Transcript of Senator Mar Roxas' explanation for
the continued NBN hearings

Joint hearing on the NBN project

MAR: I find that there is insufficient information relative to adequately and competently amending the law. For example, this contract had the nominal or ostensible approval of the NEDA, and yet we have seen from unofficial sources that the NEDA flip-flopped from its policy, that the original policy of NEDA as embodied in all sorts of government documents was: it ought to be not government-guarantied, it ought to be not the government that would undertake it, and that there would be no debt by the government. Almost overnight, in a matter of weeks or months, this policy was changed, and as a senator, in order to properly amend the Procurement Law, in order to properly amend the law that properly specifies how NEDA should look at ODA projects and the like, we must know what happened in the NEDA meetings, such that what was established policy as enunciated by the President, was overturned overnight.

The government is the stumbling block. They are the ones preventing us from accessing what are public documents. These are NEDA deliberations. Historically, NEDA deliberations were posted on the website. Now it is not available. Now, in fact, the NEDA Director-General is claiming executive privilege, which by the way the Supreme Court will tackle and Senator Aquino and I have gone directly to the Supreme Court precisely to seek relief from this obstruction or from this withholding of public information from people or from offices, government agencies and institutions that require it in order for us to confidently do our job.

Yes, we have spent much time, but I always want to lay at the doorstep of the executive the fact that they have been withholding information. They have been, to my mind, unduly and incorrectly applying the principle of executive privilege and, in short, not providing us the information so that we can in fact do our job.

As for myself, without knowing what happened in those NEDA meetings, it will be difficult to divine where exactly in the process there was a failure; where exactly in the process of approving ODA contracts, of approving procurement contracts, there was a gap that allowed those who want to abuse the process to precisely take advantage of it.