Governmet Officials gives A Series Of Denials Regarding Rodolfo Jun Lozada's Testimonies

Government officials and various allies of President Arroyo on Monday turned the tables on Senate witness Rodolfo Noel Lozada by saying that he was not kidnapped at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport last week.In his testimony last week, Lozada said various government officials, both former and present, helped him to leave the country and avoid testifying before the Senate inquiry on the scrapped broadband deal between the government and China's ZTE Corp.Lozada said Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs Manuel Gaite gave him antedated travel papers to allow him to leave for Hong Kong on January 30.He added that "military-looking men" abducted him at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport last Tuesday and forced him to sign written requests for police protection and affidavits that said he knew nothing about the national broadband network deal.He said Michael Defensor, former presidential chief of staff, also asked him to hold a press conference to deny any knowledge about the ZTE deal -- a request which he refused. He also revealed that Defensor offered him money after trying to convince him to hold the press conference.National police chief Avelino Razon and airport officials Alfonso Cusi and Angel Atutubo said Lozada was not taken against his will from the airport and brought to Laguna province upon his arrival last Tuesday.Defensor said it was Lozada who told him that he needed money. The former presidential chief of staff said he got P50,000 from his wife and handed it over to the Senate witness who was then staying at the La Salle Greenhills dormitory in Mandaluyong City last Wednesday night.“Kinuha ni Jun. Thank you, pare, Inabot niya tapos inilagay niya sa likod… (Jun took the money. He said: ‘Thank you.’ He took it and put it in his back pocket),” Defensor narrated.Environment Secretary Lito Atienza said it was Lozada who asked him for help on how to avoid the subpoena for the hearing on the Senate NBN deal inquiry.He denied saying that he was talking to "Ma'am", a reference which Lozada said pertained to President Arroyo, while discussing what best to do on how to prevent Lozada from appearing before the Senate. "I feel violated by all this... My family has suffered, people who believed in me may be getting bothered by this," he told the Senate.Gaite, on the other hand, said it was Lozada who suggested that he could leave for London to avoid appearing in the Senate inquiry. "I don't want to cast aspersion that Jun has ill-feeling towards me to say that. He must have misinterpreted the way I said it," Gaite said."I did not prepare his travel papers," he added.Lawyer Antonio Bautista said he was contacted by Gaite on February 5 and asked for his help. He said he met with Lozada at the Outback restaurant in Libis where Lozada told him of the alleged irregularities in the NBN deal and asked him to draft an affidavit.He said it was Lozada who dictated to him how to draft the affidavit, which said that Lozada knew nothing about the NBN deal. Bautista denied saying that he asked Lozada to sign the affidavit "for the comfort of Malacañang.""I am offended by the suggestion that in my 50 years of lawyering, that I will draft any document that is null and void...I prepared the draft on his instructions," he said.