MANILA, Philippines -- President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has formed a "legal team" of Cabinet executives to study the recommendation of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) to lift Executive Order (EO) 464, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said Wednesday.

Ermita said the team -- himself, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Sergio Apostol, Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera, the deputy executive secretary for legal affairs and the head of the government corporate counsel -- would meet on Wednesday afternoon.

He said the team would come up with a "definite recommendation" to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo by Thursday morning on the controversial order, which bars government employees from appearing before congressional inquiries without the President’s personal clearance.

"The President instructed me to compose a legal team to take a look at EO 464 in relation to the recommendation of the CBCP and we hope to be able to submit the position of the team by tomorrow morning [Thursday]," Ermita said.

The influential CBCP issued its recommendation Wednesday evening, after an emergency meeting called amid growing protests, many of these joined by clergy and religious, to press for the ouster of Arroyo over the alleged corruption surrounding the scrapped $329-million national broadband network deal.

However, the bishops stopped short of joining calls for Arroyo to resign.

The prelates’ position has drawn flak from administration critics.