'GMA, Mike part
of greedy group'
Ex-ZTE consultant says
$41M given as 'commission'
BY DENNIS GADIL
FORMER ZTE consultant Dante Madriaga
yesterday told Senate probers that the President Arroyo,
her husband Mike and the group of Benjamin Abalos Sr.,
which he referred to as the "greedy group plus, plus,"
have received some $41 million in advances from China's
ZTE Corp. on the anomalous national broadband network
contract.
Asked by Sen. Jinggoy Estrada who
among them was the greediest, Madriaga said "it would be
the First Couple."
"From the beginning alam ko naman na
involved sila, dahil sinabi sa akin yon," he said.
THE Catholic Bishops Conference of the
Philippines last night asked President Arroyo not to stand
in the way of the truth with regard to corruption in
government, particularly on the issue of the national
broadband network (NBN) project.
The bishops did not call for Arroyo's
resignation, saying they would not want engage in a
political exercise.
"We recognize that there are some
questions of moral ascendancy (of Arroyo) that will
continue to be questioned. Asking for her resignation is a
political exercise and we leave it to the people to
decide," said Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, former
CBCP president.
NEARLY three years after she called for
President Arroyo's resignation, former president Corazon Aquino
yesterday said resignation is the "least disruptive solution to
give way to a credible government that can lead by example."
"That is why the most noble way out of the
moral crisis would be for the President to resign. This critical
time calls for a strong moral leadership, which clearly she is
no longer in a position to provide," Aquino said at the 2nd
general membership meeting of the Makati Business Club at the
Manila Intercontinental Hotel.
Aquino first called for Arroyo's resignation
in 2005 amid the scandal generated by the "Hello Garci"
wiretapped recordings between Arroyo and former elections
commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.
FORMER ZTE consultant Dante Madriaga
yesterday told Senate probers that the President Arroyo,
her husband Mike and the group of Benjamin Abalos Sr.,
which he referred to as the "greedy group plus, plus,"
have received some $41 million in advances from China's
ZTE Corp. on the anomalous national broadband network
contract.
