CHIZ SAYS OMBUDSMAN'S PROBE ON ZTE A STAGE ACT

Senator Chiz Escudero today said the Ombudsman's scheduled public hearing tomorrow on the controversial ZTE deal is just a moro-moro meant to salvage the Arroyo administration from the quagmire it has slipped into.

Escudero said this belated act from the Ombudsman reeks of too much attempt to cover up the stench the government has created out of the said bungled deal and temper the escalating uproar against the Arroyo administration because of the ZTE issue. "The burden now falls on the ombudsman to really go hammer and tongs on those who have been implicated in the ZTE deal if it doesn't want to appear as a second rate-trying-hard-copycat of the senate's fair and fearless probe." The senator said if the ombudsman stages a sham hearing, such will soon be exposed by the people as nothing but an attempt to pull the rug under the Senate's no-holds-barred kind of investigating. He went on to say that what is also important is for the Ombudsman to do its job fast.

Escudero said it is also for this reason that the Senate must continue with its ZTE hearings, so it can peel the layers of the cover up to its rotten core. "It should not hastily abandon its work simply because a supposed watchdog which has slept while burglars did their work has shown some life and barked but in a sheepish fashion that leaves more doubt on its ability to bite".

The senator said the ombudsman's and the Department of Justice's plans to investigate on the ZTE-NBN deal should prove wrong the public view that theirs is a partnership meant to prostitute the legal system and processes of the country because there is really nothing that can be had from them to validate the truth about the shenanigans of this administration.