MANILA. Former socioeconomic planning secretary Romulo Neri has ignored a subpoena requiring him to appear in yesterday's Senate hearing on the national broadband network (NBN) project.

However, Neri will be required by the Senate to explain why he should not be cited for contempt.

Voting 4-2, the Senate blue ribbon committee ruled that Neri should explain his absence, which Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita justified by citing executive privilege in a letter sent to Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, chairman the committee.

With the ruling, the Senate has moved closer but with caution to forcing Neri to answer its questions on the cancelled $329-million NBN contract with China's ZTE Corp.

Sen. Juan Ponce-Enrile voted "no" because he believed that Neri acted in defiance of the Senate when he chose not to be present at the hearing.

Sen. Joker Arroyo also voted no because he believed that while Neri did not defy the Senate subpoena, he was "prevented from coming...[and] torn between two powerful forces," referring to the order from his superior and that from the Senate.

Those who voted "yes" were Senators Manuel Roxas II, Ana Consuelo Madrigal, Panfilo Lacson, and Jose "Jinggoy" Estrada.

A key witness, Neri, now chairman of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), was not allowed by Malacañang to attend the hearing despite the subpoena issued by the blue ribbon committee.

Ermita said prior to this Tuesday's session, Neri had attended an 11-hour-long hearing on the NBN contract.

In his letter to Cayetano, Ermita cited executive privilege on the questions that the Senate would have wanted to ask Neri:

o Whether the President followed up the NBN project?

o Were you dictated to prioritize the ZTE?

o Whether the President said to go ahead and approve the project after being told about the alleged bribe?

The last question refers to Neri's claim that he was offered a P200 million bribe by then Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos to issue a favorable endorsement on the NBN project.

Abalos was supposed to have brokered the agreement between the government and ZTE Corp. Abalos denied the claim but resigned as poll chief.

Ermita said Neri was advised not to attend the hearing as "maintaining the confidentiality of conversations of the President is necessary in the exercise of her executive and policy decision making process."

"Disclosure of conversations of the President will have a chilling effect on the President, and will hamper her in the effective discharge of her duties and responsibilities, if she is not protected by the confidentiality of her conversations...[Neri] cannot provide the committee any further details of these conversations without disclosing the very thing the privilege is designed to protect," Ermita said in his letter.

The executive secretary cited two Supreme Court rulings on executive privilege: Almonte v Vasquez GR 95367, 23 May 1995 and Chavez v PEA GR 133250, July 9, 2002.

Ermita also said Neri's testimony "might impair diplomatic as well as economic relations with the People's Republic of China."