Companies like ZTE, pioneering in telecommunications and computers, are the sort that will fuel the future growth of Asian business. The Chinese company has been doing well in head-to-head competition against European and American companies.

Vodafone, the largest mobile telecommunications Network Company in the world with headquarters in Newbury, England, has telecom equity interests in 25 countries and a market presence in 39 other countries.

Vodafone, a contraction of the words voice, data and fone, is a mobile telecom company. In April 2006, Vodafone made ZTE Corporation of China a qualified Vodafone global supplier. The very next year, Vodafone and ZTE signed another deal leading to the launch of Vodafone’s first ZTE-made ultra-low-cost handset.

To date, ZTE has shipped over eight million units of Vodafone-branded GSM handsets to over 30 Vodafone operating companies and partner networks worldwide.

The partnership between Vodafone and ZTE, the two companies was strengthened this month when they signed a global framework agreement (GFA). In the telecom industry, the GFA can be considered a grand slam of sorts.

The GFA opened to Vodafone the comprehensive range of network equipment of ZTE, covering every possible equipment need for every global communications standard.

If the first agreement between Vodafone and ZTE made the Chinese firm a qualified global supplier of the British firm’s products, the second agreement in 2007 had ZTE making Vodafone handsets.

How about the GFA? To put things in perspective, when one talks of the GFA between Vodafone and ZTE, it’s no longer just about handsets and terminals, but entire networks spanning all mobile phone standards, including late-generation GSMs and state-of-the-art CDMA2000s.

Why would Vodafone make ZTE its partner? The only possible reason is that ZTE actually has an enviable global track record. This year, ZTE was runaway winner of the Yankee Group’s most competitive telecom vendor award in its native China, India, Africa, Eastern Europe and the Asia-Pacific.

The only publicly listed telecom supplier in the Hong Kong and Shenzhen stock markets, ZTE was also named fastest growing telecom equipment and solutions provider, and was included by Businessweek among China’s Top 20 brands.

In terms of revenues, ZTE reported an income of RMB34.77 billion (US$ 4.9 billion) in 2007, up by nearly 50 percent from 2006 figures, and a net profit of RMB1.25 billion.

In terms of technology alone, ZTE is a no-brainer choice as global supplier of high-end but affordable equipment and network solutions. Proof is that over 500 telecom operators in over 120 countries have done business with ZTE.

This is the company that is regarded, in our country, as among the lowest of the low primarily because its name has been dragged through the mud by among the lowest of the low characters in Philippine politics.

Actually, in the ongoing investigation extravaganza that the Senate is conducting, no shred of evidence has been shown that would indicate that ZTE bribed anyone or that the contract was overpriced or that it is even attended by any irregularity.

Don’t get me wrong. I was never a supporter of the National Broadband Network that the government wanted ZTE to set up. I honestly think, like the two economics professors from the University of the Philippines who wrote a critique on the subject, the only reason I can see why the government wanted the project is the fact that China was lending us cheap money for the project. Like some patay-gutom family that will take anything, even something it does not need, just because it looks cheap even if, in the end. we would have to pay for the loan over several lifetimes.

In the end, ZTE lost nothing but we, on the other hand, must be the laughingstock of the world. We allowed unsubstantiated allegations to be our basis for scuttling the NBN project. That the allegations of wrongdoing came from polluted sources many of whom obviously had an ax to grind made the affair doubly comical. We have also distanced ourselves from an Asian company that has a great future. We are also in the process to doing the same thing to Hanjin, another world-class (Korean) company.

As a telecom giant in its own right, ZTE had no need to bribe anyone to bag the Philippine NBN project. Why would it do this? Was our planned National Broadband Network even in the vicinity of ZTE’s Vodafone deal? Was this something that would make or break ZTE? It was a project that had to be on ZTE’s backburner – a small project that just about anyone could have set up.

It is even unlikely that ZTE bribed anyone for a project as insignificant to an international company the size of ZTE as our NBN must have been!

The Megumi Reader started as a project of the only Pinoy ever to be Rotary International President MAT Caparas. Last year, the immediate past president of my Pasig Rotary Club, Rafael M. Garcia III, issued the Raffy Garcia Challenge to which 100 Rotarians responded. This was in support of the Caparas initiative for the Megumi Reader.

The Department of Education (DepEd) has announced that it is adopting the Megumi to help improve teaching-learning process in the classrooms.

Education Secretary Jesli Lapus says that the gadget will help assist the non-readers among elementary pupils and promote literacy.

This Filipino-made electronic book is a low-cost, portable, simple-to-use device that can accommodate content for more than one learning area and can be used for multiple languages.

Designed for the safe use of children, the Megumi Reader is highly interactive and has no moving parts.

"The Megumi Reader is a breakthrough in our effort to integrate technology in enhancing the teaching-learning process. Its interactive features and versatility will help develop our pupils’ meta-cognitive skills – the ability how to learn," Lapus said.

Partners for Universal Literacy (PULL) is committing P3.5 million to fund the pilot phase of the project.

The DepEd will provide the curricula for the development of educational software that will be loaded unto the Megumi Reader. It will also monitor and evaluate the progress of the project.