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The government is confident that Filipinos will not
join street protests in support of the new calls for President
Gloria Arroyo to step down from Malacañang or at least take a leave
of absence until the controversy over the national broadband network
project is resolved.
These calls are “not new to us,
out of order, and premature,” Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said
on Tuesday. Besides, he added, support from the people for these
mass actions is “waning.” Bunye said the people want “peace
and stability” instead.
This week’s demand from the
Makati Business Club for President Arroyo to take a leave of
absence, the Press chief added, is unnecessary. Bunye cited
Mrs. Arroyo’s mandate to serve as President until 2010.
“It’s only 2008 and I know
for a fact that many members of the [club] don’t agree with the
pronouncements of their so-called officials,” he said. The club
supposedly helped then-Vice-President Gloria Arroyo topple incumbent
President Joseph Estrada in 2001.
The business club stopped short
of calling for the resignation of Mrs. Arroyo though it said it
support the mass actions being planned by various sectors. Her
resignation is a major step that “the group is not prepared at
this time to take,” it said. But if Mrs. Arroyo resigns from her
post, the club added, it would welcome Vice-President Noli de Castro
to take the helm.
The business club will not
support a military takeover. “If the military withdraw their
support [for the President], it’s up to them, but we draw the line
at military rule or intervention,” it said.
Malacañang believes that the
Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, another big business
group, will continue to support the government. This group, Bunye
said, is satisfied with the state of the economy. ”Businessmen
generally want to have stability so the economy could keep
growing,” he added.
The government said the Makati
Business Club’s other call for the resignation of Environment
Secretary Lito Atienza and Chairman Romulo Neri of the Commission on
Higher Education is “unwarranted” because the two officials have
not violated any law. Teachers and students also on Tuesday picketed
the commission’s office in Pasig City in Metro Manila to demand
Neri’s resignation.
Bunye said Neri testifying on the
broadband deal will only be possible if the Supreme Court rejects a
petition questioning the legality of Senate invitations for him to
appear in hearings there. Neri had invoked “executive privilege”
in refusing to show up for the hearings on the aborted $330-million
broadband project.
The Estrada camp has joined the
calls for the ouster of Mrs. Arroyo. But Mayor Joseph Victor
Ejercito of San Juan City, a son of the ousted President, said they
will only support, not lead, the move to force Mrs. Arroyo to vacate
Malacañang. He and other leading members of the political
opposition will lead a rally in Makati City on Friday to push the
ouster campaign against the President.
But their perceived new ally,
deposed House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., said he will not be with
any group pushing the resignation calls. Instead, he added, he will
urge her to lead the “moral revolution” he has been espousing to
cleanse the bureaucracy of corruption. De Venecia said Mrs. Arroyo
still has two years to pull it off. Her term ends in 2010.
“Let’s give her a chance,”
de Venecia told reporters during an interview. “If she will lead
the moral revolution, she’ll be a great President and all of us
will turn around and cheer her.” He noted that the country’s
bishops have endorsed his call for the moral revolution
as part of their call for communal action.
--Angelo S. Samonte, Maricel V. Cruz, Francis Earl A. Cueto,
James Konstantin Galvez and Jonathan M. Hicap
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