Conspiracy of silence

FRONTLINE

Ninez Cacho-Olivares

09/27/2007

Romulo Neri’s reluctance to disclose his conversations on the ZTE national broadband network (NBN) project by invoking executive privilege showed that he chooses to be a part of the conspiracy of silence imposed by Gloria Arroyo and her Malacañang, rather than serve the people’s interest.

Strange that while he invoked this, he said he only had verbal instructions from Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita to invoke this. And when it was pointed out to him that there must be an official document stating this, Neri quickly claimed that he can get this from Ermita, as if this was an afterthought and as if executive privilege can easily be invoked.

At most, Neri was willing to talk about the P200-million bribe offer from Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr. but that was as far as he would go. He also stated that he had told Gloria about this offer, and that her answer was “don’t accept the bribe” then clammed up.

When more questions on this matter were raised, Neri quickly invoked executive privilege. He should have invoked this even before he spoke of his conversations on the bribe offer, if as he claimed, his conversations with the President are covered by executive privilege.

That he had discussions with Gloria on this ZTE NBN deal can hardly be denied, as he had indirectly admitted that his conversations with his boss are covered by the executive privilege, which incidentally, Malacañang interprets much too loosely, to its benefit.

Evidently, from his morning testimony before the Senate, Neri opted to toe the Malacañang line by not stating anything and opted, too, to protect Gloria and her corrupt government.

How does one reach this conclusion? Simple. In earlier interviews, Neri kept on giving too many broad hints about how explosive his testimony would be; about how he wanted reforms done, and that the issue was already beyond another people power and many other claims besides.

Then, he finally appears before the Senate and all he does is to point to Abalos as having offered him a bribe, to which he merely assumed was in the vicinity of P200 million, given the amount of the ZTE contract, even when he claimed not to have a clue on the ZTE contract as all Neda talks about are project approvals.

Yet when it came to taking the opportunity to serve the Filipino people by disclosing the details of his conversations with Gloria, he takes on the wimpish stand and hides behind executive privilege which he knows does not apply in this issue.

Why wimpish? Basically, he says he is not under threat, despite the fact that the Philippine National Police chief deployed policemen to his home in Quezon City even when Neri didn’t ask for it.

He has been demoted from Neda secretary to chairman of Ched, and yet he continues to toe the line of Gloria and joins this conspiracy of silence, thus allowing more corruption in government to thrive.

He claimed that ours is an oligarchic society and that he would want to see reforms, but he clams up and downplays his having been confronted by one big-time crony of Gloria. And yet, when the opportunity to bare all in relation to the ZTE-NBN deal came, he junks this, and hides behind a disreputable Executive Order 464.

So what is Neri protecting? His job in the Gloria government, which demotion he never even related to his alleged thumbing down of the ZTE project? Gloria Arroyo and her corrupt ways? Charges to be filed against him by Gloria for his having bared all? Or does Gloria have something on him that he doesn’t want made public?

And for that, he is more than willing to let the big fish get away while concentrating on the small fry — in comparison to the big fish — and even in that, Neri didn’t quite pull it off too well, because evidently, he was still into some instruction from the big fish to also protect the small fry, such as Abalos.

Notice that Neri was also infected with selective amnesia, not remembering what the other three meetings with Abalos were all about, save for that one golf cart conversation of “Sec, meron kang 200 diyan.”

So Neri says he was surprised and even shocked. But hey, it is illogical to be so shocked in what Abalos offered, which amount was vague. Surely, he would have pressed on and asked Abalos just what he meant? And if he was so shocked to divulge this to Gloria, why wasn’t he shocked at her reply?

Too bad. Neri chose to protect the corrupt.

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