WHAT'S NEXT? After the Senate decided to reject the Supreme Court compromise proposal on the appearance of former NEDA director general Romulo Neri before the Upper Chamber's probe bodies, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, chairman of the Senate blue-ribbon committee, says the probe will continue on Tuesday, March 11, without Neri. Video taken at the Senate by INQUIRER.net reporter Veronica Uy.
NO COMPROMISE. The Senate has chosen to let the Supreme Court decide on the constitutionality issues related to the Upper Chamber's power to call people to its inquiry bodies and to compel them to answer questions, instead of agreeing to the restricted Senate appearance of former economic planning secretary Romulo Neri as proposed by the high tribunal, Senate President Manuel Villar explains. Video taken at the Senate by INQUIRER.net reporter Veronica Uy in Pasay City, Philippines.
'GET NERI TO SENATE.' Senator Manuel Roxas II is amenable to the Supreme Court proposal, saying he wants to get to the bottom of the botched deal on the national broadband network with ZTE Corp. by having former economic planning secretary Romulo Neri appear before the Senate on Friday. But he was outvoted. Video taken by INQUIRER.net reporter Veronica Uy at the Senate in Pasay City, Philippines.
LIKE AMPUTATION. Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. says agreeing to the Supreme Court compromise proposal -- that former economic planning secretary Romulo Neri should attend the Senate inquiry into the botched $329-million deal with ZTE Corp. but cannot yet answer the three questions previously asked of him that may be considered executive privilege -- is like the Senate amputating one of its legs. Video taken by INQUIRER.net reporter Veronica Uy at the Senate in Pasay City, Philippines.
(UPDATE 3) Senate rejects SC proposal By Veronica Uy, Gil C. Cabacungan Jr. INQUIRER.net, Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 19:01:00 03/05/2008
MANILA, Philippines -- The Senate rejected Wednesday a Supreme Court proposal which, while allowing former Socioeconomic and Planning Secretary Romulo Neri to testify at the upper chamber’s broadband investigation, barred senators from asking questions involving Neri’s conversation with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
After the caucus among the senators, which lasted a couple of hours, Senate President Manuel Villar said most senators believed that the proposal would diminish the powers of the Senate to call any witness or resource person to an inquiry, or to ask certain questions.
“We strongly feel about this…We are doing this not only for us but for future senators,” he said in Filipino.
Villar said: “We cannot agree to a compromise. We reached a consensus to reject the offer. I am really against that because it would show the Senate has no balls, we don’t want to look like we’re being trampled on.”
“Secretary Neri is just secondary to this issue. What is important here is the Senate as an institution and its right to summon a witness and we will not agree to have our power compromised,” Villar said.
“Senators in the future might blame us for abdicating this power,” he said, adding that he did not mind if the Senate probe on the $329-million NBN-ZTE deal took longer to complete.
He added: “We strongly feel we are right and we hope we will win in the Supreme Court. This is our right under the Constitution and we will continue with this, win or lose, we want the Supreme Court to make a decision and we will not compromise.”
Villar stressed that no voting was carried out with the 14 senators present during the caucus. “We just reached a common consensus, a common stand,” he said.
He said he rejected the compromise offer by Chief Justice Reynato Puno as early as Tuesday night after the marathon hearing in the Supreme Court.
Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye expressed surprise at the Senate move.
“Frankly, we did not expect the arrogance by which the Senate slammed the compromise proposal of no less than the Chief Justice,” said Bunye.
Supreme Court spokesperson Jose Midas Marquez called the Senate decision “unfortunate.” He added, “the court just wants to resolve the issue once and for all.”
Neri agreed to resume his testimony before the Senate but would not answer questions pertaining to his conversations with the President after he told her that he had been offered a P200-million bribe by former Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos to approve the NBN-ZTE project.
He said this was privileged communication with the President. Neri also urged the Supreme Court to stop the Senate from arresting him for refusing to cooperate.
Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, who led the Senate in accepting the Supreme Court offer on Tuesday night, said: “We did not reach a consensus to accept a compromise, I am personally disappointed because it is more important for Secretary Neri to answer hundreds of questions we want to ask.
“Without a compromise, the status quo is the situation, Secretary Neri will not return to the Senate, and the case will remain with the Supreme Court until they decide on it. This will just drag on longer,” Roxas said.
The high tribunal will have to decide whether the Senate has the right to arrest uncooperative witnesses and if the questions that Neri refused to answer are covered by executive privilege.
Roxas refused to say who among the senators, who had given “soft approval” to the compromise on Tuesday night, backed off at the last minute during the Senate’s caucus.
“It appeared that for some senators it was important for the Senate to retain its power to arrest rather than to know the truth. For me, it is important to have Secretary Neri to get his answer or no answer to our hundreds of questions,” Roxas said.
Sen. Benigno Aquino III said the problem was “very complex” and that more time was needed to thresh out all the considerations.
“It’s not a motherhood question that has a ready answer. There are very serious implications on this and it’s not confined to the legal, there are also political dimensions to it,” Aquino said.
Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said that it was clear that the senators “did not want a diminution of our powers by a self-inflicted act that would affect the institution not only now but also in the future.”
“Neri is only incidental here. Neri is not the issue here. It is the power of the Senate to compel witnesses not only to appear but to answer questions truthfully,” Pimentel said.
Pimentel said that he did not join his colleagues in going to the court on Tuesday night because he thought the Senate would win its case.
Pimentel said Villar and Senators Francis Pangilinan, Richard Gordon, Maria Ana Consuelo “Jamby” Madrigal and Loren Legarda were among the most vocal opponents of the compromise offer.
Pimentel said Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile was against the compromise offer which was why he left the caucus early.
Legarda said she was surprised about what she felt was clearly a “political compromise” from the Supreme Court.
“It would have been a bad precedent if we had acceded to the compromise agreement because we cannot be dictated upon by a co-equal branch of government. By limiting ourselves to questions dictated upon us by the Supreme Court, then we would have diminished our power,” Legarda said.
“The important thing here is we are standing by the power of the Senate,” she said.
Legarda said it was “not appropriate for a co-equal branch to dictate upon us the questions that we can ask, especially in this case, the salient questions of the issue.”
She said agreeing to the Supreme Court proposal might lead to a situation in the future that would limit the type of questions the Senate could ask of witnesses or resource persons.
Villar said the Senate would simply wait for the Supreme Court to decide on the constitutional issues presented before it.
Pimentel explained that most of the senators who had initially given their support to the compromise had backtracked on their position during the caucus. “Most of them realized what we are going to lose by accepting the offer,” he said.
Pimentel said that with the rejection of the tribunal’s offer, the Senate and Supreme Court would have a status quo where the Senate could not enforce its arrest order against Neri while the Supreme Court made a decision on Neri’s petition.
Sen. Rodolfo Biazon said that his main beef with the Supreme Court’s offer was that it should not be used as a precedent in the Senate’s future dealings.
“The danger is that could end up as a way of resolving issues between two co-equal branches of government and in the end, it could hamper the Senate in the exercise of its functions.”
But Gordon said that the compromise showed that the Supreme Court might have felt that “we are moving too aggressively in issuing warrants of arrests that we need to change our rules to a certain extent because it is affecting the credibility, the prestige and moral ascendancy of the Senate.”
Earlier in the day, Senator Panfilo Lacson said that at least 12 legislators agreed to the proposal for them not to ask Neri three questions related to his conversation with Arroyo who he claimed in the only hearing he attended at the upper chamber had been informed of the bribe he was offered by then Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr. for a favorable endorsement of the NBN contract.
Senator Alan Peter Cayetano meanwhile said the next hearing on the NBN deal would be on Tuesday in which members of the so-called Greedy Group -- resigned poll chief Abalos, retired police general Quirino Dela Torre, Leo San Miguel, and Ruben Reyes -- are expected to attend.
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