Transcript of Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago’s interview
21 September 2007On the China-US turf war in the NBN controversy
We cannot discount the possibility that there is a turf war ongoing between China and America for this contract, because of the three (bidders), one is Filipino, the second is American and the third is Chinese. I just want to know if our government is being manipulated on this matter, that the scandal is being deliberately blown out of proportion by a struggle for regional power. And since we are a small, virtually insignificant country, we are being manipulated by some intelligence agency to take one way with respect to a billion-peso contract. That is my first concern.
On what she would ask in the next ZTE hearing
As much as we (senators) were unable to raise questions because we were limited to three minutes, I wanted to know if the meeting in Wack Wack Golf and Country Club between the First Gentleman and Mr. Joey de Venecia was the first between these two men, because as a former trial judge I find absolutely unnatural that after an introduction and a dialogue of very few minutes immediately one of them points his finger to the other and uses a very harsh warning (of) “Back off!” No person would do that unless they are intimate with each other.
On the ZTE as loan or executive agreement
Under the Constitution, all loans must be approved by the Monetary Board. It immediately follows in that same section in the Constitution, the provision that all treaties and international agreements must be approved by the Senate. So first, we have to determine: Is this is a loan? Then we need Monetary Board approval. Is this a treaty or international agreement? Then it needs Senate concurrence. Everybody calls it a loan, there’s no doubt about it. Both sides characterize it as a soft loan. Unfortunately there is the Procurement Law, that provides that if the government enters an executive agreement, then that transaction is exempted from the usual legal bidding process. That is the justification for why there was no bidding. But if it is an executive agreement, it might fall under the term “treaties and other international agreements” in our Constitution, which requires Senate ratification. I will explain next Monday that executive agreements need Senate ratification as a general rule. The mere fact that you call it an executive agreement does not exempt it from the constitutional requirement. However, there is an accepted exception to that general rule, that if a new treaty or international agreement is merely carrying out the provisions of a prior or mother treaty or international agreement, it does not need Senate concurrence. Malacañang has to justify why this so-called executive agreement is merely an execution or a further amplification of a former prior treaty between China and the Philippines.
On JDV’s involvment
If he has been accurately and correctly quoted by Sec. Mendoza, the language alone is already implicative of criminal liability because he was trying to influence the procurement of a government contract involving public funds. It falls under the specific and express prohibition of the Anti-Graft Practices Act, he is a relative within the third degree of consanguinity of the interested party.
If he was just inviting, there was no violation as yet of criminal law. But the moment he introduces the element of his son, Amsterdam Holdings and the ZTE contract, then there is a clear violation of the law.
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