OFFBEAT MAIL

Despite the brouhahas that implicated the name of former Commission on Elections chair Benjamin Abalos who allegedly brokered the anomalous multi-million dollar national broadband deal with China, ranking officials of the ZTE Corporation hadn't budged an inch to the calls of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee to attend a hearing that would eventually shed more light on the scrapped NBN-ZTE broadband project. ZTE chair Fu Yong and Chinese embassy commercial attache Fan Yang were invited to testify at a public hearing called by the Senate Blue Ribbon committee to no avail. Philippine senators have interpreted the continuous refusal of the Chinese officials as a show of arrogance against weak nations like the Philippines. Senate minority floor leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said the ZTE officials must appear during a formal hearing to be conducted by the respective committees and take advantage of the opportunity to clear the cobwebs that now blur the controversy surrounding the latest re...

In an interview for employment, an interviewee has been made aware that to say something bad against his former employers is discouraged because it is bad reflection against the interviewee's character and personality. The same line of thinking is being practiced in almost all line departments of government headed by cabinet members, whose allegiance to the appointing authorities is beyond question. Such that whenever a cabinet member is called to testify during public hearings in Congress, the concerned cabinet members are almost mum on issues that they think would harm the credibility of the administration. Just recently, the present administration has issued an executive order that barred cabinet members from appearing or testifying in any public hearing called by Congress, unless there's a clearance from the appointing powers. However, there's a new development Monday, after some police heads and cabinet members implicated in the alleged kidnapping of Mr. Rodolfo "...

Former Commission on Election chairman Benjamin Abalos scolded mediamen today at the Wack-Wack Golf and Country Club in Mandaluyong City, after they have sought his reaction to the accusations made by another key witness who implicated his name on the anomalous multi-million dollar ZTE broadband deal between the Philippines and China. Abalos appeared to have been irritated after his name was again implicated by a certain Rodolfo Lozada, president of the Philippine Forestry Development Council and who served as its technical adviser on the ZTE broadband project of the government. Lozadas' allegations on the mysterious broadband contract has broken the long silence of the former Comelec official who was passing away his time playing golf in Mandaluyong City, when mediamen swarmed to ask him a series of questions surrounding the controversy. It wasn't exactly clear how and in what manner Abalos scolded the mediamen following him to the golf course. But his facial expressions on...