Surprise liar

On four occasions in the previous week, the last being on the eve of his testimony before the Senate, Leo San Miguel was eyeball-to-eyeball with Lacson. On one of these meetings, they were joined by Quirino de la Torre, PMA '72, former comptroller of the PNP during the time of Leandro Mendoza, now secretary of the DOTC under whose watch this deal came through. Along with Benjamin Abalos, the disgraced chairman of the Commission on Electoral Cheating, San Miguel and De la Torre were identified by Joey de Venecia as part of the Gang of Four, along with one Ruben Cesar Reyes, fixers all for the stink of the decade.

Four meetings, Leo San Miguel admitted before the Senate on Tuesday, and all Lacson and they did was exchange his and hellos. Lacson, once the topnotch police investigator of this country, would go through four meetings listening to nothing really substantial? If San Miguel confessed nothing substantial, other than being a "technical" guy in the deal, would Lacson have bothered to give him additional time of day?

Those who know Lacson knows he does not put up with small talk. But if the first encounter with San Miguel provided more clues on the mysterious "tongpats" and "bukol" of the fixers and commissioners in this drama of excessive greed, then expect Lacson to pursue his subject.

Obviously something happened between his meetings with San Miguel or even after his last meeting with the subject, which ended eleven in the evening of Monday, hours before San Miguel appeared before the Senate.

During a break in the Senate hearing, when clearly San Miguel was weaving a set of lies with face so straight, the man who set up the meeting between the two called his friend Leo up. He later called up Lacson to say that Leo San Miguel confessed to him that "he was under terrible pressure".

Terrible pressure from whom?

During the late lunch break, Leo San Miguel was brought into a room of the Senate by the resident Malacañang factotum, Atty. Yukky Agana (yes, Senate old-timers say that is how it's spelled, yuck notwithstanding) of the PLLO. San Miguel, according to onlookers was being briefed by this Atty. Agana on the rules of Senate committee hearings and other "tactical" matters. Later, Senate old-timers overheard San Miguel talking over the phone with someone whom he referred deferentially to as "Ma'am". Maybe he calls his wife "ma'am," who knows?

This Atty. Agana was the same guy in the Malacañang team who advised Jun Lozada to "leave the country" after learning about what Lozada knew about the ZTE stink. Along with Deputy Executive Secretary Manuel Gaite, they arranged for Lozada's hurried exit from the country, to Hong Kong, on the day he was supposed to appear before the Senate.

So, all throughout the Senate committee hearing, which ended up as late as 9:30 Tuesday evening, San Miguel continued to stonewall, to obfuscate, to prevaricate. He would lose his cool at times when the flabbergasted senators badgered him about his inconsistencies. One could hardly notice if he turned pale when an exasperated, red-faced Lacson charged him with "lying all day."

Clearly, Malacañang was suffused with expected glee. For the first time, their NBN Channel showed the Senate hearings live. Prior to San Miguel's lying, government TV snubbed these hearings. Bad news to GMA is no news as far as these government-owned and controlled channels are concerned.

Yet a most reliable source told me later that Tuesday that an aging public relations practitioner, once an advertising executive, was closeted with San Miguel on Monday. It could have been before the last meeting with Lacson, or after. My source did not want to check the exact time for fear of being "exposed."

This PR guy used to sell to Comelec on behalf of a client a humongous computerization project which did not make it only because President Erap's government collapsed. Sometime in 2007, his services were drafted by a former senator into the Team Unity's communications effort. Now he got himself a "prized" client - Benjamin Abalos.

Prized could likewise read as "priced" for several other practitioners were enticed and they refused. So if this aging PR guy took in this pariah of a client, it must have been a "priceless" account.

On the other side of the stinking Pasig, the "operations' were shepherded by another aging public relations guy, and collaborating with the "operation" was another hotshot PR guy whom Leo San Miguel, the "purely technical" guy, introduced to the ZTE's Chinese to handle their PR when the shit hit the fan last year. The purely technical guy was also dabbling in public relations, he he he.

But television is a cruel medium. Despite his seemingly cool and unflappable mien wrapped up in designer clothing, Leo San Miguel, who strikes you as seemingly an older Joey Salceda in looks but not in verbosity, was clearly seen as a liar. Not because of what he said, but what he left unsaid.

Senator Noynoy Aquino was brilliant when he zeroed in on the mathematics of the project. San Miguel had parroted the Lorenzo Formoso line about the price going up from 269 to 330 million dollars because they decided to increase coverage to include sixth-class municipalities after DOTC took over Telof from CICT. That Lorenzo Formoso is another straight-faced liar, who tried dazzling people with technical explanations in previous hearings. How could an incremental 70 million answer for an additional 2,300 land stations, most of which were so difficult to access in this infrastructure-poor archipelago?

San Miguel met with Abalos several times, but again, they just exchanged pleasantries. In the observation of Senator Mar Roxas, this San Miguel "heard no evil, saw no evil" and therefore would speak no evil about anyone, including the mysterious Ruben Reyes.

His "purely technical" expertise was engaged for a success fee of one-half of one percent of the gross amount of the deal, about 1.65 million dollars or about 70 million pesos, on top of reimbursement of expenses, which per his testimony, amounted to between 3 to 4 million pesos. But he was reimbursed in dollars, and in cash. Strange corporate practice by one of China's largest telecommunications firms, half-owned by the state, and half traded in the stock exchange.

Strange too that they would pay a success fee for "purely technical" expertise. For marketing perhaps, but technical? And why should ZTE with its stable of highly skilled technicians need a Filipino telcos engineer to provide "purely technical" assistance. Later, this San Miguel liar clarified that he had to translate, verbalize, before the Philippine clients, the arcane technology of ZTE's broadband design. So all ZTE bought was an interpreter pala, and for that they were willing to pay a hefty success fee, and more, without any written contract!

Boy, this Fan Yang and this Yu Yong have a lot to explain to ZTE stockholders, some of whom are members of China's Politburo!

***

Of course Malacañang would go to town. Maybe even Abalos feels some temporary breathing space. And the rest of the "greedy gang, plus, plus".

But then again, who says fighting "evil" is easy? Figuratively, it's like stalking Dracula. You need to push the stake deep into his chest. You have to blind him with the Cross. You have to cleanse him off into ashes with the purifying dazzle of the light of truth.

To quote Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing".

And De Jouvenel who warned that "A society of sheep shall in time beget a government of wolves".

Listen thus to Abraham Lincoln, who exhorted, "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country".

Philippines - are you listening?