Talk about a reversal of fortunes!
On Tue, Aug 23, the Sandiganbayan sentenced celebrated whistleblower Jun Lozada to six to 10 years in prison after he was found him guilty of graft.
In 2008, Lozada was hailed for exposing alleged irregularities in the botched US$329-million deal between then-President Gloria Arroyo’s government and China’s ZTE Corp. to establish a national broadband network.
“Lozada claimed that former Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos received kickbacks from the deal,” reports Carolyn Bonquin on ABS-CBNnews.com.
Lozada is an electronics and communications engineer by profession. He served as chief executive officer of the Philippine Forest Corporation (PFC) and later as technical consultant to former Philippine Socio-Economic Planning chief Romulo Neri on the Philippine national broadband project during the Arroyo administration.
However, Lozada himself was later slapped with graft raps in connection with the leasing of public land to his brother and a private firm when he was PFC head.
The Sandiganbayan has given Lozada 15 days to appeal his conviction.
