197 thoughts on “Liveblogging will be at Inquirer Current.

  1. mbw, dadvocate,

    observed that too, senators should just let them talk,

    villar is best, spoke least

    gordon, msantiago, enrile, arroyo – gma tutas

    abalos will psycho breakdown, gma and fg defensible

    long-term problem is chinese invasion via cheap moneys, investments,

  2. I agree with MLQ3 that the senate has a baranggay desk clerk attitude in its line of questioning.

    Tapos yung random thinking aloud,hindi na mawala.

    Si enrile,kinwestyon kung bakit nagtatanong si mar roxas on behalf of trillanes,sya daw hindi nagka chance nung nakulong sya.

    Beh,buti nga,malas mo.

  3. davocate,

    can’t separate good for family from good for country,
    it’s not either or, the choice is between good or bad, truth or lies, half truths are lies, neri can still speak the truth about gma’s involvement in the zte, defintely she is involved, what she did and didnot re the bribery attempt.

  4. Sanamagan!

    Ermita has just virtually branded Neri “a liar!”

    From the inquirer:

    “At this point in time, we could not make heads or tails of all these talks about bribery. That is the reason why we felt that there’s no corroboration whatsoever as far as charges coming from people that there were bribes offered,” said Ermita, when asked to comment at a press conference about Neri’s admission that he had been offered a “200” bribe by Abalos.

  5. If Neri wants to be a real steward, he must realize that he cannot serve two masters. It’s either he serves the people and the next generation of Filipinos, or serve the devil.

    In the meantime, I agree with the observation that senators if they are worth their salt must start to ask LEADING questions.

    Manolo, thanks for this service. A media professor, I think Dr. David Considine, has once said (and I’m paraphrasing) . . . indeed, media shapes our perceptions, so it matters not just what we see but what we don’t see. Public policy is based on perception.

  6. Ok,let’s give Neri the banana that he deserves!

    We expect too much from that wimp.Do wimps have defining moments except when they are hungry!

    Let’s move on please!

  7. I am furious, livid… Neri is nothing but a worm of the tapeworm variety.

    Equally, we have our VENERABLE, HONOURABLE but stupid senators to blame – they had their chance and they idiotically blew it. Why? They were just playing up to the gallery.

    No wonder, Brenda walked out – she knew her colleagues were dumb, just the same, she should have stayed to do the right thing but as ever, she is just one unpredictable broad with stability problems!

    Damn, damn, damn!

  8. The Ateneo roll of honor:

    HEROES:Jose Rizal,Ninoy Aquino,Ed Jopson

    the never minds!: Jose Pidal,Jose Velarde,Joc-Joc Bolante,Ronnie Puno,Romy Neri

  9. mbw,

    ermita is i.e. implying there was or that he is not aware of any PAGSI -mpresidential anti-graft for pres appointees — of abalos re neri’s report to gma. they’ll cover gma somehow, question is just how they’ii do it. ermita statement is subject to change or adjustmens.

  10. Daddy chair:Some Are Smarter Than Others!Kawawa naman kayo .A fall guy at 73 for FG!

    Let’s move on!

  11. TdC,

    Neri a bien couilloné les senateurs, mais bien, bien couilloné!!!!!!!!

    Sorry, but it’s difficult to explain this expression too in French, which is the version if you like of “switik” – very strong language in French: ‘couilloner quelqu un’…

  12. The problem with most senators,with the exception of Pimentel and Lacson,madaling mayanig kay Lolos Johnny/Joker and kay Lady Miriam !Nakakahiya!

  13. “We are prepared to lose our freedoms and our rights just to move this country forward.” – Bong Austero

  14. Can “Monchichi”Neri handle CHED?

    Can a wimp be a role model for college students?

    What will he include in the curriculum? “Profiles in Courage”?

  15. Heh! “What will he include in the curriculum? “Profiles in Courage”?”

    Heheh! Exact course title: “Profiles in Courage, Este, Cowardice Pala”

  16. TDC, i was hoping you would turn out right and i would be wrong about Neri. The Jesuits really have some soul-searching to do.

  17. CVJ:very disappointed.I guess the Jesuits have to start thinking how Jose Pidal,Jose Velarde, Joc-Joc bolante,Ronnie Puno and now Romy Neri passed through the portals of Ateneo.

    May the gods of basketball still smile on ateneo tomorrow!

  18. Dearest Monchichi Neri:

    You just destroyed whatever was left of my sagging reputation.

    In return ,I give you a “saging” for your cowardice?But what will you do with a “saging “if you have no balls at all?

    Do you think the pipol will believe you now?hehehe

    Daddy Chair

  19. I thought Abalos was the most despicable character here. I was wrong. It was Neri. He ratted on Abalos to protect his Queen and her consort.

  20. another bubble burst? what’s the matter guys, neri busted your chops because he did not “deliver” what you all were salivating to hear? it was really pgma and fg you were after, and abalos is only an insignificant “bonus”, right? when are you guys ever gonna learn? here, take these rugs to wipe your faces. better still, take a swim in the pasig.

  21. MonchichiNeri(Chair of CHED?)-According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word “coward” comes from an Old French word coart, a combination of the word for “tail” and an agent noun suffix. It would therefore have meant “one with a tail” — perhaps one in the habit of turning it, or it may be derived from a dog’s habit of putting its tail between its legs when it is afraid.

  22. “here, take these rugs to wipe your faces. better still, take a swim in the pasig.Bencard”

    Let’s move on!

  23. “another bubble burst? what’s the matter guys, neri busted your chops because he did not “deliver” what you all were salivating to hear? it was really pgma and fg you were after, and abalos is only an insignificant “bonus”, right? when are you guys ever gonna learn? here, take these rugs to wipe your faces. better still, take a swim in the pasig.BENCARD:

    Dear Tito Bencard:

    Thanks again!

    Stay vigilant, my agent – in time, the opposition, for all intents and purposes, will BE the Luli Arroyo Internet Brigade!

    Love and kisses,

    LULI A. (My Mommy right or wrong!)

  24. RP climbed 10 steps down(?), after this Neri heap of dung did what he did, don’t be surprised if Pinas goes down another 10 steps and pretty soon, it will be partying with Somalia.

  25. Bencard,

    i was at the senate, I talked to neri’s classmates who were there to support him. many of them are gloria supporters like you. they wanted to see abalos skewered and no one else. neri turned them off when he kept invoking executive privilege. those neri classmates were not lawyers. they just wanted to hear their classmate tell the truth. neri lost their respect.

  26. The fact that Neri invoked executive privilege when asked to divulge his conversations with GMA means that he is hiding something sordid that is damaging to her. I cannot imagine what there is in a conversation between a President (I’m not conceding legitimacy) and a NEDA Director-General about a broadband project that, if disclosed publicly, could possibly damage our diplomatic relations, our military, or national security.

    Neri’s claim of executive privilege which means GMA is guilty of corruption in this deal is good enough for me (despite Bencard’s expected technical legalism).

    GMA will have her day of reckoning after she relinquishes her stolen power. Remember that Fujimori has just been extradited to Peru.

  27. buencamino, that’s the whole problem with people who have no real understanding of the law. they think with their guts, not with their brains, when it comes to observing legal niceties. the exercise of executive privilege implicates a constitutional prerogative that is a cornerstone of our democracy. neri’s classmates’ and your version of “truth” may be important to you, but the principle of executive privilege is an essential ingredient of democratice rule of law. to illustrate: a coerced confession, or one obtained by deceit, force or intimidation, may be “true” but not usable.

    btw, how did you know neri lost their “respect”; are you sure he has their respect to begin with, whether or not they “support” pgma?

  28. Re: Nery,

    I don’t know what you people expect. You expect this guy to be a Saint, to offer himself up like Jose Rizal? Would anyone here do what they (stupidly) expected Nery to do?

    Nery’s an old guy, and old guys are rarely heroes, as you may well know if you look at the history of this country.

    On bad Filipino habit is to wait for big dramatic cues like men getting tragically murdered or women crying their eyes out, and you expected Nery to spill the beans in the Senate. But why would Nery do that, for what compelling reason, simply to tell the truth? Because he’s an Atenista?

  29. “CVJ:very disappointed.I guess the Jesuits have to start thinking how Jose Pidal,Jose Velarde, Joc-Joc bolante,Ronnie Puno and now Romy Neri passed through the portals of Ateneo.”

    EXACTLY, Jesuits.

  30. What I don’t understand is why Neri, who seems like a perfect lil technocrat, who has the world of academe and business if he wants before him, a person who gives the impression that he doesn’t care very much about being a member of Gloria’s “millionaire club”, why didn’t he say the whole truth? By saying the truth, he’s got everything to gain, not only in terms of prestige among his peers but also the respect of even his ‘enemies’? Why did he prefer to lose all that by playing the coward card?

    The excuse that he’s old and therefore has become more cautious doesn’t wash – he hasn’t got a family (wife and kids) to speak of hence, he doesn’t really have to think of them being kidnapped or held hostage by Gloria.

    If he thinks that by sealing his puckered lips to protect Gloria, it will protect him… For a so-called brilliant mind, he’s not really thinking. Doesn’t he realize that this act of his has just emboldened the Macapagal-Arroyos to bully him all the more? Doesn’t he realize that all the more they will humiliate him because he’s lost the last ouce of respect that even those scallawags in Malacanang have of him?

    Doesn’t he realize that he has virtually written an official authorization for the crime syndicate in Malacanang to insult his last shred of dignity from now till the end of time?

    Where is your self-respect Mr Neri?

    Cowardice – what men do to themselves in thy name!

  31. Bencard,

    there you go again. i heard Sen Gordon, an arroyo ally by the way, read in plain english the Supreme Court’s interpretation of executive privilege in its decision declaring parts of EO 464 unconstitutional. Gordon pointed out that Neri neither had the position nor the grounds to invoke it. Another GMA ally, Ponce Enrile, said if that’s what the SC says then so be it. There was no argument among the senators over the meaning of executive privilege. The ony argument was whether or not to cite Neri for contempt or to give him time, as a courtesy, to justify his claim to e.p.

    Before you go scrawling genralities about e.p. and all that, make sure you know the details of the case.

    As usual you are making judgments based on HEARSAY. And you call yourself a lawyer.

  32. bencard,

    they went their to show their support for Neri. I suppose that qualifies as respect, right panero?

  33. mlq3, thanks for citing the opinions of the late u.s. pres. woodrow wilson, history teacher/blogger david kaiser (offering in support of his contention the works of lawyer-violinist raoul berger) and the remarks of donald wolfensenberger re congressional oversight. these are opinions, not as persuasive as mine, but still opinions, not voices from heaven. as to where you got the 1950’s as the time of “invention” of the concept of executive privilege, how can i dispute “the explainer”?

    at any rate, in the very words of the u.s. supreme court, it was held: “the expectation of the president to the confidentiality of his conversations and correspondence, like the claim of confidentiality of judicial deliberations, for example, has all the values to which we accord deference for the privacy of all citizens and added to those the values the necessity for protection of public interest in candid, objective, and even blunt or harsh opinions in presidential decisionmaking. the president and those who assist him must be free to explore alternatives in the process of shaping policies and making decisions and to do so in a way many would be unwilling to express privately. THESE ARE THE CONSIDERATIONS JUSTIFYING A PRESUMPTIVE PRIVILEGE FOR PRESIDENTIAL COMMUNICATIONS. THE PRIVILEGE IS FUNDAMENTAL TO THE OPERATION OF GOVERNMENT AND INEXTRICABLY ROOTED IN THE SEPARATION OF POWERS UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. (underscoring, mine). u.s. v. nixon (1974).

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