“The Burning of the Judases” by Diego Rivera. Detail 1923-24. Fresco, West Wall, Court of the Fiestas, Ministry of Education, Mexico City, Mexico. (source: abcgallery.com)
Malacañang a few minutes ago announced the suspension of the ZTE contract (ANC news). Ex-ZTE contract. X-ZTE. I was going to do a contract-review of its on-line-published copy last night but was stopped by the non-legibility of the PDF file (I even posted a sample of the file to show what I mean, see previous post). But now it’s been suspended. Why naman?
Maybe because:
Either: a) FG wants to be home for Christmas.
b) someone wants to be home for Christmas.
c) a trusted adviser told the President the political cost far outweigh the “benefits” they got;
d) some really good lawyers, maybe even private ones, did a full contract-review, and instead of saying in the end, “based on all the foregoing we find the contract legally in order”, said: “my goodness! Gosh! Are you kidding me?!” in their legal opinion.
And the all-important question is: But what about the “commissions” or alleged commissions paid out? Will they be returned to the Chinese? But what if they’ve already been deposited in Geneva?
Will I still do the contract-review? It’s already mute and epidemic, er, este, moot and academic.
But don’t you get it…the act of suspending the contract is the most eloquent statement that the contract was not that urgent to be an exception to public bidding requirements (one of the exceptions to the bidding rules is if “it is an emergency and time is of the essence, etc.”). Here, it wasn’t after all. It should have been bidded out. It wasn’t an exception.
And finally, for criminal law: Is there such a thing as “attempted plunder”? (well, if the alleged commissions had been paid out and there is evidence, is it still “attempted”?). I’m done here.
marichulambino.com 