Palace won’t push Neri to play Truth Commission game
07/18/2010 Former Socio-economic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri’s refusal to cooperate with the yet-to-be-established Truth Commission whose objective is to provide closures to the scandals of the previous administration will not be a problem, a Malacañang official yesterday said. According to Presidential Communications Group official Herminio “Sonny” Coloma, Neri has the right to freely express his opinions on the purpose for which the Truth Commission is being built since he is among the accused to one of the cases that it is planning to explore. “Former Secretary Neri has the right to express his opinions because he is one of the accused. Perhaps that is what he thinks he should do as one of the accused so let’s just respect his right in that aspect,” Coloma said. Neri, through his legal counsel Paul Lentejas, said he has no intentions to serve as state witness in the investigations to be undertaken by the Truth Commission once it has been launched by the Aquino administration through its chosen chief, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. Lentejas even went as far as saying that “whatever the Truth Commission will do is irrelevant” since the cases that it wants to pursue are now being heard in courts, including the botched $329-million national broadband network (NBN) deal that the previous government unsuccessfully forged with the Zhongxing Telecommunication Equipment Corp. (ZTE), on which his client was involved. Source: The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100718hed5.html |
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