was more or less a sitcom type slash soap opera show. I mean “the what really happened” issue seemed to be vague. Instead of getting things cleared you got a lot of accusation throwing between one another. Like NEDA’s Chairman Romulo Neri, people before hand was keeping a keen eye to what this guy was going to say, since he himself claimed that he too was offered a bribe by Chairman Abalos. Like all who stayed glued to the tube yesterday, senators got aerated after Chairman Neri invoked “The Executive Privilege”, which means he would just answer questions he feels does not affect the national security of the country. Oh come on! The people were just curious what the president had to say when they talked about that claimed bribe offer he got from Chairman Abalos. Chairman Neri’s “Executive Privilege” is what I call “a get out off jail pass”. Going back to the hearing I won’t name names but some senators got my good points for asking the right questions, and some got just asked nonsense. And some just even rephrased previously asked questions just to contribute, to which made this proceeding lagging in nature. Some even made remarks not fit for a government official of that stature. Some even made colorful remarks that are too racial that I guess if I was China I’d send 10 nukes our way. I guess putting humor to it, what that senator did and said was the sitcom part of the entire event yesterday. The proceedings logged in too long that if you have a low tolerance threshold, you would probably click your remote and did something more productive. But I just had to watch and see, I guess I was after the truth. Unfortunately, like most a lot of things left got half baked answers. All we really got to know is that corruption will always be a dark part of our politics how ever you size it. And for Chairman Abalos, if there’s a fall guy to this story, he got the lead role on this part.

Which brings my final conclusion? The probe or hearing might have exposed corruption, wrong dealings but at the end of the day the whole country got the losing end. Before I made this blog our country’s ranking among the worlds most corrupt countries went from 122 to 133 meaning what happened had negative effects to who we are.