ROMULO NERI V. SENATE (EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE)

The majority decision sustained EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE on two grounds:

• the presidential communication privilege; and


• the executive privilege on matters relating to diplomacy or foreign relations.

PRESIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION PRIVILEGE is grounded on the paramount need for candor between the President and her close advisors. It gives the President and those assisting her sufficient freedom to interact without fear of undue public scrutiny. There is a qualified presumption in favor of presidential communication privilege.

On the other hand, EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE on matters concerning our diplomatic or foreign relations is akin to state secret privilege which when divulged, will unduly impair our external relations with other countries.

The controversy on this particular issue has boiled down to whether this presumptive executive privilege may be validly invoked and whether the invocation was procedurally proper.

The context in which executive privilege is being invoked is that the information sought to be disclosed might impair our diplomatic as well as economic relations with China. Given the confidential nature in which these information were conveyed to the President, Neri cannot provide the Senate Committee any further details of these conversations, without disclosing the very thing the privilege is designed to protect.

When the President invokes the privilege, announcing the reaons therefor in this case, the possible rupture of diplomatic anf edonimic relations with China, and the chilling effect tha tdisclosure of confidential information will have on the President's policy and decision-making responsibilities-- then the presumptive privilege attaches. At this point, the burden to overcome the presumption rests on the shoulders of whoever demands disclosure, in this case, the Senate committee and to discharge this burden requires a showing that the public interest willbe better served by the revelation of the information.