The recent Supreme Court decision affirming the “right” of former National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA director-general and now Commission on Higher Education (CHED) chairman Romulo Neri to invoke executive privilege in refusing to answer questions regarding his conversations with President Arroyo on the government’s National Broadband Network (NBN) deal with China’s ZTE Corporation is, contrary to Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita’s assertion, not a triumph of the diplomatic relations with China. The decision allows Neri to continue evading questions on the involvement of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and other members of the First Family in the anomalous deal. It is a triumph only for the Arroyo administration and its minions – who can use the ruling to, on the one hand, to prevent the Senate from carrying out its investigatory task in aid of legislation; and, on the other hand, to prevent the Filipino people from knowing the whole truth on the controversial contract which involved billions of pesos that could have gone into much-needed social services for the country’s impoverished multitudes.

BY FLON FAURILLO
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 10, April 13-19, 2008