Lozada. Neri confided his disgust with the administration to many others.
‘Gloria is evil’
Neri: I don’t remember saying it
BY JP LOPEZ
ACTING Higher Education chair Romulo
Neri described President Arroyo as "evil" when he met
Senators Panfilo Lacson and Jamby Madrigal in Makati
City last December 7, ZTE star witness Rodolfo Noel
Lozada Jr. said yesterday .
"He called Presidente GMA (Gloria
Arroyo). She is evil. Evil po," Lozada told the Senate
inquiry on the NBN-ZTE deal.
Neri, in a text message, said he does
not remember calling the President as "an evil person."
THE Arroyo Cabinet yesterday rejected
calls for their mass resignation, saying they prefer to
stay with President Arroyo who they said deserves to
finish her term in 2010.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, who
read a one-page joint Cabinet statement, said all members
of the Cabinet "are solidly behind" Arroyo.
Ermita belied reports that some of
Arroyo’s economic managers, led by Finance Secretary
Margarito Teves, are considering quitting.
ROMULO Neri "agonized" over resigning as
planning secretary after President Arroyo gave the go-signal to
approve the $329 million broadband contract with China’s ZTE
Corp., ZTE witness Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr. told the Senate
yesterday.
Lozada recalled that Neri also told him that
President Arroyo has "lost all moral authority" over him after
he was told by the President to just approve the project despite
the P200 million bribe offer of then Elections chair Benjamin
Abalos Sr.
Lozada said Neri told him that the President
just shrugged off the potential threat of Jose "Joey" de Venecia
III’s group leaking the alleged anomalies of the contract to the
media.
