Sandigan junks bid to reverse acquittal of Neri

The Sandiganbayan has rejected a bid by state prosecutors to reverse the acquittal of one of the central figures in the botched, scandal-ridden $329-million national broadband network deal between a Chinese firm and the then administration of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

In a four-page resolution, the antigraft court’s Special Fifth Division affirmed its Sept. 9 decision granting a petition by Romulo Neri, former National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) chair, to be acquitted of graft charges in connection with the National Broadband Network (NBN)-ZTE deal hatched during the Arroyo administration.

As Neda chair then, Neri had approved the deal which was canceled by Arroyo amid reports of tens of millions of dollars of payoffs given to Philippine government officials by ZTE, a Chinese telecommunications company, for the deal to push through.

Neri had testified at a Senate inquiry into the deal and said he had advised proponents of the broadband project to “moderate their greed.” He, however, refused to implicate Arroyo, who was said to have personally endorsed the project after a trip to ZTE headquarters in China.

The Sandiganbayan resolution said the Ombudsman’s Office of the Special Prosecutor could have instead gone to the Supreme Court to file a petition for certiorari (judicial review) of the antigraft court’s ruling on Neri’s case and charged the Sandiganbayan with abuse of authority.

But, the Sandiganbayan division said, “no such abuse of discretion is being ascribed to the court by the prosecution in its motion as there is clearly none.”

The court also said the prosecution “raised no new substantial matters” to warrant a reversal of Neri’s acquittal.

Neri had been charged with graft for brokering and later approving the deal, which prosecutors failed to prove.

The Sandiganbayan division, however, said it had already been “amply shown” that Neri had no “direct or indirect financial or pecuniary interest” in the NBN-ZTE deal.

The Sept. 9 decision cited lack of evidence to show Neri had received a share in kickbacks given by ZTE to Philippine government officials, among them former Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos.

The court also junked what it said was “hearsay” testimony given by whistle-blower Rodolfo Lozada about a P200-million payoff to Neri as told to Lozada by Abalos.

The lack of proof that Neri actually got the money made Lozada’s testimony baseless, the court said.

The Fourth Division of the Sandiganbayan had dismissed in May the graft case against Abalos. The same division, in August, also ruled in favor of Arroyo’s bid to quash the graft case against her.