Ballsy just a victim in Czech extort tale?
POSTSCRIPT By Federico D. Pascual Jr. (The Philippine Star) | Updated June 30, 2013 - 12:00am
WOBBLY TALE: On the face of it, I do not believe the black propaganda that presidential eldest sister Ballsy Aquino-Cruz had tried extorting a bribe from a Czech company interested in a contract to supply coaches for a Metro Manila light rail line.
To me, having known this prim and proper daughter of Ninoy and Cory Aquino, it would be out of character for her to demand a bribe from a would-be contractor and thereby ruin the name that the family had nurtured all their lives.
In the second place the story that was planted in the media, attributed to unknown sources, is so lacking in details that would give it the ring of truth.
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TRAVELING TROUPE: The general line of the rumor is that two years ago Ballsy and her husband Eldon Cruz traveled with some friends to Prague, where the Philippine ambassador happened to be the friend of another brother-in-law (not Eldon) of President Noynoy Aquino.
Then and there, the rumor goes, the group talked with Inekon Tram, a Czech firm, allegedly to assure its getting the supply contract if it paid the visitors from Manila certain bribes, including advances running to as much as $20 million!
Those peddling the story added that the Czech ambassador in Manila, Josef Rychtar, is about to drop a bomb by giving details of the supposed extortion attempt. (He would do this country a favor by talking officially and publicly about the alleged extortion.--fdp)
The group is reported to have included Pete Prado, a former official of the Department of Transportation and Communications during the term of President Cory Aquino, and engineer Steve Psinakis, a son-in-law of the late Eugenio Lopez Sr