The reluctant hero
Jun Lozada did not want to be a hero. He did not want to face the Senate committees investigating the sordid ZTE broadband contract. He did not want to reveal what he knew about the massive over-pricing that allegedly attended this transaction.
Lozada narrated in his Senate testimony that two days before he left for Hong Kong, he had gone to Environment Secretary Lito Atienza (Lozada's immediate superior in government) and briefed him (Atienza) on his (Lozada's) involvement in the ZTE deal.
"He [Atienza] told me, 'if you come out with this, [the people] will get angry. You will hand this government to the opposition'. But I told him that if I reach the Senate, I might not get a hold of myself, I might not be able to lie," Lozada said. (Emphasis mine.)
So Jun Lozada wanted to avoid appearing in the Senate hearings because he was afraid he "might not be able to lie." Hence, the hurried departure for Hong Kong on the morning that he was supposed to appear in the Senate, the leaked misinformation that he was going to attend a meeting in London, the exchange of text messages between him in HK and Atienza and Romulo Neri in Manila, to make sure he will not appear in the Senate, his sudden premature return to Manila, on a flight that that was chosen because it had relatively few passengers, as one of his handlers had specified.
And here seems to the tipping point in this controversy. When Lozada returned to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport from Hong Kong, he had a 180-degree change of heart and mind. He suddenly felt compelled to tell the Senate and the rest of the country what he knew about the ZTE deal. What happened?
What happened is that when he was going down the tube from the aircraft to the terminal building, he was accosted by four armed men in civilian clothes and made to go along with them through a restricted security exit to a waiting car and driven around for five hours to as faraway as Los Baños, Laguna.
The four armed men who plucked him from the tube did not identify themselves or the organization they represented, nor did they tell him where they were taking him. They merely assured him that they were not going to harm him. All the while, exchanging text and cell phone messages with higher-ups in Manila.
Secretary Atienza, General Razon, Secretary Ermita, Secretary Puno, and all the Malacañang apologists have vehemently denied that there was any abduction or kidnapping, on the grounds that Lozada did not resist being made to go along with the four unidentified armed men, and had previously asked for security, even as his family waited vainly in the terminal to welcome him back. The Senate sergeant-at-arms was also waiting to serve him an arrest warrant.
Let Atienza, Razon, Ermita, Puno and all the Malacañang apologists undergo the experience of being suddenly pulled away from the airport tube, being made to go along with four armed men who did not identify themselves or their organization, being driven around by them for five hours to as far away as Los Baños, while their families waited for him/them at the terminal to welcome him/them back… let's see if they would not scream "Abduction!" or "Kidnapping!" What a bunch of phonies.
The trauma of being picked up—even if it is being denied that there was abduction or kidnapping—must have shaken Lozada to the bones. He said he thought of what had happened years ago to publicist Bubby Dacer and Dacer's driver, who were abducted by armed men and driven to a remote corner in Dasmariñas, Cavite, where they were both shot to death, just before he, Dacer, was about to testify on what he knew about misdeeds in the Estrada government.
It was a visibly shaken and traumatized Lozada who appeared at a hastily called press conference at two in the morning at the La Salle Green Hills, Thursday, Feb. 07, during which he claimed: "I guess the trouble started when [Comelec] Chairman [Benjamin] Abalos wanted to protect his $130 million, how shall I put this, commission on the [broadband] project..."
During this presscon, Lozada said Abalos phoned First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, in his (Lozada's presence), to complain about Lozada's stubborn refusal to approve the project on a loan basis, instead of the BOT basis, as had originally been agreed upon.
During the Senate hearing later that day, I think it was Senator Panfilo Lacson who asked Lozada if he knew of other projects in which FG Arroyo was somehow involved. Lozada said that he knew of only two others. He replied that on one occasion he told FG that his (FG's) name was being mentioned in connection with the Southrail project, but that the FG did not confirm or deny, but merely shrugged his shoulders. The other project was the purchase of X-ray machines for Philippine airports. Lozada said he was invited by FG Arroyo to travel with him to China to look over the X-ray machines. The senator asked: "Pati ba naman sa x-ray machines, nakikialam si FG?" Lozada said nothing.
This is significant because, as far as I know, the Philippine government or its agencies has/have signed a total of 27 contracts with Chinese agencies or corporations, includingthe development of 1.25 million hectares of agricultural land, cyber education for the school system, and one million units of social housing, plus the allegedly over-priced Northrail. Unless the ZTE contract is laid to rest with the benediction of angels, many people will conclude, rightly or wrongly, that FG Arroyo is involved in all 27 deals.
There are so many details in the testimony of Jun Lozada that it will take months to digest them all, including some pointed references to the "dysfunctional procurement system" of government, that makes them vulnerable to corruption: The details of a contract are tailor-fit to the specs of a contractor or supplier, not to the needs of the agency that signs the contract. The result is that political appointees, who know nothing of the project, dominate the senior levels of bureaucracy, and career bureaucrats become political mendicants, no longer public servants but servants of political masters.
Jun Lozada, a self-effacing technical expert who calls himself a probinsyanong Intsik, without the social pedigree of Jose de Venecia or the personal fiefdom of Benjamin Abalos, comes out in all this as a man who truly loves his country, and who is genuinely appalled—as millions of Filipinos are—by the official corruption that has sunk this country to the bottom of the cesspool. In trying to avoid becoming a hero, he has reluctantly become one.
Senators Miriam Defensor Santiago and Juan Ponce Enrile—ironically the very same prominent figures who egged on the mobs of deposed President Estrada to assault the Malacañang of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in May 200—took turns in trying to destroy the credibility of Jun Lozada.
Armed with documents undoubtedly supplied by Arroyo's Malacañang, Senator Miriam revealed that Lozada, as president of the government-owned Philippine Forest Corp., had engaged in several questionable contracts that were awarded to Lozada's own relatives or to his own company, without the requisite public bidding.
Lozada admitted it all. "There are things that I have done in my life that have diminished my self-respect. Mea culpa. Whatever self-respect I still have, I would like to keep. I felt that if I had agreed to the ZTE contract, I would have lost my soul."
Well said, Jun. We believe you. And we love you.