‘The whole scandal captured the nation’s attention, with Lozada being the key witness — the whistleblower — in the whole thing.’
A FEW days ago, I came across a YouTube video which actually was an interview of the once-controversial Jun Lozada — Rodolfo Noel Imperial Lozada, to be exact. Anyone born in 2008 or later will have no idea who he is, but in 2008 he became the face of courage and truth telling when he blew the whistle on a mega million-dollar scam called the NBN-ZTE scandal.
At that time, the Chinese firm ZTE was proposing a pilot program for a national broadband network, with a contract price of $129 million. What Lozada protested was the suggestion of ballooning the contract price from $129 million to $329 million, with the $200 million to go to a bevy of individuals including, it was alleged, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo.
The whole scandal captured the nation’s attention, with Lozada being the key witness — the whistleblower — in the whole thing. And the scandal made famous two lines: “bubukol yan,” meaning the addition of $200M to the original $129M tag was going to be too obvious; and “moderate the greed,” which needs no further explanation.
Very appropriate lines these days, yes?
The story of Lozada is interesting. At the height of the NBN-ZTE scandal, the administration filed a host of cases against him as president of the Philippine Forest Corporation, a GOCC. Lozada credits then-Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez for dismissing the cases left and right. But once a case was carried over from the Arroyo administration to the Aquino administration, and it was during the term of PNoy that Lozada was convicted and sentenced to jail. The charge? That as CEO of the PFC, he gave unwarranted preference and benefit to his brother in developing idle land totaling 6 hectares around a dam in Rizal under a leasehold agreement.
Lozada went to jail in 2022. After serving almost three years in Muntinlupa, he was released on parole earlier this year.
I could not help but replay a statement he made during an interview. Philippine courts, he said, make up a legal system but not a justice system. Our courts are not after justice which is seeking what is fair and good. Once a court has ruled, something which is not even fair or just becomes legal.
And he points to fellow inmates in Bilibid who had stolen a chicken (or two), a few coconuts, or even someone who bought a cellphone that turned out to be stolen, while people who steal hundreds of millions or even billions remain out there, sometimes still in power.
We have a legal system, not a justice system.
Think about that as you watch the Senate and the House conduct separate hearings on the flood control plunder that has lined the pockets of the well-connected (legislators included?) with billions while ordinary people lose their lives or their meager material possessions.
