Is Lozada a credible witness?

Everybody and his mother's eyes are riveted to the ongoing NBN probe at the Senate. Here at last, they think, is THE witness who will finally bring a "corrupt" administration down. In my book, however, Lozada is simply another overhyped witness, in the same league as Sandra Cam, et al. When not giving way to his leaky waterworks, Lozada is cocky and arrogant. But those aren't his only sins.

Lozada alleges that he was kidnapped by agents of the administration. He says that he was grabbed at the airport where he was supposed to meet the arresting agents of the Senate sergeant-at-arms, then driven around, and that his captors refused to tell him where they were going. He says that he was not acting of his own freewill when he went with them.

However, the whole time that Lozada was being driven around, he was allowed the free use of his cellphone. He was even able to contact his family and make it appear that he had been kidnapped. He was able to eat at an expensive restaurant; and finally, he was brought to the La Salle brothers, where he admittedly wanted to go.

In her article Whistleblower's own sins, Belinda Olivares-Cunanan surmised that Lozada could have been manipulated by opposition Senator Lacson's group to testify against the administration. Firstly, she pointed out DENR Secretary Lito Atienza's testimony that Lozada had requested his help to secure protection against unnamed threats. He says that Lozada seemed very afraid. He further pointed out how he felt betrayed when it turned out that Lozada was already in touch with Lacson since December, something that Lacson himself admitted.

Secondly, Lozada admitted to Senator Miriam Santiago that he had committed serious irregularities (involving millions of pesos) during his tenure as president of Philippine Forest Corporation. Cunanan says of the issue:

[Lozada] readily admitted to Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago that Philippine Forest Corp. had taken out a P5-million insurance policy with Insular Life with his wife acting as the agent and that it had leased out a 50-hectare property in Antipolo City to a company that he personally controlled.

In addition, Santiago rattled off a number of contracts entered into by Gabriel Multimedia Services, which is owned by Lozada’s brother and which did not go through a proper bidding. She also questioned Lozada’s purchase of expensive vehicles that the whistleblower insisted were for PhilForest’s use.

* * *

Lozada, when confronted by Santiago, aside from admitting to the narration of irregularities, ascribed them to his personal “permissible zone” and how the senator had just blown that zone away. In other forums, Lozada said that considering that he has attacked a project involving billions of pesos, his own personal indiscretions were peanuts.

That is bothersome; comparing the billions of pesos in the ZTE project with the millions of pesos involved in his personal projects is indeed like comparing oranges and apples. But the fact is that in his area of jurisdiction, the irregularities were very serious and he can be charged with graft for them, and yet he pooh-poohs them. Does his record make him a credible witness in a grand corruption issue? What’s even more alarming is that the religious groups backing him up play blind to this double standard. No wonder people are so confused.

On the account alone of Lozada's personal corruption, anyone in his sane mind would think twice about his credibility as a witness. Perhaps some would point out that the same is also true of Chavit Singson. Hardly. Chavit had, not only his personal knowledge, but also documentary evidence--the paper trail--to implicate Erap in his allegations that the latter profited from jueteng. Unlike Chavit, Lozada has neither documentary evidence, nor does he even have personal knowledge of Mike Arroyo's involvement in the alleged anomaly. That was why Senators Santiago, Enrile, Arroyo and Gordon placed such emphasis on his credibility, or lack of it. That was the only thing he was standing on, in the absence of hard evidence. I repeat, WAS.

The litany of Lozada's corruption gives further credence to the story of the executive officials who contradicted his claims that he was kidnapped. No wonder he would be hesitant to testify or to even tell Atienza what those 'unnamed threats' were. No wonder his wife was shedding those crocodile tears to the media. She herself was involved in her husband's anomalies, notably the P5-million insurance anomaly where she acted as the agent.

Lozada has the gall to smirk at the Senate probe as if he were lily-white. Thanks to Senator Santiago, his own anomalies are now public knowledge. In the absence of concrete evidence, this guy is just another in a long line of clowns courtesy of the circus that is the Senate.