Senate sheriffs troop to CHED, fail to find Neri

Senate sheriffs failed to find Commission on Higher Education (CHED) chairman Romulo Neri in his office Thursday noon. Radio dzBB reported that members of the Senate's Office of Sergeant-At-Arms (OSAA) trooped to the CHED building in San Miguel Avenue in Ortigas, Pasig City, but were informed that Neri did not come to work. OSAA was supposed to arrest Neri following the warrant issued by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee for snubbing Wednesday's hearing on the controversial ZTE broadband deal. A report by dzMM radio said CHED staff declined to receive the arrest warrant for Neri. OSAA also trooped Neri's residence in Siena Village in Sta. Mesa Heights in Quezon City, but left empty-handed as well, a separate dzBB report said. Mediamen who were watching the house for a sign of Neri described the place as "very quiet." Information reaching them said the CHED chairman left the house around 8 a.m. but had not returned since. Interviewed by radio dzBB, Senate President Manuel Villar Jr vowed to continue efforts to serve the arrest warrant on Neri. Neri is the former director general of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), which reviewed the allegedly anomalous ZTE deal. Aside from Neri, another witness in the ZTE mess, Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr, is subject of a warrant issued by the Senate. Lozada, president and chief operating officer of the government-run Philippine Forest Corp., was a consultant of Neri when the latter was still NEDA secretary. Lozada left the country Wednesday morning, hours before he was suppose to testify in the Senate hearing on the ZTE broadband mess.- GMANews.TV