MANILA, Philippines – President Arroyo went to see Senate President Manuel Villar Jr. last Friday night to condole with his family over the death of his brother, Cesar.
Mrs. Arroyo arrived at 9:45 p.m. and stayed for an hour at the Lighthouse Christian Community funeral home in Alabang, Muntinlupa.
Villar talked with the President along with his wife, Cynthia, also Las Piñas representative, and Cesar’s widow. Villar’s mother was also introduced to the President.
Sen. Beningo “Noynoy” Aquino III also came but he had left before Villar and Mrs. Arroyo arrived. Aquino and Villar both belong to the opposition.
Villar said they did not discuss anything political despite being together for almost an hour. The Senate and the Palace are locked in a battle over the President’s use of executive privilege in preventing Commission on Higher Education chairman Romulo Neri from answering certain questions pertaining to his conversations with Mrs. Arroyo on the cancelled national broadband network deal.
The Senate chief only smiled when asked if he brought up the issue involving Neri and said they only talked about “certain illnesses.” Villar’s brother, who was the one helping him in his political activities, had cancer but succumbed to cardiac arrest on March 26.
“Nothing serious,” he said.
Villar said he did not find anything wrong with the President’s visiting his brother’s wake.
“I am very civil about these things,” he said. Villar even checked with the Palace protocol officials if everything was fine before Mrs. Arroyo came.
Villar had earlier vowed to defend the Senate as an institution as he assailed the Supreme Court’s ruling favoring Neri’s petition that would stop the Senate from compelling him to answer particular questions about the NBN supposedly covered by executive privilege.