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THE Supreme Court is hopeful that it will come out
with a decision next month on the Senate’s motion for
reconsideration that seeks a reversal of the Court’s earlier
decision which upheld the right of former Socioeconomic planning
Chief Romulo Neri to invoke the principle of executive privilege.
The High Court spokesman, lawyer
Jose Midas Marquez, on Wednesday said the Court has just finished
its summer session in Baguio City and is currently on recess, giving
the justices more time to study the 108-page petition filed by the
Senate.
The motion for reconsideration
was submitted last April 8 by Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and
Benigno Aquino 3rd in behalf of the three joint committees—Blue
Ribbon, Trade and Commerce and National Defense and Security—which
are investigating the national broadband deal controversy.
“Hopefully by June there will
be a resolution on the [Senate’s] motion for reconsideration,”
Marquez said.
According to Marquez, the
justices will be studying all the issues relating to the High
Court’s majority decision and as well as the dissenting opinion of
Chief Justice Reynato Puno.
“There were other issues that
cropped up that we do not know after the main decision, along with
the Chief Justice’s dissenting opinion, came out,” Marquez
added. “I think this is what our justices will probably look
into.”
Last April 15, the High Court
failed to come out with a decision on the Senate’s motion
for reconsideration.
In a two-page resolution, signed
by Assistant Clerk of Court Felipa Anama, the High Court en banc
instead gave Neri and the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) 10
days to submit their respective comments on why it should not grant
the Senate’s motion.
The High Court en banc also
directed the three Senate committees conducting the joint
investigation to file a reply to the comments of Neri and the OSG
within 10 days from receipt of the said comments.
On March 25, the High Court voted
9-6 granting the petition of Neri to invoke executive privilege. The
nine justices that voted in favor of Neri’s petition were Renato
Corona, Minita Chico-Nazario, Presbitero Velasco, Antonio Nachura,
Dante Tinga, Leonardo Quisumbing, Ruben Reyes, Teresita de Castro
and the newly appointed justice, Arturo Brion. De Castro penned the
majority ruling.
--William B. Depasupil
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