NBN Plot Thickens

I don’t like Dan Brown’s books very much but I give the guy credit for his ability to weave confusing technical details like he understood them himself. If he ever runs out of hodge podge crap to write about I suggest he visit the Philippines, the new seat of political crap with intrigue on the side.

The most recent addition to the government’s growing list of Guinness book worthy anomalies is the National Broadband Network (NBN) plan. What started out as a plan to connect all the government agencies and offices (despite the fact that a lot of seat polishing officials really don’t know the difference between a network port and their ass holes) is now a scheme to steal millions of dollars in tax payers’ money. Unless you’ve probably been living under a rock for the past month, you should have heard that the government made a grossly overpriced $329 million deal with Chinese telecommunications company ZTE without telling the Filipino people even though we will eventually be footing the bill.

This story simply has the ingredients of a good bestseller—corruption, intrigue, more corruption, duplicity, idiocy and even an ALLEGED sexual romp by a 73 year old government official with Chinese prostitutes. The best thing about it is that the details are muddled. Even the usually finger-in-your-soup media can no longer tell the difference between fact and fiction. Who could tell when Teves says she met with Abalos and ZTE people once to talk about NBN but Abalos says there were two meetings but no NBN discussion? Who could tell when Favila and Apostol claim that there was no contract but Mendoza and Formoso say that there was a contract that was stolen and reconstituted? What do they take us for, idiots? The monkeys who orchestrated this circus fracas obviously didn’t practice before they mounted the show or simply underestimated audience intelligence.

Just recently, the plot has thickened. Senate’s resident snoop dog Panfilo Lacson says an unfortunate soul is willing to testify against the monkeys. He is unfortunate because I suspect that his integrity will be questioned and ripped to shreds as to make his and his family members’ lives virtually unbearable. They would either have to hide in the mountains or in some other God forsaken continent like Antarctica.

Oh, and what about the victims in this story? They’re all too busy watching Marimar and Ysabella or scratching out a living in the streets to even give a damn that the administration has climbed over their backyards again and stolen what little they have.

For more on the NBN circus, do visit Jaspitz’s World.