Ombusman decision on ZTE-NBN: A stinking steak dinner

Pardon if I write about my carnivorous self, but I just love a beef steak, medium rare. Its tender. It's juicy. If you chew it, it's like your average salty-flavored bubble gum.

Of course, a steak would not be complete without mash potatoes and some vegetable sidings.Plus of course, a nice red wine to boot.

And you know if your steak is as tender as the one you had the last time. Steak dinners should be perfect---one that would give you a big blurp in the end.

Ask Mrs. Arroyo and her husband---they had this fine steak when they dined at Le Cirque and went to Bobby Van's steakhouse a day later. They know the difference between a French cooked steak and those of the greasy kind of American Bobby Van's.

And apparently, this recent decision by the Office of the Ombusman to file graft charges against former Comelec chair Benjamin Abalos and ex-NEDA chief Romulo Neri can be likened to a steak eaten in some carinderia. They are being charged for the moth-balled ZTE-NBN deal. Yet if you looked closely, it seemed that the Office of the Ombusman did not cook this ZTE-NBN steak the way we know steaks are cooked.

This one is like some slab of meat put in the fire without those spices and steak sauces put into it. It's bland.It's tasteless. It's immoral to eat it.

Imagine, only Abalos and Neri are being charged, showing how pitiful their states are and how lowly the power-that-be regard these comical creatures. Worst, they are being charged with just "circumstantial evidence", an obvious way out for them in the end.

This is a poor steak sideshow, meant to appease perceived public outrage while clearing the main actors who conspired to muddle a very good telecomms deal.

It's sending the message that the First Gentleman Mike Arroyo and his wife, Gloria Arroyo are not part of the dirty operation, despite photos of them visiting the ZTE-NBN headquarters and even played golf with ZTE officials. Of course, the Ombusman did not find anything wrong with how DOTC secretary Leandro Mendoza and his undersecretaries comforted themselves nor did the Office found anything wrong with the conduct of ZTE officials led by Yu Yong.

In the end, obviously, Abalos and Neri would get court victories, not in this election period, possibly they have to wait for a few months more.

Jun Lozada and Joey de Venecia, the team up who exposed the stinking deal, have asked why the Ombusman exonerated the First Gentleman and his cohorts. They don't need to ask. And please, don't pretend to be naive. From the very start, it has already been decided---fry the small ones while fatten the already big leeches.

This decision is a stinking steak dinner.