MANILA, Philippines -- The Senate minority will come up with its own report as a supplement to the committee report on the scuttled $329-million National Broadband Network (NBN) deal with China’s ZTE Corp.

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano told reporters on Thursday that this was the consensus of some members of the minority after discovering that the committee report released by Sen. Richard Gordon on Tuesday did not specify the violations allegedly committed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

“This is just a drama [since] this report favors [the administration]. It’s like a slap on the wrist of Malacañang,” Cayetano said at a press conference.

Gordon, chair of the Senate blue ribbon committee, repeatedly said on Tuesday when he presented a summary of the committee report to the media that Ms Arroyo had committed a “culpable violation of the Constitution.”

Gordon said this should prod the Ombudsman to file an impeachment case in the House of Representatives.

Cayetano said three questions needed to be answered: Was the project needed? Was it tainted with graft and corruption? Were certain government officials culpable because of the overprice?

He also said the report was “harsh” on whistle-blowers although “the best whistle-blowers are the people who participated in the crime.”

Cayetano was sharing the position of Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who said on Wednesday that he could not support the recommendation of the Senate joint panel led by the blue ribbon committee to pursue criminal charges against whistle-blowers Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr. and Jose de Venecia III.

Lozada and De Venecia’s testimonies in the joint inquiry were considered instrumental in establishing the conspiracy of high government officials linked to the NBN-ZTE deal.

Gordon renewed his call for the resignation of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez over her wrong judgment regarding the NBN-ZTE deal.

In the committee report on the deal, Gordon said the Ombudsman was wrong in dismissing the case against Ms Arroyo on the mere pretext of presidential immunity from suit.

“The Ombudsman should investigate and make findings for transmittal to the House of Representatives, if an impeachment would have been warranted, rather than a blanket statement of exculpation because of supposed immunity,” he said.

“I have said this before and I will say it again—the Ombudsman should resign. At the very least she should have inhibited herself from the investigation. She could even be disbarred for ignorance of the law, because it is only Congress that can declare if somebody can be impeached,” Gordon said.