What’s wrong with ZTE
execs as golf pals? Abalos
Denies brokering $329M deal
BY GERARD NAVAL
COMELEC Chairman Benjamin Abalos yesterday
admitted that executives of the Chinese telecom firm ZTE
Corporation are his friends but denied he brokered the $329
million (P15 billion) national broadband network project.
Abalos said the people involved in the
broadband deal are "golf mates" and that he even considers them
as his "extended family."
"I treated them, yes. And they returned the
favor. That’s the way golfers are. We sometimes come up with
parties for a group of golfers that comes here. That’s how
golfers are, we spoil each other even if our wallets hurt
afterwards," he said.
THE economy grew at a 20-year high of 7.5
percent in the second quarter, boosted by pump priming and
booming private consumption.
Share prices jumped 3.45 percent in reaction
to the growth report, one of the highest in the region, while
bond spreads narrowed.
The peso tried to ride on the data but ended
lower at 46.84 to the dollar, down from Wednesday’s close of
46.83. It opened high at 46.60 rose to 46.57 but retreated near
the close of trade.
THE National Democratic Front of the
Philippines yesterday tagged as "absurd" the arrest of Communist
Party founder Jose Maria Sison on a "recycled charge" that it
said had been trashed by the Supreme Court.
One of Sison’s lawyers, Romeo Capulong, said
this contention would be transmitted to the Dutch court in time
for the first hearing in The Hague today.
Sison, on self-exile in the Netherlands since
1987, was arrested Tuesday for the killing of former allies
Romulo Kintanar in 2003 and Arturo Tabara in 2004.
