An appeal to NEDA employees

"We shall be transparent in all our actions
And continue to adhere to the highest
Tenets of public ethics.
For ours is a caring agency responsive
To the needs of every member,
While working for the welfare of all." (Excerpt from the NEDA Mission)

A GROUP calling itself ONE Executive Committee, purportedly compose of disgruntled employees of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), has issued a position paper calling for transparency in the ZTE-NBN Broadband deal.

Because of the way the scandal has undermined the credibility of the agency and these hardworking employees – most of them honest economic graduates who are probably brilliant enough to be teaching generations of students who want to understand the workings of the economy, but have chosen to protect the wider public interest instead – the group wants the documents relating to the case to be released for further public scrutiny.

I don't know if my friends, officials of NEDA I had covered before when I was still a business reporter, are part of ONE, but I appeal to them to take action, instead of just hiding behind an anonymous group and a position paper. I know it is difficult to put one's job on the line and speak the truth, but it is time for you to come forward, release those documents yourselves, and testify. You know very well that your head is a weakling who will come to the aid of the corrupt ones in Malacañang with just a snap of the finger. He and the one before him are the cause of the agency's downfall.

Courage, friends. Save your agency, save the country from the corrupt. Come forward and speak.