Source: https://pcij.org/stories/an-absolute-privilege/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 14:13:33+00:00

Document:
The Supreme Court had held that the Senate could not compel former socioeconomic planning secretary Romulo Neri to answer three questions asked of him during the hearing on the national broadband network (NBN) deal because these are covered by executive privilege. These questions sought to discover: whether the president followed up the NBN project; whether Neri was dictated to prioritize the Chinese state firm that is more popularly known by its acronym ZTE; and whether the president said to go ahead and approve the project after being told of an interested party’s alleged attempt to bribe Neri.
A closer look at the decision may point to the conclusion that a reconsideration may indeed be justified.
In previous cases, the Court has already intimated the recognition of presidential communications privilege. A quote from U.S. v. Nixon that now appears to be a definitive basis for the recognition of the privilege was first used in the case of Almonte v. Vasquez.
In addition to the presidential communications privilege, there are also information that because of their sensitive character may be allowed to be kept from public disclosure. Among the oft-cited examples are state secrets regarding military, diplomatic, and national security matters.
In Neri v. Senate, the Court held that Ermita’s letter constitutes a proper invocation of the executive privilege. The Court also put forward three elements of the presidential communications privilege: (1) The protected communication must relate to a “quintessential and non-delegable presidential power”; (2) The communication must be authored or solicited and received by a close advisor of the president or the president himself or herself, with the advisor being in operational proximity with the president; and (3) The presidential communications privilege is a qualified privilege that may be overcome by a showing of adequate need, such that the information likely contains important evidence that is unavailable elsewhere.
The first element suggests that presidential communications are accorded a higher degree of confidentiality when its subject relates to a power that the Constitution textually grants to the president. Or as Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno noted in his dissent, the more concentrated the power is in the president, the greater the need for confidentiality.
The second element defines which officials can be covered by the privilege. It is not confined to communications authored or solicited and received by the president, but also communications authored or solicited and received by a close advisor in operational proximity to the chief executive. Thus, even communications that has not reached the president himself or herself may be covered. But there is a limit on the subject of the communications not seen by the president — as provided by the first element. That is, in addition to having involved a close advisor, it also relates to a classic and non-delegable power of the president.
The final element is perhaps the most important. It embodies the Court’s view that presidential communications are presumptively privileged, but that it may be overcome by a showing of adequate need. In other words, the privilege is not absolute.
Evaluating the presidential communications privilege claim, the Court in sum held that the first element was satisfied as the communications relate to a “quintessential and non-delegable presidential power,” i.e. the power to enter into an executive agreement with other countries. It also held that that the second element was satisfied, as the communications were “received” by a close advisor of the president, a cabinet member, who meets the “operational proximity” test. Finally, the Court held that there was no adequate showing of a compelling need that would justify the limitation of the privilege.
A minor point that may be raised against the Court decision is its characterization of the subject communications as relating to the power of the president to enter into executive agreements. In the entirety of the NBN deal, the president was performing acts relating to various functions, including borrowing and entering into executive agreements with respect to the loan from China, and approval of development projects with respect to the NBN project itself. The exercise of each of these functions may be related more directly or more remotely with the communications involved. Looking at the questions, it is evident that these relate more closely to the approval of a development project, than to entering into executive agreements. The authority over the approval of development projects is more dispersed, and not as “quintessential and non-delegable” as entering into executive agreements.
The crux of the decision, though, lies in the Court’s determination on the third element: on whether or not the Senate was able to overcome the qualified presumption that the presidential communications asked for are privileged. Here the Court was divided by a vote of nine to six, with the minority asserting that the presumption of privilege was overcome by overriding interest.
The first statement is significant because it is the showing of that critical need for the information in the performance of the Senate’s power to legislate that will hurdle the presumption of privilege and trigger the necessary balancing of the interests involved. These clashing interests are the president’s interest in the expectation of confidentiality of her conversations and correspondence, and the protection of the public interest in the candid, objective, and even blunt or harsh opinions in presidential decision-making on one hand, and the legislature’s interest for the requisite information to aid wise and effective legislation on the other.
The second statement amplifies the first; the questions, not being pursuant to a legislative intent, must be solely for the purpose of exercising the function of oversight. Oversight generally involves looking into the administration of existing laws or probing into government corruption or inefficiency. Such distinction is important because in Senate v. Ermita, the Court had said that the appearance of department heads is mandatory only in inquiries in aid of legislation. When it is only in pursuit of the oversight function, Congress may only request the appearance of department heads. Extending the argument, there is a greater right of Congress to information in inquiries in aid of legislation than in inquiries solely in oversight.
Also on record were the answers of the Senate counsel to clarificatory questions propounded by Chief Justice Puno. The exchange, which is quoted in Puno’s dissenting opinion, expounds on the importance that the answers to each of the questions will have on legislation.
At the very least, the Court in its decision should have passed upon and evaluated these categorical explanations, rather than broadly sweeping them aside. Such evaluation of the Senate’s showing of need was precisely what Chief Justice Puno did in his dissenting opinion, and he arrived at the conclusion that the questions were pertinent to pending legislation, that there were no effective substitute for the information sought, and that Neri’s refusal to answer the three questions would seriously impair the Senate’s function of crafting specific legislation pertaining to procurement and concurring in executive agreements based on facts and not speculation.
The determination of the court that the questions veer more toward the exercise of the legislative oversight function is also questionable. The Court implies that a line can be drawn between an inquiry in aid of legislation and an inquiry in the exercise of oversight function. Unfortunately, while there may be instances when an inquiry is undertaken solely in oversight, more often the oversight character of an inquiry is inextricable from a legislative purpose.
It is by being factually informed of the actual workings or administration of existing laws, or of the ways by which wrongdoing such as corruption is committed, that intelligent legislation may be had, whether through the amendment of existing laws or the enactment of new ones. It is because of the reality of this inter-linkage that the Court itself, in Senate v. Ermita, recognized the validity of facilitating oversight through compulsory process when such oversight is performed in pursuit of legislation.
Legislative intent, in the face of a counter-claim that none exists or that the information sought is not material, has been sustained by the Court even under lesser showing of direct relationship than what the Senate did in the Neri case. Specifically, in the case of Arnault v. Nazareno, the Senate through a resolution created a special committee to investigate an allegedly anomalous real-estate deal involving a government body, with the duty “to determine whether the said purchase was honest, valid, and proper and whether the price involved in the deal was fair and just, the parties responsible therefore, and any other facts the Committee may deem proper in the premises.” While the intended legislation was not expressly stated in the resolution, the Court recognized the Senate’s jurisdiction to conduct the investigation, and acknowledged legislative intent.
The ruling in Arnault v. Nazareno finds inspiration from a U.S. court case, McGrain v. Daugherty. That case involved a Senate investigation into various charges of misfeasance and nonfeasance in an executive department. One question passed upon by the court was whether the purpose for which testimony was sought was to obtain information in aid of the legislative function.
By brushing aside, without discussion, the Senate’s pleading of need for the information in aid of legislation, and by casually concluding that the intent of the Senate was solely for oversight, the majority decision was able to stand on the mere presumption of privilege in respect to the subject presidential communications. The Court did not then have to proceed to a proper balancing of the interest embodied in keeping presidential communications secret versus the interest in adequately informing the legislative process. Neither did the majority decision have to go beyond the bare, unsubstantiated assertion of privilege based on diplomatic content.
True, the Court states that the presidential communications privilege is a qualified privilege. Yet from the way this issue was addressed, the majority may well have declared that the presidential communications privilege is absolute; that it is conclusive upon Congress, as well as upon the courts.
And so should the Court ruling be sustained, the Senate and the public would not only be forever denied the answers to three queries (unless the president waives the privilege or the same questions are asked again in another proceeding — such as a criminal trial — and the claim of executive privilege is overruled). Another result would be a situation in which executive privilege reigns supreme, not only in relation to the Congressional power of inquiry in aid of legislation, but also in other constitutional values that finds relevance in the Senate inquiry, such as transparency, accountability, and the people’s right to information.
The president, not the law, rules.
Lawyer Nepomuceno Malaluan is a trustee of the Action for Economic Reforms and co-convenor of the Access to Information Network (ATIN), of which the PCIJ is a member.

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