MANILA, Philippines -- (UPDATE) Senate President Manuel Villar said he was “saddened” by the Supreme Court decision allowing former socioeconomic planning secretary Romulo Neri to skirt questions deemed by lawmakers as critical for getting to the bottom of the national broadband network deal scandal.

“This is unfortunate. The [high court] decision on the Neri case is a historical blot in the nation’s cherished tenets of democracy, truth, and justice. We respect the decision of the Supreme Court but it has to be said that those three questions that [the] magistrates said should not be asked are the same questions that are left hanging on the people's minds,” Villar said.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr., on the other hand, was furious, calling the ruling a “terrible decision” that, he said, allegedly allows the cover-up of a crime “in [the] guise of executive privilege.”

Pimentel, in a text message, added the high court handed down an “unprecedented” ruling that “emasculates the Senate's investigative function.”

“The Senate should consider folding up,” Pimentel said even as he offered to “salute the chief justice for [a] forceful dissent.”

The Supreme Court, voting 9-6, ruled in favor of Neri's invoking executive privilege against answering three questions, namely: 1) Whether the President approved the project despite having been told by Neri of a bribe offer for him to endorse it; 2) Whether she ordered Neri to approve the project; and 3) Whether she had followed up on her directive.

The High Court, by a vote of 10-5, also ruled as invalid the warrant of arrest issued by the Senate on January 30 against Neri.

Senator Manuel Roxas II said they should respect the high court ruling even as he said it would have been better had the Senate accepted an earlier compromise suggested by the Supreme Court that would have allowed Neri to be summoned but not made to answer the three questions.

“Without denigrating the earlier consensus of my colleagues, I still feel it would have been wiser to have accepted the compromise offer of the Supreme Court and have Neri face the Senate earlier,” Roxas said.

“While we are saddened by this turn of events, our justices have spoken and it has to be respected. However, we assert that we are not faltering on our conviction that an official action offensive to human rights and disruptive of constitutionalism should not be legitimized,” Villar said.

“We are firm in the belief that public interest is superior. It should come first before anything, and anyone else according to the Constitution. The institution of the Senate will remain an ally in the defense of the people’s most cherished democratic rights,” he said.

Other opposition senators were not as disheartened by the ruling, however.

“[The] search for the whole truth must and will continue. We will first read [the] decision and after deciding [the] legal implications announce [the] next committee actions. [I] am disappointed but not discouraged,” said Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, chair of the Senate blue-ribbon committee, one of the three committees conducting the inquiry.

Senator Ana Consuelo Madrigal said Neri should now appear before the Senate. Like Cayetano, she said “the search for truth does not end with the Supreme Court decision. There are still other avenues available to hold persons accountable for this anomalous transaction.”

Madrigal called the high court ruling indecisive. “(It) is neither here or there. While it ruled in favor of Secretary Neri on Executive privilege, it also ruled in favor of the Senate in issuing the warrant of arrest,” she noted.

Among the actions Senate Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan proposes are filing a motion for reconsideration and moving during a committee hearing to subpoena Neri.

Pangilinan said he intends to ask Neri other questions on Arroyo’s alleged involvement in the NBN deal. “If he refuses to speak up without justifiable grounds I will move that he be cited in contempt of the Senate and detained,” Pangilinan said.

He called the decision a “temporary legal setback” that the Senate can “correct and remedy the situation by legally asserting our prerogatives as a co equal.”

He maintained the Senate will not allow interference in purely legislative matters by other branches of government.

Pangilinan said the people have the right to know whether or not Arroyo acted unlawfully after having been informed that the NBN deal, then under negotiations, was tainted with unlawful and illegal acts.

“I don't see how executive privilege can be allowed under these circumstances,” he said.

Arroyo cancelled the contract awarded to China’s ZTE Corp. soon after the Senate opened its probe into allegations her husband, Jose Miguel, and former Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr. were involved in brokering the deal.

A later Senate witness claimed Arroyo herself gained from alleged multi-million dollar kickbacks that accompanied the deal.