What's the deal with ZTE?

I did not intend to post something on the ZTE-NBN deal, I don't have the motivation to analyze the deal. But like most Filipinos, I am following the unfolding of the secrets, mostly by reading MLQ3's serial posts, DJB is also covering the story. Between the two of them and the newspapers, I feel the story is fully covered.

But I came across this post from Rick Bagahue at Tek for the Pipol and he cites a UP study by Raul Fabella and Emmanuel de Dios that

"...debunked economic rationales it determined beforehand.‭ ‬It provided reasons why the following can not be the basis for the NBN project‭; ‬supposed savings that the government will get,‭ ‬anticipating congestions,‭ ‬back-up inadequacy and pre-empting predatory behavior of private providers.‭ ‬In addition,‭ ‬the paper sees the government as incapable of keeping up with the rapid technical changes.‭ ‬It has also advised the government to just concentrate on‭ "‬core competencies‭" ‬and leave all‭ "‬non-core competencies‭" ‬to the private sectors.

The paper concluded that such a NBN project is not needed and all the government needs now is a moral backbone."

It seems that we are not only dealing with a project that is financially disadvantageous to the the Philippines and financially advantageous to some, but worse, we are being asked to fund a project that is not needed.

Update: September 24, 2007

The paper by Professors Fabella and de Dios can be downloaded at the Action for Economic Reforms website.