News reports in Manila’s leading dailies featured the first couple playing golf in a Shenzen’s country club, a two-hour drive from Hong Kong. But despite the visible signs in the picture published by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a palace spokesman has been defending his bosses by not knowing anything about the side trip which was done during President Arroyo’s official sojourn in China. The side trip to ZTE headquarters wasn’t included in the president’s official itinerary.
As former congressman Rolly Suplico claimed, the first couple was with former Comelec chair Benjamin Abalos when they went to ZTE headquarters in Shenzen to discuss the details of the multi-million dollar broadband contract with the Chinese company. And the president must have been aware of what really transpired during the informal meeting, where a red carpet was laid down for the president’s clandestine visit to Shenzen, China. If it was possible for the border guards to attend a public hearing in Congress, they could indeed shed light as to wether the Philippine president really crossed the border from Hong Kong to visit Shenzen. Now, ZTE officials are denying these reports.
The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee has been dying to pin down the witnesses related to the ZTE-NBN scandal to no avail. I couldn’t imagine that after all these months of probes on the multi-million broadband scandal, where the former NEDA chair Romy Neri was implicated, nothing concrete came out to prove that the present administration was indirectly involved in the scandal.
For most Filipinos, the public hearing was only a waste of time, money and efforts on the part of the Senate. The situation was exacerbated by the recent Supreme Court ruling that Romy Neri couldn’t be compelled to testity in the Senate public hearing. But just the same, it all ended up to a reality when the word "Shen–" appeared on the right side of the picture where the first couple was seen listlessly walking on the green turf.
Now what would every Filipino say about this? Is the administration telling the truth that it has nothing to do whatever on the ZTE broadband scandal? The picture shows how the president squeezed her time just to attend the meeting in Shenzen. Whether the visit was done on good intentions, the millions of doubting Thomases would always say otherwise and suspect that the first couple may have joined the group to cook something at ZTE’s. Nobody can tell but that’s what many people are thinking about.