A take on ZTE-NBN scandal: Playing the devil’s advocate . . .

Allow me to present an alternative, albeit a more pessimistic, point of view . . .

If Mr. Lozada’s testimony during the Senate hearing last 8 February 2008 is to be believed, then the ZTE-NBN deal would have been overpriced by about US $197,000,000.00. Now that is overpricing! Such expose should have engendered some form of widespread unrest or action amongst Filipinos, but it didn’t. His delivery of his version of what transpired with regard to the NBN-ZTE was made with a believable sincerity that should have inspired action, whether civil or in whatever form, as against those personalities he implicated in the overpriced broadband project. But from the looks of things no coordinated civil action ala EDSA 2 is imminent; there is not even a whimper of such action through text messaging.

The honorable personalities Mr. Lozada mentioned, FG and Abalos, will probably be six feet under, after enjoying the fruits of their labors (!!!!), before they ever have a court date concerning the allegedly overpriced broadband deal. These personalities will fight tooth and nail to spin the story and prevent any court date for as long as possible.

I do not wish Mr. Lozada ill, but after the media mileage on this story has been spent, he may well go the way of most whistle blowers, forgotten and broke, left by the wayside by the very people who once called him a hero (hopefully he has set aside something in the way of a retirement fund).

So what did we really get out of this expose except very bad publicity for the Philippines, we probably scared off or disgusted potential foreign investors and we still don’t have any plan to put in place a broadband network.

If the ZTE-NBN deal had pushed through and all parties performed their respective obligations, the Philippines would probably have a broadband network in place before the next presidential elections, another thing that the government could have bragged about in attracting foreign investors and a major step towards bringing the country's IT capability at par with those of more developed countries.

Now, was exposing this alleged instance of corruption in government, really worth all this trouble? Hopefully succeeding events would prove that YES is the answer.