Nograles said he welcomes the SC’s ruling but he finds it necessary to "thoroughly evaluate" if it could bear weight on congressional inquiries done in the Lower House.

On Tuesday, the SC granted the petition of Neri, a former Socio-economic Planning Secretary, to stop the Senate from asking him questions on President Arroyo’s instructions to him regarding the cancelled 9-million national broadband network (NBN) deal between the government and ZTE Corp. of China.

While there is no need for congressmen to be alarmed on the SC ruling because of the "mutual respect" between the House and the Executive Department, its implications on the constitutional power of Congress to investigate in aid of legislation and the separation of powers between the legislative branches of government and the judiciary should be reviewed," he said.

Nograles, a lawyer who placed second in the 1971 bar exams, said it appeared that the SC decision puts a limit on the power of Congress "to summon and to enforce its will on resource persons and witnesses."

"The moment you defang Congress and say that you have no more right to arrest somebody who does not want to appear, it will really limit the power of Congress," he said.

Nevertheless, Nograles said the SC ruling was a triumph of the principle of checks and balances among the three branches of government.

"That is the democratic way. Whenever there is an issue that concerns a struggle between the executive and the legislative departments naturally, the Supreme Court comes in to settle the score," Nograles said.

"But as far as the House is concerned, we never had a problem of executive privilege being invoked in the House... So while it is a problem of Congress as a whole, I don’t think that is really a problem in the House," he said.