Palace hand seen in turnaround of Senate ‘surprise’ witness

THE Presidential Legislative Liaison Office is again being dragged into familiar territory: under the glaring spotlight of controversy.

Five months after the scandal over “cash gifts” handed out to congressmen and local government officials right inside Malacañang was initially linked to its officers, PLLO lawyer Marcelino Agana IV is reported to have talked thrice to so-called “surprise witness” Leo San Miguel, consultant of the Zhong Xing Telecommunications Equipment Limited (ZTE) in the scrapped $329-million national broadband network project. Agana is also the “Yacky” that whistleblower Rodolfo Noel ‘Jun’ Lozada mentioned during one of his appearances in the Senate to testify on alleged bribery and overpricing that attended the NBN deal.

The first conversation took place Monday night, before San Miguel’s fourth meeting with opposition senator Panfilo Lacson. Agana also talked to San Miguel Tuesday morning before the 12th Senate hearing on the national broadband network (NBN) scandal. During the lunch break, San Miguel called Agana and then spoke to a certain “Ma’am,” according to Lacson.

The conversation was overheard by the Senate sergeant-at-arms, who told Lacson that Agana had said “Yes, Ma’am idi-deny ko po (Yes Ma’am, I will deny it.).”This led Lacson to accuse the Palace of interfering with San Miguel’s testimony, an allegation Agana denied. He told reporters that San Miguel merely told him that he was going to answer whatever questions the latter would be asked.

Listen to excerpts of San Miguel’s testimony at the Senate hearing on the NBN scandal

San Miguel’s answers stunned the senators. Senator Francis Escudero asked if San Miguel was indeed the surprise witness, saying that he was the one “being surprised” by San Miguel’s testimony.

Senate Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan later called San Miguel a “spliced” witness. “[He] seems to have a selective memory. He insists that he is a technical person, but later on, when it was Speaker (Jose) de Venecia that he wants to pin down, he remembers suddenly all the conversations…When the question involved commissions and other personalities, like the First Gentleman, he does not remember anymore,” Pangilinan said in a statement.

Pangilinan added, “I found it contrary to human experience that Mr. San Miguel was in at least eight meetings with Chairman Abalos, here and abroad, staying in the same hotels and even traveling by plane together and all they said to one another in all these occasions was a casual “Hi-Hello” as he said under oath. This is completely unbelievable.” According to Pangilinan, the Supreme Court has ruled in a line of cases that the credibility of a witness can be gleaned from the totality of the testimony in that it must be consistent with human experience.

During the marathon hearing, key points of San Miguel’s testimony were contradicted by three other earlier witnesses: Rodolfo Noel ‘Jun’ Lozada, Jose ‘Joey’ de Venecia III, and another ZTE consultant Dante Madriaga.

Madriaga also described in a slide how the initial $130M contract price on the NBN project that he designed ballooned to $329 million. A former Arescom consultant, Madriaga said in an unsigned affidavit, that he worked with the US-based telecommunications company to design a national communications network (COMMNET) for the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) in 2005. The $130M-project was presented to DILG, but was rejected because it was not considered a priority project.

According to Madriaga, Arescom technical consultant Stephen Lai gave a copy of Arescom’s proposal to ZTE in June 2006. By then, he had already been hired by San Miguel as the head of the design team on the ZTE project.By March 2007, Madriaga said that the project’s contract price had swelled $329. This included P190 million in “tongpats” that was divided as follows:

• $70 million to ZTE
• $70 million to the Filipino group composed of resigned elections chief Benjamin Abalos Sr., San Miguel, businessman Ruben Reyes, retired general Quirino dela Torre, and former presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor (Madriaga said that Defensor was the President’s representative.)
• $30 million for 2007 election funds
• $20 for ports magnate Enrique Razon

Abalos, dela Torre, San Miguel and Reyes comprise the so-called “Greedy Group” that Madriaga said received an advanced commission of $41 million from ZTE for the NBN project. This was denied by ZTE.

In a May 2007 press release, Arescom declared that the Department of Transportation and Communication had endorsed its COMMNET project worth $135 million to the National Economic And Development Authority. It, however, said that it was surprised to learn that a conflicting endorsement had been issued to ZTE’s $329-million project.

San Miguel testified that he was merely a technical consultant and thus not privy to discussions about supposed kickbacks. He maintained that he was telling the truth, saying that he was willing to undergo a lie-detector test “absolutely any time.”

Lozada and Madriaga immediately said that they too were willing to take a polygraph test. De Venecia was in the bathroom at the time, but he told the PCIJ that he was also willing to take the test, as long as it was conducted by a “credible group.” He added though that a pathological liar would still be able to pass a lie-detector test. But Pangilinan said that “[e]ven without lie-detector tests, there have been Supreme Court rulings involving criminal cases wherein circumstantial evidence may be sufficient to give reason to a conviction.”

During the hearing, Lacson and pro-administration Senator Juan Ponce Enrile both claimed to possess tapes of wiretapped conversations involving de Venecia, Abalos, and telecommunications executive Farley Ampil. Both senators promised to play the tape at a later date.

A purported wiretapped conversation between Lozada and De Venecia was uploaded to the popular video-sharing website YouTube while yet another alleged wiretapped conversation between de Venecia and Abalos was aired over dzMM the other day.

“I feel that my privacy has been violated,” says de Venecia. He has heard the alleged wiretapped conversation between him and Lozada, but has not listened to any of the other conversations. “I will not dignify wiretapping.”