MANILA, Philippines—Behind closed doors, Romulo Neri was “on the verge” of telling senators the rest of his explosive story on the supposed lobbying and bribery in the $329-million telecommunications deal with China’s ZTE Corp. when an administration senator and a Cabinet member intervened, several Inquirer sources said Saturday.
The former secretary general of the National Economic and Development Authority reportedly told a friend before the executive (or closed-door) session that followed the Wednesday hearing at the Senate that what he knew could “possibly” lead to the “downfall” of his boss, President Macapagal-Arroyo.
According to the four sources of the Inquirer, Neri was ready to answer the senators’ questions when Sen. Joker Arroyo intervened. (The sources all declined to speak on the record in deference to the gag rule governing executive sessions.)
Arroyo reportedly made a motion to allow Neri to avail himself of the legal counsel of his choice.
“I think he tried to help” was how a source explained Arroyo’s purported move.
On the phone last night, Arroyo denied that he had intervened.
“I cannot talk [about it] because we have an agreement that nothing discussed in the executive session will come out. But to intervene for Neri, no [I did not],” he said.
Asked if he had tried to prevent Neri from talking, Arroyo said: “That’s terrible backbiting.”
Arroyo ran under the administration ticket in the 2001 and 2007 elections. In the previous Senate he chaired the blue ribbon committee, which was accused by opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson of sitting on his exposé about the secret “Jose Pidal” accounts of the President’s husband.
After Arroyo’s motion, Budget Secretary Rolando “Nonoy” Andaya Jr. entered the members-only Senators’ Lounge, according to the Inquirer sources.
Andaya, who succeeded Neri in the budget department, came in supposedly to act as the latter’s lawyer.
A source said the senators had an argument about the presence of Andaya, who, some insisted, should not be acting as Neri’s lawyer because he was also a member of the Cabinet.
“It’s hard to predict what he (Neri) was going to say, but he was about to talk. I think it’s the presence of Nonoy that stopped him,” one source said.
Neri could not be reached for comment. Calls and text messages to his phone went unanswered.
On Wednesday, at the third hearing of three Senate committees looking into the National Broadband Network (NBN) project, Neri testified that Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos had offered him P200 million in exchange for approving the project. Abalos vehemently denied this at the same hearing.
In his testimony, Neri said he reported Abalos’ bribe attempt to the President, who told him not to accept it.
But when the senators asked him one after the other what the President had instructed him to do about the project afterward, Neri invoked executive privilege.
The senators decided to invite him to an executive session.
Inside the Senators’ Lounge, Neri began to experience chills, and by one observer’s account, it might have been partly because he was afraid.
The sources could not explain how Andaya got into the picture, but he was seen arriving at the Senate a few hours before the senators decided to take Neri to the executive session.
“Basta dumating na lang, umupo doon (He just arrived and sat there),” a source said.
The sources said Andaya told the senators not to press Neri to talk because the latter was sick.
“Then kinalabit na niya si Neri,” a source said.
The Inquirer phoned Andaya six times yesterday, but he did not respond. Andaya, a fellow Bicolano, was Arroyo’s protégé in the House of Representatives.
But many senators also agreed that Neri should have been sent home because he was obviously sick, another source said.
The executive session was over in less than 30 minutes.
“There was no bombshell,” a source said, adding that Neri seemed to be wanting to tell the truth but “needs a little more prodding before he talks.”
The source expressed the belief that Neri could eventually be persuaded to spill the beans.
Asked if Neri knew something that was damaging to the President, the source said: “Why would he invoke executive privilege if it’s not damaging to the President?”
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. confirmed to the Inquirer that Neri said nothing during the executive session.
Pimentel said that was all he was going to say because he was bound by the rule prohibiting senators from disclosing any details about their executive sessions.
“I cannot describe what else happened [inside] but it was obvious to me that Neri was sick. We allowed him to go because he was really sick,” Pimentel said, adding:
“I think he was sick partly due to fear. It was obvious he was deathly afraid of what he was going to say; that’s why he was chilling.”
Pimentel said he did not hear Neri say that what he knew could lead to another people power revolt.
“This has nothing to do with our executive session, but just analyzing what happened during the entire hearing, it seems to me that he is deathly scared of saying something that might provide the smoking gun on the involvement of the President or some other people [in the ZTE deal]. But that is just my speculation,” Pimentel said.
Asked if he thought Neri would eventually talk, Pimentel said: “I think so. I have faith that he will talk.
“He is now an object of pity and scorn. He can resign, but I think he is more worried about his physical safety.”
Another source said Neri had no qualms about testifying on Abalos’ supposed bribe attempt.
“But his dilemma is whether he would talk about how he was pressured [by the President] to approve the contract,” the source said.
Yet another source said Neri was summoned to Malacañang in the wee hours of April 20 to endorse the ZTE deal because the President was to leave for China on the following day to witness the signing of the contract.
On April 21, Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza and ZTE president Yu Yong signed the deal in China with the President as witness.
A source said Neri had told a friend that “what he will say will possibly cause the President’s downfall.”
The source said Neri, a hard-core technocrat, wanted reforms to result from his revelations: “He said that even if the NBN [deal] would be canceled, there are still many other projects [that can be the source of kickbacks].”