MANILA, Philippines – Romulo Neri has to deal on his own with the graft charges he is facing in connection with the scuttled $329-million National Broadband Network deal with China’s ZTE Corp., a Palace official said.

Malacañang will comply with the Office of the Ombudsman’s recommendation to suspend Neri for six months once its resolution becomes “final and executory,” Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said Saturday over state-run radio dzRB.

On the phone with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Secretary Raul Gonzalez, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s chief legal counsel, said Malacañang should let Neri and even former Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos Sr. handle their own defense.

“Malacañang should not appear to be so protective of these people because it might appear that it wants to cover up something,” the former justice secretary said.

Gonzalez also said Neri should initiate his own legal action in response to the Ombudsman resolution, and not wait for instruction or help from the Palace.

“He should paddle his own canoe. It’s not good for him to depend on Malacañang. He should make the necessary action to defend himself by his own capacity. He can get a lawyer,” Gonzalez said. “He should defend himself in the same way that Abalos should defend himself.”

Malacañang displayed its hands-off stance toward Neri, now the president of the Social Security System, just as more calls were aired for him to disclose the extent of Arroyo’s involvement in the NBN-ZTE deal.

“It’s up to him [to speak up] for the sake of truth and justice,” Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez said in a phone interview. “I think the circumstances warrant that he say what really happened.”

Iñiguez was referring to the exchange in 2007 between Arroyo and Neri, then the director general of the National Economic and Development Authority, after he told her that Abalos had offered him P200 million to favor ZTE for the NBN contract.

‘Continue fighting’

In a resolution, the Office of the Ombudsman cleared the President and her husband, Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo, of liability in the NBN-ZTE deal.

But it recommended the filing of graft charges against Neri and Abalos and ordered Neri’s suspension for six months without pay.

While Neri had admitted being offered a P200-million bribe by Abalos, the Ombudsman pointed out that he had not categorically refused the offer, and had “constantly conferred” with Abalos in lunches and golf games.

Remonde said that when the Ombudsman’s order “becomes final and executory, Malacañang will always abide by [its] decision.”

He said Neri had the option to seek a reconsideration of the order, and that pending the filing of the motion, the executive department could not yet name a temporary replacement for Neri.

Remonde said Neri “should continue fighting for the truth.”

“The law is on his side,” Remonde said, reiterating: “A fine reading [of the resolution] will show that the decision on both Neri and Abalos was more on the impropriety of playing golf and dinner.”

And what about the First Couple?

Said Gonzalez: “I think they should sleep soundly. They have not been indicted. Secondly, there’s no evidence that can stand against them. If they keep on worrying, that will not go away. They’re being attacked every day.”

Gonzalez also said Malacañang had to implement the Ombudsman resolution “immediately.”

“Supposing Neri does not move for reconsideration, what will Malacañang do? Wait for kingdom come?” he said.

The Inquirer on Saturday tried repeatedly to reach Neri by phone, but the calls went unanswered.

‘Truth will come out’

Bishop Iñiguez said Neri’s disclosure of the details of his conversation with Arroyo on the NBN-ZTE deal would be good not only for himself but also for the President and the country.

Iñiguez said that if Neri continued to hold his silence on the matter, “the allegations against him would only worsen.”

“Eventually, the truth will come out,” said Iñiguez, a known critic of corruption in government and one of three Catholic prelates in the Kilusan ng Makabansang Ekonomiya.

Iniguez said he welcomed the Ombudsman’s recommendation that Neri and Abalos be charged with graft.

“That’s good. It will vindicate them if they did nothing wrong. It will punish those who are at fault,” he said.

The bishop said it would have been “good” for Mike Arroyo to be also recommended for indictment because it would give him a chance to face up to the accusations against him.

Elsewhere, Senator Francis Escudero added his voice to calls for Neri to come clean.

Escudero said Neri was “now in a position to help authorities bring to justice those who are involved and may have masterminded the deal.”

“He is now being made the fall guy of the culprits. He should reconsider his invocation of executive privilege and reveal all he knows about the NBN-ZTE deal,” Escudero said, adding:

“It’s time for honest men to take a stand in the NBN-ZTE mess. All it takes for corruption to continue is the inaction of men and women. I call on Secretary Neri to follow the example of Rodolfo ‘Jun’ Lozada and stop protecting those truly responsible.”

Lozada, who had told a Senate inquiry of the purported overprice and kickbacks that attended the deal, had himself called on Neri to disclose the President’s involvement. With a report from Michael Lim Ubac