MANILA, Philippines—A second criminal case has been filed against former president Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo, this time over an overpriced deal with a Chinese telecommunications giant that allegedly involved huge kickbacks.
Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. AFP file photo
The complaint, filed Wednesday before the Sandiganbayan, was based mainly on records of the Senate investigation into government’s $330 million National Broadband Network contract with ZTE Corp.
“Gloria Arroyo cannot deny the existence of the NBN-ZTE contract because she was the one who granted [Transportation] Secretary Mendoza full powers to sign the same with ZTE Corporation,” the complaint read.
“Gloria Arroyo also personally witnessed and attended the signing of said contract at Boao, China,” it said.
Charged with Arroyo were her husband Jose Miguel Arroyo, Mendoza and former Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr. They denied the charges in the Senate inquiry of receiving millions of dollars in kickbacks for Arroyo’s approval of the broadband deal.
Arroyo – who is under arrest on separate electoral fraud charges – has previously denied wrongdoing in the latest case. But under public pressure in 2008, she canceled the deal designed to set up a nationwide broadband network.
The cases are part of efforts of President Benigno Aquino III to root out high-level corruption that is endemic in the Philippines. Aquino blames Arroyo, who stepped down last year, of presiding over a decade of corrupt practices that eroded public trust in government and held back foreign investors.
She has accused him of using “black propaganda” to damage her image.
Court spokesman Renato Bocar said Arroyo was charged “for being interested for personal gain in the approval of the … project despite knowledge of the irregularities and anomalies that attended its approval.”
The complaint is based on Senate testimonies in 2008 of ZTE consultant Dante Madriaga, who said that the deal was originally priced at $130 million, but that the cost ballooned to accommodate the kickbacks.
Former Economic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri had testified that Abalos offered him a bribe to approve the contract, and another witness, Jose de Venecia III, said the ex-president’s husband was promised a $70 million commission.
Arroyo is accused of violating Republic Act 3019 section 3 (g) and (i) and Republic Act 6713 or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.
Section 3 (g) considers unlawful the “entering, on behalf of the government, into any contract or transaction manifestly and grossly disadvantageous to the same, whether or not the public officer profited or will profit thereby.”
Section 3 (i), meanwhile, considers a practice corrupt when it the official is “directly or indirectly becoming interested, for personal gain, or having a material interest in any transaction or act requiring the approval of a board, panel or group of which he is a member, and which exercises discretion in such approval, even if he votes against the same or does not participate in the action of the board, committee, panel or group.”
The same provision states that “interest for personal gain shall be presumed against those public officers responsible for the approval of manifestly unlawful, inequitable, or irregular transaction or acts by the board, panel or group to which they belong.”
Malacañang quickly welcomed the news, and said it was proof that he was serious in his battle to crush endemic corruption which he blames for worsening massive poverty in the archipelago nation.
“It is a chance to put to rest the spectre of the NBN-ZTE anomaly and to finally put closure for many Filipinos, who until this day, harbour many questions about it,” Aquino spokeswoman Abigail Valte said.
In September 2007, Jose de Venecia III, son of then House Speaker Jose de Venecia II and cofounder of Amsterdam Holdings Inc., which lost in the bidding for the NBN contract, testified before the Senate that Mike Arroyo intervened to have the deal bagged by the ZTE Corp.
Mike Arroyo had denied this.
A case had been filed earlier against the former president before the Office of the Ombudsman over the NBN deal, but this was dropped in 2009 as she was still immune from lawsuit being the president.
The NBN-ZTE deal was also used to file two impeachment charges against Arroyo, but both were dismissed in the House of Representatives, then was overwhelmingly dominated by her allies.
After being blocked at the Manila airport from seeking medical treatment abroad, Arroyo, 64, was arrested last month for allegedly ordering the rigging of 2007 congressional elections. She was moved to the Veteran’s Memorial Medical Center, where she remains in detention. Abalos was arrested December 13.
Arroyo, who says she is suffering from a rare spinal illness, is expected to be tried as early as next month on the vote-rigging charges.
Abalos was arrested earlier this December for his alleged cooperation with Arroyo to rig the polls to favor her senatorial candidates.
Sandiganbayan spokesman Renato Bocar said there would be a special raffle on the case on January 2 to determine which division of the special anti-graft court will handle the case against the former president.
“Raffle of cases is conducted every Friday but since it is a holiday tomorrow, the Ombudsman requested that a special raffle be conducted. The Presiding Justice scheduled it on January 2,” Bocar said over the phone.With reports from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse
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