MANILA, Philippines -- There are many ways to read the competing accounts of what transpired during a meeting late last year with Commission on Higher Education Chairman Romulo Neri, opposition Senators Ping Lacson and Jamby Madrigal, and some of their staff, including Jun Lozada.

In his testimony before the Senate, Lozada said the meeting had been set so that Neri, who was concerned about his prospects of employment if and when he “told all” about the ZTE national broadband network (NBN) deal, could be “compensated” for spilling the beans on the anomalous deal. In the course of that meeting, Neri conducted a briefing on the country’s political economy, explaining why corruption was so endemic and entrenched, and naming the current top oligarchic clans in the country. In the course of his lecture, added Lozada, Neri called President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo “evil,” and added that she had “lost all moral authority over him.”

Meeting with reporters in Malacañang that same afternoon, Neri said he knew nothing about the “request” for what Lozada called “patriotic money” from the two senators. He simply shared his analysis of the political economy, a presentation, he said, he has shared many times with different audiences. Neither did he remember calling the President “evil.” He disclosed that he had in fact chosen to remain in the Cabinet, contrary to the calls of more than 70 former government officials for Arroyo officials to resign.

It seems disingenuous of Neri to say that Lacson and Madrigal, two busy senators, would go out of their way to have dinner with him just to listen to him lecture on corruption and its causes. One would think Lacson and Madrigal would have had enough experience dealing with corruption first-hand, and didn’t need yet another lecture on it.

The timing is also curious. Why meet with the senators at that time, and why request that the meeting be kept confidential -- if nothing earthshaking transpired other than an academic analysis?...

But it’s obvious Neri had -- and still has -- something to say about the ZTE-NBN deal, even if he claims he has said all he has to say on the issue. He told the media that he has chosen to remain by the President’s side because “I feel there is hope within the Executive” department. More specifically, he still looks to President Arroyo to initiate the reforms he has been pushing, to move against her friends and her own and her family’s interests, and begin the “reform process.”

One would think all his years spent analyzing and parsing the workings of government and the economy would have made Neri more realistic about the chances of such an eventuality. But it boggles the mind that he should, at this late date, still believe he still enjoys the trust and confidence of “his” President.

My reading of the state of mind of Neri, at the time of the dinner with Lacson and Madrigal, was that he was trying to play both sides of the controversy. He still badly wanted to remain in the good graces of Malacañang, but, whether because his conscience bothered him, or out of a desire to salvage his reputation, felt he had to unload all that he knew about where the stench was coming from. He wanted the perks of remaining in the Cabinet and influencing policy and thereby history, while basking in the esteem of colleagues and the public.

Right now, he enjoys neither.

From : www.inquirer.net, 20 February 2008