Arroyo allows officials to testify in NBN probe.

This is from the Inquirer. Arroyo apparently decided that it would be better to send her officials to testify to counter other evidence. In many cases she has invoked a gag rule. From evidence presented so far there seems to be corruption involved in the National Broadband Network (NBN) award. Usually nothing comes of these investigations ultimately. Someone could probably write a long book by now with a chapter on each case!
By the way when articles mention Malacanang Americans could substitute White House or the government.

Arroyo officials set to testify in Senate’s NBN probe
By Michael Lim UbacPhilippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 02:09:00 02/10/2008
MANILA, Philippines -- In an unexpected turnaround, Malacañang has decided it will not block the appearance in the Senate of all the top-ranking government officials implicated in the testimony of Rodolfo Lozada, the Senate’s new star witness in its probe into the allegedly irregular National Broadband Network (NBN) project, as well as Lozada’s alleged kidnapping.
“I suppose that’s the only way we can better address the things he [Lozada] said. They have to be refuted,” said Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita.
This means that the officials concerned will not be invoking Executive Order No. 464, which bars senior executive and military officials from appearing before congressional inquiries without the approval of President Macapagal-Arroyo
Invoking national security and the public interest, the President issued EO 464 in September 2005, the same day that then Brig. Gen. Francisco Gudani and Col. Alexander Balutan were scheduled to testify in a Senate inquiry into the alleged election cheating in Mindanao during the 2004 elections. Other executive branch officials have since routinely invoked EO 464 to avoid a Senate appearance.
In a phone interview, Ermita said allowing the members of the Senate and the general public to listen to the side of Environment Secretary Lito Atienza, Philippine National Police chief Avelino Razon Jr. and Commission on Higher Education Chair Romulo Neri, among others, would “provide a clearer picture” of the latest development in the NBN-ZTE controversy.
“By listening to them, we will also see the underlying reasons, the motives for all these statements and behind this drama that unfolded before us,” said Ermita.
“Let the truth come out. I’m very sure the truth will come out,” he said.
Ermita himself figured in Lozada’s testimony albeit indirectly. While being held by unidentified men, Lozada said Atienza called him at one point saying, “Mag-uusap kami ni ES and si ma’am (I’ll be talking with ES and ma’am). Lozada presumed “ES” referred to Executive Secretary Ermita and ma’am as President Arroyo.
Lozada, the former president of the state-owned Philippine Forest Corp., testified in a Senate hearing last Thursday about the alleged irregularities in the NBN deal with China’s ZTE Corp. and the alleged involvement in it of the President’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, and former Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos Sr.
Lozada, who was earlier ordered arrested by the Senate for failing to appear before it, also told of how various administration officials tried to stop him from appearing before the chamber by sending him to Hong Kong and then having him “kidnapped” on his return last Tuesday.
He named Atienza, his immediate superior, and Neri as the officials he dealt with during this ordeal, as well as the escorts with military haircuts who collected him at the airport on his arrival and took him on a scary five-hour ride where he didn’t know what they would do to him and where they were going.
Neri, a friend of Lozada’s who took him in as a consultant to review the NBN project when Neri headed the National Economic and Development Authority, has himself invoked EO 464 to sidestep a Senate appearance.
Ermita said that as a Palace official, he could not comment on Lozada’s credibility.
“It’s very hard for me to pass judgment now. I’m in the administration. Whatever I say can easily be discredited also,” he said.
But “we can’t take hook, line and sinker what he said,” he said.
“I don’t know what his real motive is. I think some people whom he has mentioned should be allowed also to say their piece about this affair,” he said.
Ermita said Atienza and Razon were some of the “important people” that may be called by the Senate “to shed light” on the Lozada affair.