UPDATED: Big Brother ISAFP is listening to us

Disturbing.

From the PDI Editorial:

Perhaps the most disturbing revelation from Rodolfo Lozada Jr.’s testimony before the Senate last Friday was not the confirmation of systemic corruption, which allegedly distorted the controversial ZTE contract to build a national broadband network, as the disclosure that the Arroyo administration is spying on its enemies—and on allies with the potential to turn hostile.

When Lozada told a packed Senate hall about his intercepted text messages—how, in that interminable stretch when he was alone in the strange car with two armed and unknown men, he sent one message seeking help after another, until one of his custodians turned around and told him to stop because they were reading his messages anyway—a collective shiver ran down the public’s spine. If this is the way the Arroyo administration treats its allies, what kind of surveillance is reserved for its critics?

Read the whole thing.

So... who's helping the administration monitor and spy on it's critics? Smart? Globe?

And oh, isn't Abuse of Power an impeachable offense, btw?

And it does make the whack job done by Mar Roxas' Liberal Party really look awful the more we know what's really going on when we connect the dots.

UPDATE: So when is the CBCP going to wake up and call for Arroyo's resignation? If not now, when?

UPDATE: Arroyo-defender, Opposition-basher Cathcath mocks Lozada and asks: Why only now?

Read this too from Conrado de Quiros, who's article re the ZTE/Lozada I agree with.

Neal Cruz: Greed, panic, lies; is justice next?

Interesting tidbit from the Inquirer editorial yesterday:

Which is why, last Friday, as a week of administration bungling brought forth a new star witness in the controversial NBN-ZTE deal, administration senators made themselves scarce. Among those pleading the political equivalent of diplomatic illness was Sen. Joker Arroyo, who once upon a time thundered, “We cannot have a nation run by a thief”—and who probably did not want to be reminded of what he said in the face of testimony pointing to even grander larceny.

Instead, the only ones who dared to stand by the administration were Juan Ponce Enrile, whose wife wants to be ambassador to the Vatican, and whose former law partner connived to have Lozada sign a false affidavit; and Miriam Defensor-Santiago whose husband is a Malacañang official, whose brother is currently an ambassador-at-large, who has two cousins sitting as administration allies in the mercenary House of Representatives, and whose nephew, Michael Defensor, acts as secret liaison officer with Catholic prelates, and who tried to organize a press conference of lies until it was foiled in the early morning hours of Wednesday.

And so, as one senator put it on Friday, we have a government that undertakes kidnapping, coercion, violations of the anti-wiretapping law, obstruction of justice and engages in conspiracy to hinder the work of the legislature in full public view. One that takes its cue from the First Family that behaves as if the rule of law is what it says it is. Not to mention all the previous catalogues of sins of commission and omission that range from perverting the law to liquidating opponents, from electoral fraud to plundering the state.

And which has the gall to keep demanding of us, the people, “Where is your evidence?” To which we say, look around—look at yourselves. You are the evidence, all of you.

Kidnapping? That's the administration's M.O. Garci talked about kidnapping COMELEC official Rashma Hali's relatives to silence the witness.

Previous:

- "Intsik pala siya eh. Kung ako ipapa-deport ko na yan."

UPDATE: Money quote from Ellen Tordesillas:

To answer the question that Secretary Mendoza declined to address, one has to go back to the original sin which is the cheating in the 2004 elections.

Since she is in power not by the will of the people, she is held hostage by a group of people who did not have qualms of committing the crime of thwarting the will of the people to fulfill her ambition of remaining in power.. Gloria Arroyo owes those people big time.

That’s why when Abalos came collecting his fee, Gloria and Mike Arroyo cannot say “No.”

In the BWAHAHAHAHA files. Like many of the people we know in the media, Jessica Zafra used to sometimes write about politics. Nowadays she mostly focuses on pop culture. But here's her recent blog post on the Lozada case.

UPDATE: I misused the word "hatchet job". What i meant was "Whack job" pala. like in the mob. haha.