BY DENNIS GADIL

SENATE President Manuel Villar yesterday called on the Senate joint panel investigating the $329-million NBN-ZTE broadband deal to release a partial committee report to placate their "impatient" colleagues.

Villar said the partial report would divulge the Senate tri-panel’s "initial findings" and inform the committee members of its plans in the next hearings.

Villar said the Blue Ribbon and trade and defense committees could issue the partial report before the Supreme Court’s decision on the petition of former Planning Secretary Romulo Neri on the issue of executive privilege.

The high court is expected to come out with a ruling before the end of the month.

Neri invoked executive privilege when he refused last September to tell senators about his conversations with President Arroyo over the bribery attempt by then Comelec chair Benjamin Abalos Sr.

Senate majority leader Francis Pangilinan and pro-administration senators led by Sen. Joker Arroyo have called for the closure of the probe and the issuance of a report.

But Blue Ribbon chair Alan Peter Cayetano has said the Senate tri-panel could not issue a preliminary report because vital information has yet to come out and they know that the Palace keeps most of it.

Villar said he has authorized the Blue Ribbon panel to hold hearings even during their one-month break. Cayetano has said the tri-panel is eyeing two more hearings.

Villar said other major standing committees of the Senate are also authorized to conduct hearings during the one-month Senate break.

Pampanga Gov. Ed Panlilio said he is in favor of waiving executive privilege if only to allow those with direct knowledge or participation in the NBN deal to testify for the truth to come out.

"What is really the truth? What really happened? Ito ang gustong malaman ng ating mga kababayan," Panlilio said in an interview at the soft opening of the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway.

Panlilio said executive privilege should not be open to "abuse" which he said includes political purposes or agenda.

Deputy presidential spokesman Anthony Golez, in an interview at the SCTEX soft opening, denied that Neri is being prevented from testifying by the President. – With Jocelyn Montemayor