FG Mike Arroyo talks about lying

November 24, 2008 at 9:31 am

Mike Arroyo talks about lying

From Malaya:

Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo denied allegations of former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. that he suggested that the national broadband project between the Philippine government and China’s ZTE Corp be undertaken as a government-to-government deal.

“I never suggested anything… Sinungaling iyan si JDV, huwag kang maniwala diyan,” he told reporters.

The First Gentleman was interviewed at the St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City where he stayed overnight Saturday following a bout of diarrhea. He was discharged around 12:35 p.m. yesterday

He was with delegation of President Arroyo for the APEC summit in Lima, Peru but he experienced abdominal pains forcing their plane to make an emergency landing in Osaka, Japan around 11 p.m. Friday.

De Venecia, in his biography “Global Filipino: The Authorized Biography of Jose de Venecia Jr., the Visionary Five-Time Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Philippines,” said the First Gentleman suggested the government-to-government scheme in undertaking the NBN project during a supposed secret meeting in Shenzhen, China on Nov. 2, 2006.

De Venecia said the First Couple hardly said anything during the meeting but after lunch at the ZTE headquarters, the First Gentleman reportedly made the suggestion and the President later changed her policy of undertaking the NBN project from a build-operate-transfer scheme to a government-to-government deal.

De Venecia wrote that this resulted in the Philippine government’s issuing a loan guarantee and awarding the project to ZTE Corp. The $329-million broadband project was cancelled in October 2007 by the President. – Jocelyn Montemayor