FILIPINOS FORMING PART of the so-called Generation Z may have very limited ideas on one of the most prominent whistleblowers in the history of corruption in the Philippines.
Some of them don’t even know who Jun Lozada (Rodolfo Noel Imperial Lozada Jr.) is, or why news organizations came up with the news about his release from detention at the National Penitentiary.
For one, Jun was set free at a time when the country is hounded with one scandal after another, mostly coming from whistleblowers like him.
But unlike the self-professed whistleblowers in recent years, he stood by what he believed was right even if it meant his incarceration for a case that has nothing to do with his revelation that saw the fall of the very person who appointed him to a government post in 2004.
Moving forward, Jun became an insider to one of the most controversial infrastructure projects in Philippine history — the National Broadband Network (NBN) deal with China’s ZTE Corporation. The project, valued at $329.5 million, was intended to create a telecommunications network linking government offices nationwide.
The contract was grossly overpriced to accommodate massive kickbacks for the so-called “powers that may be” including the then First Couple.
Jun’s testimony, which made popular the term “moderate the greed,” proved to be fatal as then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was forced to cancel the deal. In short, he prevented what could have been the biggest corruption during that time.
Jun Lozada, however, paid dearly for his courage. He was slapped with a long list of fabricated charges, including perjury and graft. Jun was convicted of a minor graft case, and spent almost three years at the New Bilibid Prison.
But not even his jail time made him recant. He was the same whistleblower that shook the most powerful couple in the country.
At a time when corruption in the Philippines is at its worst, the country needs whistleblowers who would stand for what is right. We need modern-day versions of Jun Lozada.
His story is beyond one man’s courage. It’s a struggle for accountability and transparency in government.
