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Loyal to the end, Neri warns ‘honest men’ on joining gov’t 06/23/2010

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Loyal to the end, Neri warns ‘honest men’ on joining gov’t


06/23/2010
Embattled Social Security System (SSS) president Romulo Neri, who along with former Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Benjamin Abalos, is facing prison terms for graft related to the botched $329-mil-lion National Broadband Network (NBN) project, gave an advice to those seeking a govern-ment post: Don’t do it if you’re honest and you want to stay out of trouble.


Neri, in an implied defense of his innocence from misdeals in the kickback-rich contract, told reporters “it’s hard to keep out of trouble if you’re in the government.”

Neri told Palace reporters yesterday that the ordeal that he is going through over the NBN scam was the most significant lesson he has learned from public service under the nine-year Arroyo administration. 

“No matter how careful you are, how honest you try to be, it’s hard to... keep out of trouble if you’re in govern-ment. It’s a warning to anybody who wants to join govern-ment,” he said in a chance interview during the launching of President Arro-yo’s legacy books in Malacañang.

Neri, however, said he does not bear a personal grudge against Arroyo notwithstanding other people’s perception that she should be held liable for what has happened to him as Arroyo’s fallguy.

“The President has to do what she has to do. I respect whatever decision she has done. I’m professionally loyal to any boss. Since the president is my boss, I have to be professionally loyal to her,” Neri explained.

Neri, who was then the Socioeconomic Planning Secretary, told a Senate inquiry into the NBN mess that he had informed Arroyo of a kickback offer from former Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos who was facilitating the deal in exchange for the approval of the project in the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), which Neri concurrently headed.... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100623hed5.html


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