Highly Placed Sources

The Inquirer recently has resorted to quoting highly-placed sources to add credence to their news reports. Last Sunday, again, highly-placed sources were quoted saying that a former PNOC head (named as Eduardo Manalac) will testify to the alleged multi-million dollar bribery on the ZTE deal. The news was the biggest headline of the day for the Inquirer.

The following are some passages from the Inquirer headline last Sunday referring to information coming from “highly-placed sources” (italics are mine):

….A former president of the state-owned Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC) is the “surprise” witness who will testify on the purported million-dollar kickbacks in the $329-million National Broadband Network deal with Chinese firm ZTE Corp., according to highly placed sources.

Eduardo Mañalac, who is said to have deep connections in China, is to testify at the Senate on Tuesday on how at least $41 million in alleged under-the-table commissions were funneled from the Chinese firm to the so-called “Greedy Group plus plus” that was packaging the NBN-ZTE deal, said the sources who asked not to be named for security reasons…..

….But his value as a witness in the now scuttled NBN-ZTE deal, according to the sources, is based on his knowledge of how ZTE officials purportedly paid off the “Greedy Group” to allow China’s second-biggest telecommunications firm to bag the NBN project….

…The sources said Mañalac had an extensive network and deep connections in the Chinese government and was a trusted go-between for Chinese projects in the Philippines.

He is “a familiar face in China,” the sources said….

….The sources said Mañalac was tapped to head the PNOC because of his deep connections in the Chinese bureaucracy that were to prove highly valuable in the signing of the original RP-China agreement on a seismic study in the Spratlys that was later amended to include Vietnam.

According to the sources, Mañalac also developed close ties with the family of then Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. when his own family joined De Venecia’s wife Gina in Inang Nawalan ng Anak (INA), a group that helps women cope with the loss of their children to tragedy or violent crime….

Right from the beginning, the story doesn’t hold water, as how could any source know what has not yet happened. Reading the report, one can have a sense of exasperation and might be tempted to subscribe to that source's newspaper if ever he/she would have one, for it seems that source is the only source of information available in the world (of the Inquirer). And as for the Inquirer, what kind of journalistic standards do they adhere to, to believe a highly placed source saying someone will do something without first verifying with that someone if he indeed is doing what he is supposed to do?

This is unfair to the highest degree for Mr. Manalac (the supposed witness). It puts Manalac in a very awkward position where if he denied that he knows anything he will be deemed to have backed down (and hence a coward or was pressured or what have you).

Yesterday, the Inquirer fell right flat on their faces when their news headline turn-out to be not only true but totally out of the blue. Today, they issue the following apology:

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine Daily Inquirer apologizes for its banner story on March 9, which erroneously reported that Eduardo Mañalac, former president of Philippine National Oil Co., would testify on the alleged kickbacks in the $329-million National Broadband Network (NBN) deal with ZTE Corp.

In his press conference on Monday, Mañalac said he would testify at the Senate, if invited, on the agreement signed by the Philippines with China and Vietnam to search for oil in the Spratlys—not on the alleged kickbacks in the NBN-ZTE deal.

The Inquirer newspaper also erred in reporting, among other things, that Mañalac would testify in Tuesday’s Senate hearing. Leo San Miguel, ZTE consultant, was Sen. Panfilo Lacson’s “surprise witness” at the Senate hearing Tuesday.

Well, at least, the Inquirer apologized. But what about their “highly-placed source/s” whose “identity/ies are not revealed for security reasons”?