OFFBEAT MAIL

This is a test of time for all Filipinos, especially those who may have been fed up with the way things are going on in Philippine politics. At this time, nobody is quite sure what will happen next. In light of the threats of some cause-oriented groups to hold mass protests in major cities nationwide, the administration did not seem to be bothered at all. In fact, it has already deployed the police and military units at entry points all over Metro Manila, to prevent leftist organizations from coming in and contribute to the instability in the metropolis. In the first place, why is there a need to hold these mass protests? Are the people already beginning to feel the heat of what some government officials are doing? Once again, the political atmosphere in the country is beginning to get murky owing to the alleged kidnapping of the key witness in the NBN-ZTE broadband project, whereby police security personnel had succeeded in snatching Rodolfo "Jun" Lozada out of the Ninoy Aqu

The police security personnel who fetched NBN-ZTE key witness Rodolfo "Jun" Lozada after his arrival at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, after a week-long trip from Hong Kong, should have turned him over to the Senate arresting team instead of being whisked away without the knowledge of his family who was waiting at the arrival area of the NAIA. The mess turned out to be another insult to the Senate committees that issued the warrant of arrest for Mr. Lozada, after he failed to appear before a public hearing for him to shed more light on the anomalous ZTE transaction. This only goes to show that among the three branches of government, the executive branch is more powerful that the two--judiciary and the legislature--because it had succeeded in ordering the police to take control of the key witness. And it appears that the police are invoking miscommunication as the cause of it all. But some doubting-Thomases thought otherwise. They suspected that there was a premeditat