|
The President will stick to her official schedule for
visits across the country despite an attempt by government critics
to distract her while she was preparing to begin a speech at a
protest in Laguna province, south of Manila, on Monday.
Brig. Gen. Romeo Prestoza, chief
of the Presidential Security Group, said President Gloria Arroyo’s
public appearances will not be curtailed or revised as a result of
the heckling she faced in Calamba City by nine leftist protesters
who called for her ouster. The protesters were arrested.
“What is important is that the
President was not hurt [during the incident],” Prestoza said.
“This [heckling] is a non-issue.”
Authorities said the suspects,
all members of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (May First Movement) labor
organization, will be charged with causing “alarm and scandal.”
The offense is a relatively minor one, Calamba police chief Ricardo
Padilla said.
The protesters chanted “oust
Arroyo” as she was about to deliver the speech at the city hall to
launch activities linked to next week’s International Woman’s
Day, Prestoza said.
“She noticed the commotion, but
she did not hear what they were shouting,” he told reporters.
“The hecklers were a bit far from the stage.”
Mrs. Arroyo has brushed off
mounting street protests demanding her resignation over corruption
allegations surrounding her husband, Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo,
and a political ally, resigned poll chief Benjamin Abalos Sr. The
charges stemmed from the aborted $330-million national broadband
project.
Nuns join resignation calls
More than 300 nuns in Mindanao
have joined the calls for the resignation of the President, also
over the accusations of graft. They belong to the Sisters’
Association in Mindanao composed of about 360 nuns from more than 40
congregations in the southern region.
Sr. Elsa Compuesto, the
association’s executive secretary, in a statement said they will
press their call for Mrs. Arroyo to step down despite the apparent
disunity of Catholic bishops on the matter.
“We [were] unequivocal in the
past. We continue to be unwavering despite the perceptible absence
of a uniting spirit within the church,” Compuesto said in the
statement.
Still, she added, they will
continue to be “inspired” by the church “to bring about
righteousness and morality in governance and in our communal
life.”
The sisters’ group also hit at
the government in 2004 at the height of the controversy from the
so-called Hello, Garci recordings. Mrs. Arroyo’s critics said she
cheated to win the presidential elections in that year. The tapes
supposedly contained wiretapped conversations between her and former
poll Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano on the alleged rigging of the
elections.
It said the President has
betrayed the 10-point agenda that she signed with people’s
organizations after assuming the presidency in 2001 through the
“people power” revolt EDSA 2.
The statement alleged that
“evil” changes in the Arroyo government have led to poverty,
hunger, extrajudicial killings, and human rights violations.
Compuesto said they will support
the people’s prayers and actions until the President is removed.
Holding off resign calls
Unlike the Mindanao nuns, Sen.
Loren Legarda and Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim also on Monday said they
will support the resignation calls only upon completion by the
Senate of its investigation of the allegedly bribe-marred national
broadband network project.
Legarda is among those believed
to be aspiring for the presidency in the 2010 presidential
elections. Senate President Manuel Villar Jr., another perceived
candidate, has not asked Mrs. Arroyo to quit either, saying the call
should not come from him.
Legarda, though, said she would
not want Vice-President Noli de Castro to take over should the
President resign.
According to her, de Castro
benefited from “massive” fraud in the 2004 polls, giving him no
right to replace Mrs. Arroyo.
“A person who won through
cheating has no right to be the constitutional successor,” Legarda
said of the Vice-President.
The Presidential Electoral
Tribunal had thrown out her protest against de Castro’s election.
Her appeal against the decision, which focused on the finding that
the Tribunal saw no proof of anomaly, was also junked by the Supreme
Court.
Not sold on “Kabayan”
Some administration critics do
not want the President to resign because this will allow de Castro
take over. Rep. Edno Joson of Nueva Ecija said this could be solved
by calling for snap elections, like what former President Ferdinand
Marcos did in 1986.
Sen. Richard Gordon said snap
elections are not allowed under the 1987 Constitution.
“Even if the Constitution is
amended now to allow snap elections, it could not be immediately
applied to the [Arroyo] administration. A law is prospective, never
retroactive, or it becomes an ex post facto law,” he argued.
Gordon said even if snap
elections are called, the winner would serve only the unfinished
term of the incumbent, not the full six-year term.
Lim said he will wait for the
result of the Senate probe of the scrapped broadband
deal before deciding to call on the President to vacate Malacañang.
A former senator, he is a staunch ally of former President Joseph
Estrada, who last week asked Mrs. Arroyo to resign.
Upon becoming Manila mayor, Lim
said he will ensure that the President will finish her term in 2010.
Also a former police general and
National Bureau of Investigation director, he pointed out that
maintaining the peace, especially around Malacañang, is his
responsibility as the city mayor.
Lim said the apparent crisis in
the national government arising from alleged corruption should serve
as a warning to all public officials and employees to use
taxpayers’ money properly.
--Anthony Vargas, Efren L. Danao, Rommel C. Lontayao, and AFP
|
