Wednesday, March 05, 2008 GMA asked to explain role
COMPLAINANTS in the graft charges against President Arroyo, her husband Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo and other government officials yesterday asked the Office of the Ombudsman to subpoena the Chief Executive and explain her role in the aborted NBN-ZTE deal.
The First Gentleman appeared in the ombudsman investigation into the controversy where he was accused of receiving kickbacks from the NBN-ZTE contract. He and Commission on Higher Education (Ched) Chairman Romulo Neri filed their counter-affidavits on the graft charges filed by former Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr.
The First Gentleman told the ombudsman that he should be removed from the list of respondents.
In reply to the complaint filed by Guingona and his group, Mr. Arroyo said: “The complaint is replete with innuendos, speculations and false assumptions based on hearsay or, at best unofficial reports that the national broadband project was attended by graft. It is however bereft of direct and competent evidence linking me to alleged anomalies.”
Neri, for his part, said he could not be made as an accessory to the complaint.
“The allegation that I could be an accessory to the alleged crimes of my co-respondents is factually and legally baseless, and betrays desperate speculation on the part of complainants,” he said.
Harry Roque, lawyer for Guingona, asked the panel which is looking into the criminal liabilities of the officials including Neri and former Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr., to summon President Arroyo and let her explain her actions on the contract.
Roque said that while the President may be immune from suits arising from her official acts, the immunity does not include criminal acts.
Roque and Ibarra Gutierrez III, lawyer for Akbayan party-list Rep. Ana Theresia Hontiveros-Baraquel, another complainant in the case, fired at members of the panel for allegedly violating the rules of the ombudsman by according “special privileges” to the respondents. These, they said, were delaying the preliminary investigation.
Both cited the decision of the panel to give the respondents another five days to file their counter-affidavits on the complaint of Baraquel and on the similar charges filed by lawyer Ernesto Francisco, although their deadline had lapsed last February.
Roque said the Ombudsman panel is determined to delay its action on the consolidated complaint even to the point of “rewriting its own rules.”
Tyranny
Also yesterday, Neri’s lawyers failed to provide the basis for his invocation of executive privilege to evade questions in the Senate regarding the controversial US$329-million deal.
During the oral arguments at the Supreme Court (SC), magistrates grilled lawyer Antonio Bautista whether Neri correctly involved executive privilege, by authority of President Arroyo, to avoid disclosing matters that may impair national security, and diplomatic and economic relations with China.
Neri, who was conspicuously absent in the hearing, filed a petition in his capacity as former director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) which approved the project, to stop the Senate from implementing the warrant for his arrest following a contempt citation issued by three committees investigating the NBN fiasco.
Bautista said the respondent Senate committees on national defense, trade and blue ribbon were guilty of “legislative tyranny” on insisting that Neri answer questions posted to him during the legislative inquiry on the ZTE deal.
Revealing the content of the privileged communication will likely “open the President to condemnation.”
Fishbowl
Upon interpellation by Associate Justice Antonio Carpio on why Neri thought that some military secrets that might adversely impact on national security, Bautista said this was just an assumption since the Senate committee on national defense was involved in the investigation.
Bautista said privileged communication would be rendered inutile if not honored by the senators. At one point, he added that not all dealings of the President can be made public, and revealing those privileged communication to the public would be an embarrassment, like washing dirty linen before other countries.
“You don’t want the President to rule in a fishbowl, isn’t that what transparency means? The President can’t operate in that manner. Transparency is not absolute, just like freedom of the press,” he said, adding that details of the transactions regarding the ZTE deal “would affect our friendly relations with other governments.”
But Carpio pursued his questioning by asking if it was not part of the Senate’s inherent powers to investigate the alleged bribery in the NBN contract, even if it involved Chinese officials.
“How should we weigh between public disclosure (of the privileged communication) or to protect the Chinese officials? Should we protect diplomatic relations as against public interest?” Carpio said.
“Is there anything legally or morally wrong if the President follows up with Neri on the project, being the chairman of the Neda Board? If not, then why is Neri afraid?” the justice added. (Sunnex)
