Last week Lozada took that same pathway after he had experienced agonizing hours in the hands of the police operatives dispatched by the powers-that-be that didn’t want him to testify before the Senate’s Blue Ribbon Committee. But by an unexpected twist of fate he survived and revealed the details of sordid story behind the messy ZTE-NBN deal.

And then last Monday he reluctantly told the curious senators that Neri had described Gloria Arroyo as "evil." Not only this, Lozada recalled that Neri had also told him that President Arroyo has "lost all moral authority."

Quickly, the next day Neri appeared in a press conference, together with Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita and Malacañang’s chief spinmeister Ignacio Bunye. "I don’t remember," he said, but he confirmed that he did meet Lozada, Senators Ping Lacson and Jamby Madrigal at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) last December.

Well, as some commentators have put it, this is a humongous case of "He says, he-she says." Maybe so, but note that there’s a big difference between Lozada’s disclosures, which he said under oath during the Senate inquiry, and that of Neri’s, which he said during a press conference inside Malacañang. Needless to say, he did not say it under oath.

Anyway, Lozada remembered well that Neri had confided to him, all that he told senators, in phone conversations and text messages. "I have no reason to doubt him," he said, referring to Neri’s remarks, and then shifted, as he has been doing during the public hearing, to Filipino, "Ba’t naman siya magsisinungaling sa akin?"

This showed that the close friendship between Lozada and Neri, which the latter confirmed when he said, "I know Jun is very sincere with me and cares for me, but I really cannot recall … Up to now, I’m trying to recall, but I can’t remember that statement ("Gloria is evil")."

Oh yes, when pressed some more by the senators, Lozada disclosed that Neri had voiced, during their AIM meeting, his "frustration" over the rampant corruption in the government, and he had wanted to resign as director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) after he told Mrs. Arroyo about the "bribe offer" by now resigned Chairman Benjamin Abalos of the Commission on Elections of "200,000 million" to endorse the ZTE-NBN project.

At the rate the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee is probing deeply into the controversial deal, there may yet be more damaging revelations by new witnesses about it and other anomalous cases related to that despicably scandalous mess.

So far, Lozada’s testimony has not yet generated paroxysms of public outrage, other than the relatively meek reactions from various sectors of civic society, business, academe, mass media, and, of course, the usual political critics of the Arroyo regime.

Before that horrible day happens, perhaps it would do well for Romulo Neri, who appears to "know a lot" about other shenanigans in government, to see the light, too, just like Jun Lozada, and seize the moment of truth, "momento de la verdad," as the Spanish phrase goes.

Yes, Mr. Neri, you must be bold and seize this moment to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth of everything you told your good friend Jun Lozada, who has braved the torrent of ad hominen and slanderous remarks and muck spewed on him by the Palace spinmeisters to impugn his damning testimony.