Rey G. Panaligan
Businessman Jose "Joey" de Venecia III, son of former House Speaker Jose C. de Venecia Jr., asked the Supreme Court (SC) yesterday for a Writ of Habeas Data that would compel the military to divulge recordings of his telephone conversations in connection with the government’s $ 329-million National Broadband Network (NBN) project with Chinese firm ZTE Corp. that was cancelled by President Arroyo during a trip to China last year.
In a petition filed through lawyer Reynold Munsayac, the young De Venecia filed the case because of what he said was the admission of former Commission on Elections Chairman Benjamin S. Abalos Sr. that he has a transcript of Joey’s telephone conversations.
De Venecia named as respondents in his petition the top officials of the Armed Forces, the Intelligence Services of the Armed Forces, the Philippine National Police, Abalos, and Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile.
Enrile was impleaded in the petition to prevent the senator from making good his threat to air publicly the supposed wiretapped conversations, De Venecia said.
According to De Venecia, Abalos berated him sometime in February 2007 after things turned sour between his firm, Amsterdam Holdings Inc. (AHI), and ZTE Corp., which Abalos was allegedly lobbying for to win the NBN contract.
He asked the SC to order the police and the military "to produce all materials, including recordings and transcriptions thereof, in their possession obtained through their wiretapping activities on petitioner’s private communications."
"In the present case, at the very least, there had been and now again exists a serious threatened violation of petitioner’s right to privacy subject of the habeas data," he said.
The Writ of Habeas Data is a new legal remedy against threats and violations to the right to privacy.
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