MANILA, Philippines--A 26-second posting at the video sharing website ?YouTube? is making the rounds of forwarded e-mail messages in the Internet.

It shows a man in barong, his back to the camera, signing some documents by the lavatory in what seems to be a comfort room.

The posting claimed it was an official of one of the country?s biggest construction firms, the one called ?FF Cruz.? The room was supposedly at the Comelec.

It is true that construction firm FF Cruz partnered with an Israeli satellite company and defense contractor called ?Gilat? to bid for the P11-billion Comelec?s election automation contract.

The last time I checked, the Comelec project had little?if at all?to do with construction and defense. Apparently things already changed just like that.

Anyway, the Comelec ?special bids and awards committee,? or the SBAC, took all of one week to disqualify all the seven bidders, including the FF Cruz-Gilat partnership.

What took the SBAC that long to disqualify all the bidders?

The SBAC is made up of lawyers, who presumably have little knowledge of hi-tech election systems.

From what I heard, the pre-qualification proceedings became some sort of a court hearing, with the SBAC focusing on legalities, which naturally invited millions of questions from the bidders.

The panel, from what I heard, checked every detail of several boxes of documents submitted by each of the bidders. I heard the bidders even had to use wheelbarrows.

My sources say that, for instance, when the SBAC asked the bidders for certain documents, they only had 10 minutes to find them in the stack of papers taller than Yao Ming.

That is, however, except for the FF Cruz-Gilat partnership, whose bid was the last one that the SBAC evaluated.

The SBAC, said my sources, gave the lucky partnership more than three hours to do some last-minute repairs in its proposal.

To think, the SBAC was rather stern?to the point of being discourteous?to the other bidders. It did not even allow them to speak.

Not so with the fortunate FF Cruz-Gilat partnership! For instance, their bid documents did not include their VAT returns. No problemo! The SBAC simply gave them almost three hours to submit the documents.

Finally, the SBAC just decided that, the VAT returns requirement, which was imposed on other bidders, did not have to apply to the blessed FF Cruz-Gilat partnership. The income tax return would do.

From what I heard, the other bidders filed a ?joint manifestation? (i.e. complaint) on the manner the SBAC treated the FF Cruz-Gilat partnership with leniency.

One of them even submitted a copy of the government?s webpage, in which it was said that FF Cruz had been in the blacklist in government contracts.

The SBAC promised to check it out later! Hmm.

Shall we just all expect the P11-billion contract to go to the same favorite group or what?

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THE SENATE ?committee of the whole??meaning, the entire chamber?is spending time to hear the complaint of the Senate ethics committee against Sen. Manuel Villar.

After the Senate committee of the whole hears it, what then? Well, basically, that?s it! We all know that the whole affair is just for show. Certain senators are calling for Villar?s blood. Surveys showed that Villar is now leading the list of ?presidentiables? for 2010.

The circus has something to do with P400 million in the budget. The money would go to the construction of flyovers at the C-5 road system. Senators alleged that Villar, as Senate president, supposedly ?inserted? the item twice in the budget.

The Senate finance committee already pooh-poohed such a claim. It turned out that the P400 million would go to two flyovers?and not one.

It seems that P200 million would go to a flyover in Sucat Rd. (in Paranaque) and the other P200 million, to a flyover on Quirino Avenue and Coastal Road.

While that seems to be reason enough for the Senate to form itself into a ?committee of the whole,? I think that the commuting public that must suffer hours of heavy traffic in those areas is silently cheering for Villar.

The so-called hearing is only giving Villar more public attention. Unless of course that is the intention!

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FORMER Presidential chief of staff Mike Defensor has resurrected the ZTE-NBN controversy.

He filed the perjury charge against whistleblower Rodolfo ?Jun? Lozada, who is now enjoying a lot of media and public support.

Enter former Senate President and Justice Secretary Frank Drilon, who is a bigwig in the Liberal Party (featuring Sen. Mar Roxas as presidential candidate in 2010).

Drillon says that, because of the case filed by Defensor, the Lola at the Palace can be subjected to questioning in the trial.

What?s more, Malacanang cannot invoke ?executive privilege? this time, unlike in the Senate investigation of the ZTE-NBN deal.

In fact, the judge in the case assured Defensor that if the President would be asked to stand as witnesses in the trial, he would issue a subpoena to her.

But who in his right mind would serve the subpoena? Well, the judge said that if the national police would refuse to serve the warrant, he could deputize other public officers, possibly Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim, former PNP chief Sen. Panfilo Lacson and other opposition senators.

What a spectacle that would be! In the meantime, millions of young able-bodied Filipinos are still jobless!