Ducky Paredes

“This administration read Jun Lozada totally wrong.  GMA’s henchmen thought they could silence him with threat and intimidation.  That’s nincompoop thinking.”

by Ducky Paredes

I am truly sorry that I cannot yet go whole hog in proclaiming Rodolfo Noel Lozada, Jr. as our newest National Hero.

That he is honest in that he tells what he considers to be his version of the truth is not in doubt. It is true that, as a Black and White Movement press release describes it,  “by facing his great fear, he found the heroism to defeat it at great risk to his personal safety and the wellbeing of his family.  We have never doubted Jun’s resolve to keep telling the truth.”

I will even agree to other parts of the story that they tell: “We condemn Jun’s abduction and his being forced to sign false statements by personnel allegedly sent by DENR Secretary Lito Atienza to protect the administration of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her husband, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo from involvement in the ZTE-NBN Deal.  Only a government with terrible secrets would stoop this low to cover its tracks.  Only a government suffused with arrogance and comfortable with impunity would act so brazenly and without conscience.

“This administration read Jun Lozada totally wrong.  GMA’s henchmen thought they could silence him with threat and intimidation.  That’s nincompoop thinking.”

I begin to disagree when it goes on in this manner:

“No one can claim that Jun’s statement was malicious, politically motivated or driven by partisan interests.  It is clear that his only motivation has been to tell the truth.”

Let us look at the bare facts. Forget about what the police claim: that his own siblings – there are thirteen of them – asked the police for protection for their brother; and his own story, that he was in fear for his life after the PNP escorted him away from the immigration and customs desks at the airport and out of the terminal building.

The bare facts are that Lozada was picked up at about five in the afternoon of February 5, taken for a ride around Laguna and brought to a Greenhills school where his family was waiting for him at 10 in the evening of the same day. Time elapsed? Five hours!

What happened in those five hours? Nothing of note. Lozada says he was made to sign documents and to write out hand-written notes to the police.

The bare fact is that Lozada had his cell phone with him at all times and it was clearly in use. He says that he texted one brother who had come to the airport to fetch him. He also obviously called up his wife to tell her to meet him at Greenhills. So, except for being forced to justify his abduction, Lozada was not at all harmed by his “abductors”.

By the way, Secretary Lito Atienza of the DENR has denied that he sent anyone to protect or even just talk to Lozada.

* * *

So, we have Lozada back in the bosom of his family in Greenhills within six hours of arriving in the country, as safe as can be since he is surrounded by nuns and is under the protection of a school and several religious orders. (Someone who gets stuck in five o’clock traffic could take that long getting home from that airport!)

Why then did his siblings and his wife still file for a Writ of Amparo and a Writ of Habeas Corpus with the courts? Why was there still a need to gild the lily when Jun Lozada was already safe and sound?

He stays in the Greenhills school all through Wednesday, apparently talking to all sorts of advisers, do-gooders and so on.

What was he waiting for? Why did he not call the press in immediately? Why did he not call the Senate right away? What was he waiting for?

Did he perhaps want to observe first whether JDV would actually fall? Is there a bond between the De Venecias and Lozada and Neri that we do not know about? After all, they all tell the same unlikely story with little bits that jive with each other.

* *

Finally, at two in the morning of February 7, Chinese New Year, Jun Lozada meets the press. This is 34 hours after arriving in the country with 29 of these safe and sound in the bosom of his family and those who would like him to score against the present administration.

At this point, hours before he talks to the Senate (as I write this), I wonder how much relevance his testimony will have.

He will testify that certain officials had a plan to steal from a government project that apparently has been cancelled principally because there has been so much noise about what was wrong with it. There will be salacious details about what someone said and what someone else replied. What this will bring out is that the De Venecias had a plan for themselves that others frustrated and that this is the reason for all the hue and cry. (This is a Latin expression — hutesium et clamor – that was the way that the public was alerted that a crime had been committed or that a felon had escaped and a posse was being called to go after the criminal)

Bad intentions are not the proper subject for congressional investigations. It matters not how much one can compute and impute on an intended plan that was nipped in the bid by the President’s calling it off. Was there perhaps a payment made by the Chinese contractors even so early in the game, which may have been used in the election of 2007? If that is the case, then, certainly, the Senate ought to look into this but Jun cannot tell us whether or not this happened? The only ones who can are the Chinese and the Pinoys who pocketed the money. And you can be sure that they are not talking.

As for the new hero and toast of the town — Jun Lozada, I will scrutinize what he will say because – frankly, his actuations since arriving last Tuesday do not inspire in me any confidence in his character or the story that he will tell. But, let’s hear him out.

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hvp 02.08.08)

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