The information we got was she will do it today to pre-empt the brewing unrest in the military. With the snowballing protest in almost all sectors of society, the missing ingredient is the military.

AFP chief Hermogenes Esperon and PNP chief Avelino Razon last Monday staged a unity walk to prove to the world that the men in uniform are solid behind Arroyo.

Here comes the PNP telling Judge Elmo Alameda of the Makati Regional Trial Court confirming that there are indeed members of the military who are raring to oust Arroyo.

The information was contained in the motion by Police Chief Inspector Joel Manuel An, head of the PNP Custodial Center, to postpone the arraignment of 18 persons involved in the Nov. 29 incident being accused of rebellion led by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV and Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim because of "reliable intelligence reports of a possible public uprising or movement organized by junior military officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and other armed and militant groups aimed at overthrowing the present administration, taking advantage of the massive and collective organization of protesters commemorating the 1986 EDSA Revolution."

Ana further said, "Without belaboring the obvious, the continuous involvement of the accused relative to the various organized communal action designed to overthrow the duly constituted administration poses a very serious threat, should the accused come out in the open and be exposed to the media this very critical point in time, not only to the lives of the accused but also to the life and security of the court personnel, the security personnel who will escort the accused to and from Camp Crame Custodial Center, including the persons who will attend the scheduled arraignment…"

It seems it’s not only the PNP which has information on the reported impending uprising because the lawyer of Trillanes, Atty. Ernesto Francisco also filed for a postponement of the arraignment "for security reasons".

It seems that Trillanes’ group has also gathered information about trouble today and they don’t want to be used as scapegoats.

The court granted the two motions.

***

I had to leave the Senate investigation on the NBN/ZTE early for other meetings so I missed the testimony of Dante Madriaga who designed the telecommunication project for ZTE. Madriaga belonged to the "Filipino Consultants Group" headed by former Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos and allegedly included Mike Arroyo, the husband of Gloria Arroyo.

My friends told me that Madriaga mentioned me in relation to reports that he was peddling his testimony for a price ranging from P5 million to P10 million.

At the time I got the copy of the initial draft of his affidavit, I had not met Madriaga but I had counterchecked the information contained there. When I learned that someone was trying to make money out of it, I decided to publish the affidavit precisely to stop them from making money out of it.

Later, when I met Madriaga, he said there were people who, in the guise of helping him get to the people who would help him bring out the truth, tried to make money out of it. He has identified those people and he has stopped dealing with them.

Being part of Abalos’ team, Madriaga knew about the sharing of the $200 million ($130 for Abalos and $70 for the 2007 election fund). He said a total of $41 million was disbursed as advance payment.

This is the most interesting part: The Chinese were beginning to be anxious that Abalos’ group kept on demanding money, yet the deal was not moving. Madriaga said Fan Yang, the ZTE representative, told him that in a meeting on April 4 at the Makati Shangri-La, Abalos demanded $30 million to be used for the elections.

Fan Yang said ZTE would only approve and remit the additional advance payment of $30 million when Arroyo went to China to witness the signing of the contract.

Thus, it came to pass that on April 21, 2007 Arroyo left the bedside of her sick husband and made a lightning visit to Boao, China to witness the signing of the agreement.

Later, Madriaga said Leo San Miguel, part of the Abalos gang, and Fan Yang confirmed to him on several occasions the release of the additional advance of $30 million.

Now we know the 30-million-dollar reason why Arroyo did not stop the signing of the NBN/ZTE deal even if she knew it was flawed.