MANILA, Philippines – A new witness in the national broadband network (NBN) deal controversy yesterday bared that a total of $41 million in advance commissions were given to the “Gang of Four” who worked for the project, allegedly with the help of the First Couple.
Engineer Dante Madriaga, who was hired as consultant and head of the design team for the NBN project by one of the Filipino proponents he identified as Leo San Miguel and one of the “Gang of Four,” said $30 million of the commissions were used to fund administration candidates in the May 2007 elections.
Madriaga said he was told about the commissions by San Miguel and Fan Yang, one of the officials of ZTE Corp. of China, the company that would undertake the project.
He identified the “Gang of Four” as former Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos, Ruben Reyes, retired Gen. Quirino “Torch” dela Torre and San Miguel.
Quoting Fan as well, Madriaga said the $30 million supposedly for the elections would only be given under the condition that President Arroyo would appear during the signing of the contract in Boao, China on April 21, 2007.
The $1 million, he explained, was given as initial commission in August 2006 while the $10 million was a “success fee” when the agreement was reached in March 2007. He said the $30 million came after the signing of the contract on April 21, 2007.
He also testified that he personally saw First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo in one of the meetings on the project with businessman Jose de Venecia III, where the President’s husband allegedly remarked: “P—ng ina, lecheng bata ito ang hirap talaga kausap. (Son of a b—ch, this d—n kid is hard to talk to)”
Madriaga said the “Gang of Four,” also called “Greedy Group++” by Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, as the Filipino proponents of the NBN project, were trying to convince De Venecia to cooperate with them on the project.
He said another $5 million was supposed to be shelled out by ZTE for De Venecia just so he would drop his proposal and let the ZTE do the job.
De Venecia proposed that the project be done through a build-operate-transfer scheme while the Filipino group’s proposal was for a loan agreement with China.
Madriaga, who admitted conceptualizing the project with a couple of Filipinos and other technicians of ZTE, noted the NBN was to be submitted by ZTE as an “unsolicited proposal” to the government for its consideration, approval and eventual implementation.
“We were asked to do the project. I designed it,” Madriaga said, adding that his original proposal would only cost $50 million but was increased to $130 million to accommodate an $80 million commission for the “Gang of Four.”
In his affidavit, Madriaga said that with the exception of the China trips, he was present in all the meetings.
He practically calendared all the important dates from the beginning of the project and revealed all the sidelights that transpired during the negotiations leading to the exposé in the media.
“I was approached by Leo San Miguel whom I had known before to work on the project. I provided Leo inputs on the Arescom proposal, which ZTE used as a basis to start their design,”
Madriaga said, explaining his complicity in the project.
His affidavit confirmed the presence of several other people, including Mike Defensor, Asec. Frank Perez, son of former Justice Sec. Hernando Perez, Commissioner Lorenzo Formoso, ZTE personnel and the DOTC/CICT technical staff at the meetings.
He also said that the National Economic and Development Authority status was okay for a while but all of a sudden met resistance from Director General (Romulo) Neri.