Philippines’ Arroyo Linked Directly to Bribery Scandal for First Time

For the first time, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was directly linked on Monday to a bribery scandal by a former key ally as the deliberations on the latest impeachment complaint against Arroyo resumed in the House of Representatives.

Testifying at the House justice committee, former House Speaker Jose De Venecia disclosed that Arroyo was behind the bribery of congressmen and governors who each received half a million pesos ($10,204) in October 2007.

De Venecia said he was not present during the distribution of the money bags to Arroyo’s allies but he later received the offer in his office.

“Many received 500,000-peso bags from President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and I was not there because I knew what was going to happen. But I was invited by the President again to go to Malacanang at 11 in the morning at the music room, and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo herself asked me to please transmit the (weak) impeachment complaint to the Committee on Justice,” De Venecia said.

He was referring to last year’s “sham and bogus” impeachment complaint against Arroyo which the President’s allies in the House quickly dumped.

De Venecia said his refusal to endorse that complaint was one of the reasons why he was removed as House Speaker and president of the ruling Lakas party last year.

 ”Last year, for refusing to endorse a sham and bogus impeachment complaint against the President and for supporting my son’s call for truth and justice, I was removed as Speaker of the House of Representatives and I was removed as President of the Lakas-NUCD party,” De Venecia said.

De Venecia said Arroyo had asked him three or four times to endorse the weak impeachment complaint but that he rejected the President’s personal request. “I told the President of the Philippines I cannot endorse this impeachment complaint. She asked me three or four times and I said no…And I said I might go on leave as Speaker of the House,” he said.

Earlier, De Venecia’s lawyer Raul Lambino revealed during a radio interview that a presidential staff brought a 500,000-peso bag to De Venecia’s office on Oct. 11 last year.

“He still has the gift bag. The money has not been touched,” Lambino said.

De Venecia also said he was told by his son that he was offered $10 million to keep silent on the controversial $329-million national broadband network deal which the Arroyo government entered with China’s ZTE Corp.

He said Malacañang also tried to bribe his son but the latter rejected the offer.

De Venecia added that another key official, former Socio-Economical Planning Secretary Romulo Neri, was also offered 200 million pesos in exchange for not spilling the beans during the Senate’s inquiry on the ZTE scandal.

De Venecia ruptured his ties with Arroyo after his son Jose III linked Arroyo’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, to the scandal.

De Venecia was ousted as House Speaker last February.