The anti-graft court Sandiganbayan has acquitted former Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair Benjamin Abalos of graft charges in connection with the botched $329-million national broadband network government deal with ZTE Corporation of China. The Sandiganbayan's Fourth Division said in its decision issued on Wednesday, May 11, that state prosecutors failed to provide sufficient proof that Abalos had brokered the deal for a fee.

The man at the center of a corruption scandal that threatens to reach President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo resigned Monday as chairman of the Philippine election commission and promised to sue his detractors. Benjamin Abalos said he resigned to protect the Commission on Elections from damage caused by recent Senate testimony that he had offered a Filipino businessman and a member of Arroyo's cabinet millions of dollars in bribes to help a Chinese firm, ZTE, win a $329 million contract to build a nationwide broadband network for the Philippine government.