Strange behavior of HtmlPanelGrid.getChildren().clear();

Question

I have some problem, described in previous messages.
Investigating it, I found some strange behavior, which I cannot understand.
I builded a small application to isolate this strangeness.
There are two pages, first and second. There are hyperlinks from first page to second. Secon page serves as an indicator, that navigation was successfull. It is not so all the time.
There is a bean, which constructs a hyperlink at runtime and which contains my problem, as I think.
The config file is (header and footer skipped):
<navigation-rule>
<from-view-id>/welcomeJSF.jsp</from-view-id>
<navigation-case>
<from-outcome>select</from-outcome>
<to-view-id>/secondPage.jsp</to-view-id>
</navigation-case>
</navigation-rule>
<managed-bean>
<managed-bean-name>bean</managed-bean-name>
<managed-bean-class>Buggy.Bean</managed-bean-class>
<managed-bean-scope>session</managed-bean-scope>
</managed-bean>
One can see, that navigation is always controlled with the one constant string literal -- select. The bean is called just "bean" and it exists during a session.
First page is (header and footer skipped):
<f:view>
<h:form>
<h:commandLink id="link1" action="select" value="link1 (hardcoded)"/>
<h:panelGrid id="panel" binding="#{bean.panel}" columns="20" border="1" cellspacing="0">
<h:commandLink id="link2" action="select" value="link2 (hardcoded)"/>
</h:panelGrid>
</h:form>
</f:view>
One can see, that there are two hardcoded hyperlinks, one is inside the panelGrid, second is outside. Also it is seen, that the panel is binded with bean property as a whole.
The second page is just displaying a text to be sure the navigation occured.
Now the bean (header and footer skipped):
private HtmlPanelGrid panel;
public HtmlPanelGrid getPanel() {
return panel;
public void setPanel(HtmlPanelGrid panel) {
this.panel = panel;
Application application = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getApplication();
MethodExpression expr = application.getExpressionFactory().createMethodExpression(FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getELContext(), "select", String.class, new Class[0]);
HtmlCommandLink link = (HtmlCommandLink) application.createComponent(HtmlCommandLink.COMPONENT_TYPE);
link.setId("link3");
link.setValue("link3 (softcoded)");
link.setActionExpression(expr);
panel.getChildren().clear();
panel.getChildren().add(link);
One can see, that a third (softcoded) hyperlink is added to the panel dynamically, with preliminary clearing panel content.
* STRANGENESSES *
1) despite the fact, that the panel is cleared prior to adding softcoded hyperlink, I CAN see it on the page (all 3 hyperlinks are seen)
2) in the debugger I can see, that while executing code, the children list is empty; this can mean, that the order of execution of the Jave code and JSP code is reversed; despite this fact, I see the hardcoded link BEFORE the softcoded
3) the link2 (hardcoded) is not work, i.e. it is not leads the second page to be displayed
4) if I comment the line panel.getChildren().clear(); then all 3 hyperlinks start to work

Answer 1

But when I put links creation code in bean's constructor, it was lost.
It seems to me, that the system creates panel independently and only after that calls setter of my bean. Ergo, the data from the panel field, initialized in constructor is overwrited.
Where I should place programmatic filling of panel element?