Pangasinan Today

Bowing to pressure from her top advisory group, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, President Arroyo revoked Executive Order 464. Palace officials said the move also effectively abolished Memorandum Circular 108, which had the same intent: to prevent members of the executive branch from testifying in congressional investigations without the approval of the President.

EO 464 was abolished as the Supreme Court dangled a compromise that would allow members of the executive branch to continue invoking executive privilege and to avoid answering certain questions during congressional inquiries. Malacañang hailed it as a “Solomonic” proposal, but the Senate rejected it last night.

The President can no longer reimpose EO 464 or Memo 108. All she has now is the Supreme Court, which must rule on Romulo Neri’s petition questioning the Senate’s order for his arrest. Invoking executive privilege, Neri had refused to disclose to senators, even in executive session, additional details of his discussions with President Arroyo in connection with the national broadband network deal. A plunder complaint has been filed with the Office of the Ombudsman against the President and several other officials in connection with the NBN scandal. The SC must establish jurisprudence on whether executive privilege can be used to cover up a possible crime.

As the nation awaits the SC decision, the scrapping of EO 464 is widely seen as a positive step in the search for truth. But lifting the EO is no guarantee against perjury. In the end, the truth will depend on the conscience and integrity of Neri and the other officials involved in the NBN deal. Ideally, the SC should not even step in to extract the truth from reluctant players in a $329-million government project. But the administration preferred to gag officials through EO 464 and Memo 108 as it insisted that the NBN deal with ZTE Corp. of