Court rules Neri should be tried with Arroyo, Abalos

Romulo Neri INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

The Sandiganbayan Fifth Division has upheld its ruling to consolidate Romulo Neri’s graft case with those of  former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and former elections chief Benjamin Abalos, which is pending in the antigraft court’s Fourth Division.

The latest ruling would now pave the way for Neri to be tried for graft along with Arroyo and  Abalos in connection with the aborted National Broadband Network (NBN) deal.

In a resolution, the Sandiganbayan said Neri’s motion for reconsideration failed to present any new arguments to show why the cases should not be consolidated.

It earlier ruled that consolidation was proper because the charges in all the cases involved the government’s $329-million NBN deal with China’s ZTE Corp., which was eventually canceled amid allegations of bribery and overpricing.

Neri earlier opposed the consolidation of his case with those of Abalos and Arroyo, as sought by the prosecution, and contended that to do so would delay the trial of his case.

He had argued that it would be absurd for him to be tried along with Abalos since he had testified against the former election chief in the latter’s graft case. He added that their cases did not involve the same issues, and that he did not belong to the “Abalos group” that had allegedly negotiated with officials of China’s ZTE on the NBN project.

The prosecution, for its part, said the consolidation of the NBN graft cases would lead to a more expeditious and less expensive resolution of the controversy.

It said it planned to present ZTE officials as witnesses in the trials, and doing so would be an expensive process. Hence, the move to consolidate the cases, it said.

Neri was charged with graft in 2010 for allegedly meeting with Abalos and ZTE officials when the NBN project was still under assessment by the government.

Abalos was also charged the same year for intervening in the NBN contract which was not related to his duties as elections chief.

In late 2011, Abalos was charged anew with graft, along with Arroyo, her husband Jose Miguel Arroyo and former Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza in connection with the approval of the NBN deal which was found to be disadvantageous to the government.