Business Circuit

The NBI raided the office of Rodolfo Lozada, executive officer of the state-owned Philippine Forest Development Corp.

Before the raid, the NBI wrote the officer-in-charge a letter listing the documents they suspect are being kept in Lozada’s desk.

This is naked show of police abuse.

When a raid is conducted by law enforcement agencies to examine documents or lay their hands on them, the usual procedure is to go to court for a search warrant.

This process was ignored.

The Arroyo regime is obsessed with making Lozada look like a liar. They want to minimize the value of his testimonies.

But by what the state is doing, its agents make Lozada look as speaking straight from the bible.

Malacañang is so confused they cannot get their act together. One mistake after another, particularly his abduction, has made Lozada a credible witness.

Administration senators – two of them so far – are trying everything to suspend or terminate the investigation of the dirty ZTE broadband deal.

Earlier in the week, Sen. Joker Arroyo wondered aloud why the Upper Chamber spends only about 30 percent of its time making laws, and rest on investigations.

The records of the Senate do not show much of the law-making duties of Senator Arroyo. In fact, he does not even have a staff.

What does Senator Arroyo want? Terminate the investigation like he did on the probe of the Jose Pidal account when he was chairman of the Blue Ribbon committee? All investigations must be properly closed, particularly the scandal on the broadband deal.

Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago also wants the Senate to devote time to law-making rather than investigating anomalies.

The senator from Iloilo knows whereof she speaks. She was denouncing what she believed were anomalies in the Smokey Mountain projects.

Then she came to her senses and probably discovered that she would do a greater service to her country if she devoted her time to making laws. She abandoned the probe.

I am extremely pleased by the report that the Supreme Court – on a tenuous vote of 9-6 – upheld the KBP in insisting that the rules of the National Telecommunications Commission imposing prior restraint is an attempt to suppress press freedom.

The Constitution provides that no law shall be passed abridging the freedom of the press.

The Charter does not distinguish between media and broadcast. Why should the NTC impose prior restraint on broadcast?

Because broadcast is licensed by the state? That in itself is abridgment of press freedom justified by the fact that broadcast uses the airwaves which are national patrimony.

Licenses to me are swords of Damocles hanging by a thin thread over the heads of broadcast media owners.

The NTC can always threaten cancellation or non-renewal of license when it feels broadcast is not friendly to the state.

A 9-6 vote suggests that there was an intense debate over the subject in the Supreme Court.

Which means that the six justices in the minority believe that prior restraint imposed by the NTC does not violate the law.

Dangerous thinking. A threat to democracy.

Up to this time, the final contract between North Rail and its Chinese contractor has not been signed.

We cannot understand why, although we wonder aloud why a surface railroad of 27 kilometers from Caloocan to Malolos should cost $500 million.

Is it possible that the Chinese contractor finds the overprice excessive? But why did they agree?

Every contract with China is overpriced. I cannot understand why these contractors are willing to part with so much dirty money to the Philippines and its officials.

Maybe, they are laying a trap for the country over something that involves sovereignty.

I am getting scared. The Chinese might have put the Arroyo regime in their pockets.

I can make the guess that the Arroyo regime might have committed something to China that blatantly violates the Philippine Constitution.

If that is true, we are paying with our sovereignty for the fat bribes in all the Chinese contracts.

Nakakahiya.

A ranking official of the Department of Education has no doubts that the CyberEd program for public schools will have any hitches.

It turns out that the owner of the Chinese contractor is a son of Hu Jin Tao, president of the Peoples Republic of China.

The suggestion here is that President Arroyo will not have the courage to disappoint the son of the president of the most populous and fastest growing, and perceived as the most corrupt country in the world.

What the DepEd officials do not know is that the Chinese tricked the Arroyo government by involving its officials in the bribes.

The inner motive is to force President Arroyo to make good her commitment, made together with Speaker Jose de Venecia, to sign a deal that will definitely be questioned by the Senate because its involves sovereignty and national patrimony.