Lost in Translation

09/14/2007

Amid calls for the scrapping of the $329-million supply contract for the National Broadband Network (NBN) project, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said Wednesday night “we must be a government that honors contracts and agreements that go through the required processes, despite media attacks.”

 

09/25/2007

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said Tuesday that allegations of bribery are unsubstantiated in a Chinese company's winning bid for a Philippine national broadband network, citing an internal investigation.

 

 

October 02, 2007

Gov’t tells high court ZTE offered the best deal. The government defended in the Supreme Court its decision to award to China’s ZTE Corp. the $329-million contract for the National Broadband Network (NBN) project, saying the firm had offered the best deal.

 

November 09, 2007

Gov’t asks SC to dismiss petitions vs NBN deal. Government lawyers have asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the petitions filed by several groups questioning the legality of the $330-million broadband infrastructure contract between the Philippines and a Chinese firm.

 

 

February 23, 2008

Arroyo admits knowing of corruption before signing ZTE deal. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo admitted Saturday she was aware of allegations of high-level corruption in the National Broadband Network project, but she did not stop the signing of the deal with ZTE Corp. last April 21 because she felt then that diplomatic relations between the Philippines and China were in peril.

The President, speaking mostly in Filipino, made this disclosure in an interview with radio commentator Joe Taruc over dzRH.

"Someone told me about it the night before the signing of the supply contract. That was one of many signings [in China]. But how can you cancel it the night before, considering that you are dealing with another country?” she said.

But she did not say who told her about the purported corruption.

According to Arroyo, she addressed the "anomalies” in the NBN-ZTE deal by canceling it.

"That was long canceled. Soon after I was informed about it, I already [planned] steps how to cancel it,” she said.

The President said that like other Filipinos, she was outraged by corruption: "The people are angry about corruption. So am I," she said in Filipino. That is why as soon as there was talk about corruption in this I project, I took steps to cancel it."

Arroyo canceled the project only in September 2007, about five months after her visit on April 21 to Hainan province in China.

Read on, I just got lost in translation.