MANILA, Philippines - Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr, the whistle-blower in the allegedly anomalous National Broadband Network (NBN) project pleaded not guilty to the perjury charge filed against him by former presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor. 

Radio dzBB’s Carlo Mateo reported that Lozada made the plea during his arraignment Thursday morning at the Manila Metropolitan Trial Court – Branch 26 under Judge Jorge Emmanuel Lorredo. 

In the case, Defensor contested Lozada’s claim that government authorities had abducted him at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in February 2008 to prevent him from appearing before a Senate hearing on the alleged overpricing of the $329-million NBN project of the Philippine government with China’s Zhong Xing Telecommunications Equipment Corp. 

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo suspended the deal in 2007 at the height of the controversy that was linked to her husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo and former Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos. Mr. Arroyo and Abalos vehemently denied their involvement in the NBN-ZTE mess. (Source: GMANews.TV)

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