Palace invocation of executive privilege inconsistent with SC ruling

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. said Malacañang will be defying a judicial ruling on transparency in government transactions if it will insist on preventing officials of the executive branch from attending the Senate hearings and prohibiting them from submitting documents on the National Broadband Network (NBN) project.

Pimentel said the stand of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo not to allow her Cabinet members and other officials from testifying in the legislative inquiry and from presenting documents related to the NBN project by invoking executive privilege does not conform to the Supreme Court ruling that there is a necessity to protect national security and the highest interests of the nation.

Commission on Higher Education (CHED) chairman Romulo Neri, former director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), has expressed unwillingness to testify further on the President's role in the approval of the $329 million NBN contract to China's ZTE Corporation on the ground that this is covered by executive privilege.

The same reason was given by acting Socio-Economic Planning Secretary Augusto Santos, NEDA director general, for turning down a request of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee to furnish copies of the minutes of the meetings of NEDA-Investments Coordinating Committee and other documents related to the NBN-ZTE project.

Pimentel said the Supreme Court, in its 2006 decision in the Senate vs. Ermita case, voided the provision of Executive Order 464 that imposes a blanket prohibition on Cabinet members and other executive officials from testifying in congressional without presidential clearance.