Macapagal-Arroyo’s own political allies who have asked her to resign the presidency now pit themselves against the clamor for a people’s transitional governing council. Not that their call for resignation is a retrogressive move; it’s simply that they loathe the day the aroused masses may suddenly take the reins of government.
By Bobby Tuazon
Bulatlat
At this early, the growing clamor to install a people’s transitional governing council upon the resignation or ouster of embattled President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo faces an orchestrated resistance from factions of the country’s ruling elite. These factions, led by former President Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino, Senate President Franklin Drilon, other political parties, and the business elite – all traditional allies of Macapagal-Arroyo broke their silence last week and asked the incumbent president to step down.
Another former president and armed forces chief, Fidel V. Ramos, took a wavering position by asking Macapagal-Arroyo to stay on as “caretaker president” for one year. Within the year, a constituent assembly would be convened that would amend the constitution and adopt a parliamentary form of government. Elections will be held in May 2006.
Ramos’ proposal differs from that of Cojuangco-Aquino, Drilon and company who want a “constitutional succession” that would name Vice President Noli de Castro as the new president.
All agree, however, that these measures would ensure a smooth transition in the presidency and avoid the acrimonious impeachment or people power that have unseated two presidents – Joseph E. Estrada in 2001 and before him, Ferdinand E. Marcos in 1986.
Before they made the decision, these national figures and groups had supported Macapagal-Arroyo who is accused of stealing the presidency in the May 2004 polls and of connections to jueteng (illegal numbers game) lords before she became president.
Their plea for the president’s resignation coincided with the resignation of at least 10 members of the cabinet who also called for the turnover of power to De Castro. A day earlier, they were stunned by Macapagal-Arroyo who, instead of herself resigning, used them as sacrificial lambs by asking them to quit their cabinet posts so that, she claimed, she could start a much-needed reform program. In a news conference, the cabinet secretaries chorused that the chief executive is already unable to govern and that she should go in order to avert a political crisis.
Explanations
Coming from elements who apparently benefited from the illegitimate presidency of Macapagal-Arroyo - with Cojuangco-Aquino’s 6,000-ha hacienda itself protected by the president’s labor, police and military forces in the ongoing workers’ strike that saw the massacre of seven strikers and the extra-judicial execution of several others - one is tempted to search for explanations.
Leaders of mass organizations identified with the oust-Gloria movement have a common reaction to this sudden move by the former allies of Macapagal-Arroyo: To pre-empt another people power revolt and the formation of a proposed people’s governing transition council.
Indeed, if the incumbent president finally takes the “supreme sacrifice” of stepping down, then she would be succeeded by De Castro, a protégé of the Lopez oligarchs, with either Drilon, House Speaker Jose de Venecia or Sen. Manny Villar appointed as vice president. Everybody will be happy, the new administration will govern, Congress will continue with its legislative job, so too would be the judiciary. Close associates of Macapagal-Arroyo will be happy too – she would have been saved from a possible impeachment or from suffering the disgrace of being booted out of power by a people’s uprising and joining Estrada in his detention in Tanay, Rizal.
People wonder why they, including the incumbent president, invoke the constitution when it suits them but thrash it like garbage when it does not. Cojuangco-Aquino became president through extra-constitutional means in 1986. Impeachment – a constitutional proceeding – collapsed in the plunder case against Estrada and this sparked the extra-constitutional uprising that transferred power to Macapagal-Arroyo. Among many flawed policies, Cojuangco-Aquino saw the emasculation of land reform whereas the constitution pledged justice for the poor; Ramos violated the constitution by signing the onerous Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States allowing the return of U.S. forces and military facilities. And now Macapagal-Arroyo stands accused of heinous crimes under the constitution and at least four other legal codes.
As of press time, however, Macapagal-Arroyo is holding her fort and is about to name a new cabinet. She has dared her critics to go ahead and impeach her, assuming that she still enjoys a clear majority in both the House – where the impeachment will be initiated – and the Senate, where she will be tried. But as events are unfolding, she might not be able to muster enough support in Congress, either.
A misreading
But members of the ruling elite are again misreading the public pulse. Rather, they refuse to believe that many Filipinos have had enough of being ruled by corrupt presidents and of the entire apparatuses that also reek of corruption and other malfeasance. Credible public opinion surveys suggest that not only do most Filipinos see a bleak future under the present political and economic dispensation, an increasing number of them (at least 12 percent last year) are also open to changing the whole system of governance. These figures would be higher today.
Apparently, the traditional figures’ push for a “constitutional succession” is motivated now by their own proprietary considerations to preserve the institutions of governance – the presidency, Congress and judiciary. Their own economic and political interests prospered under these institutions at the expense, however, of the people’s welfare. They are no different from Ramos and other charter change advocates who believe that the solution to the country’s ills lies in shifting to a parliamentary system even if this modality only seeks to preserve or rehabilitate the rule by the elite. Or even its other intention is to resurrect an authoritarian state.
More than this, they simply loathe the day when the masses begin to exercise their sovereign and collective will to not only topple a president but to overhaul the rotten political system. They aim to preempt the formation of a people’s transition governing council for unity and reform – an idea that is fast catching fire among many Filipinos representing the basic masses as well as significant segments of the middle class and other sectors.
Now being articulated by mass leaders, the progressive party-list bloc in Congress and progressive elements among the academe, church, lawyers, students and even the military institution, the people’s council will be comprised of patriotic and pro-people figures known for their integrity and competence in political leadership. They will also be comprised of democratic forces and progressive elements in the opposition parties who are in the forefront of the oust-Arroyo struggle.
In effect, the council as envisioned will arise from the multitudes of people especially organizations with broad mass constituencies of workers, farmers and urban poor who are instrumental in the ouster of the incumbent discredited president.
Urgent tasks
The council will be tasked with drafting a new patriotic and progressive constitution and call for genuine elections thereafter. Its short-term tasks are articulated by the party-list Bayan Muna (people first) which has been one of the leading lights in the ouster of Estrada and in the current campaign to force Macapagal-Arroyo out of power.
The council’s urgent tasks include: to investigate the involvement and culpability of Macapagal-Arroyo, elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, military officials and others involved in electoral fruit and deceit; prosecute cases of graft and corruption involving the Macapagal-Arroyos and other government officials; institute meaningful electoral and political reforms; render justice and indemnify victims of human rights violations and ensure the respect and protection of civil liberties; resume the peace process with the Moro and Communist revolutionary groups by fulfilling all existing requirements; solve the fiscal crisis by canceling or repudiating the country’s onerous debts; protect the country from the ravages of free market globalization and reversing the disastrous structural adjustment programs imposed by the country’s creditors. Bulatlat
Monday, July 11, 2005
People Power Constitutional, Lawyers’ Group Says
The Committee for the Defense of Lawyers (CODAL) July 8 said it finds without legal and constitutional basis the threats by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo against mass actions calling for her to step down.
BY BULATLAT
The Committee for the Defense of Lawyers (CODAL) said July 9 it finds without legal and constitutional basis the threats by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo against massactions calling for her to step down.
Lawyer Neri Javier Colmenares, CODAL spokesperson, said that “Not only is thisassertion supported by the Constitutional recognition that ‘sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them’” but the Supreme Court has declared so in the case of Estrada vs Arroyo, the very case used by President Arroyo to legitimize her government. Colmenares cited the Supreme Court ruling of March 2, 2001 that what took place at EDSA from Jan. 16 to 20, 2001 was not a revolution but the peaceful expression of popular will.
“The operative fact which enabled Vice-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to assume the presidency was the fact that there was a crisis, nay a vacuum, in the executive leadership which made the government rife for seizure by lawless elements,” the Supreme Court said. The camp of former President Joseph Estrada, who was ousted through a popular uprising during that period, had challenged the legality of Arroyo’s assumption of the presidency, saying she had assumed power by unconstitutional means.
Last week, however, Malacañang spokespersons branded calls for Arroyo’s resignation or ouster as “unconstitutional.” They have called on the people to follow the rule of law and not resort to “extra-constitutional” alternatives.
CODAL asserts that the call of former President Cory Aquino and others for President Arroyo to step down cannot be deemed a “threat to democratic principles and constitutional foundations,” as claimed by Mrs. Arroyo. This demand is the exercise of a legitimate right and not an extra-constitutional act, the lawyers’ group argues.
“The people should not be threatened by President Arroyo's intimidation. A government that has brazenly violated the Constitution's bill of rights, its provisions on taxation and deployment of foreign troops has no moral authority to lecture the people on the need to abide by the Constitution", Colmenares added.
CODAL also said that National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Reynaldo Wycoco's failure to investigate those who may have committed election offenses in the “Hello Garci'” tape is a dereliction of his duty as NBI director and he, like the President, may be tried for violating Art. 208 of the Revised Penal Code for “tolerating the commission of offenses.”
CODAL further believes that the proposal of former President Fidel Ramos for a charter change does not address the charge that the President violated the country’s penal laws and the 1987 Constitution. The lawyers’ group is calling on the President and her Cabinet to step down and for the institution of “comprehensive and lasting social reforms” under a framework which “ensures the people’s effective participation in governance.”
BY BULATLAT
The Committee for the Defense of Lawyers (CODAL) said July 9 it finds without legal and constitutional basis the threats by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo against massactions calling for her to step down.
Lawyer Neri Javier Colmenares, CODAL spokesperson, said that “Not only is thisassertion supported by the Constitutional recognition that ‘sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them’” but the Supreme Court has declared so in the case of Estrada vs Arroyo, the very case used by President Arroyo to legitimize her government. Colmenares cited the Supreme Court ruling of March 2, 2001 that what took place at EDSA from Jan. 16 to 20, 2001 was not a revolution but the peaceful expression of popular will.
“The operative fact which enabled Vice-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to assume the presidency was the fact that there was a crisis, nay a vacuum, in the executive leadership which made the government rife for seizure by lawless elements,” the Supreme Court said. The camp of former President Joseph Estrada, who was ousted through a popular uprising during that period, had challenged the legality of Arroyo’s assumption of the presidency, saying she had assumed power by unconstitutional means.
Last week, however, Malacañang spokespersons branded calls for Arroyo’s resignation or ouster as “unconstitutional.” They have called on the people to follow the rule of law and not resort to “extra-constitutional” alternatives.
CODAL asserts that the call of former President Cory Aquino and others for President Arroyo to step down cannot be deemed a “threat to democratic principles and constitutional foundations,” as claimed by Mrs. Arroyo. This demand is the exercise of a legitimate right and not an extra-constitutional act, the lawyers’ group argues.
“The people should not be threatened by President Arroyo's intimidation. A government that has brazenly violated the Constitution's bill of rights, its provisions on taxation and deployment of foreign troops has no moral authority to lecture the people on the need to abide by the Constitution", Colmenares added.
CODAL also said that National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Reynaldo Wycoco's failure to investigate those who may have committed election offenses in the “Hello Garci'” tape is a dereliction of his duty as NBI director and he, like the President, may be tried for violating Art. 208 of the Revised Penal Code for “tolerating the commission of offenses.”
CODAL further believes that the proposal of former President Fidel Ramos for a charter change does not address the charge that the President violated the country’s penal laws and the 1987 Constitution. The lawyers’ group is calling on the President and her Cabinet to step down and for the institution of “comprehensive and lasting social reforms” under a framework which “ensures the people’s effective participation in governance.”
Saturday, July 09, 2005
ARROYO REGIME IS DISINTEGRATING BUT STILL HAS A FEW TRICKS TO PLAY
Press Statement 9 July 2005
By: Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chief Political Consultant
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
The Arroyo regime is visibly cracking up and disintegrating under the pressure of the broad united front of opposition political parties, mass organizations, professional organizations, church people, business groups, retired military and police officers and other forces demanding the resignation or ouster of Gloria M. Arroyo from her usurped position as president of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP).
After consultation with Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales, former GRP president Corazon Aquino has categorically called for the resignation of Arroyo and her replacement by the vice-president, Noli de Castro. In turn, the latter has promptly begun to drum up his claims to competence as her successor. Through his most trusted agents, he has proceeded discreetly to contact military and police officers for support.
The ruling coalition is breaking up. The Liberal Party has taken the lead in calling for the resignation of Arroyo. Ten cabinet members and high officials of the Arroyo regime have resigned and in turn have demanded that Arroyo resign, instead of requiring all cabinet members to resign. They seem to be acting in coordination with church and business groups which have demanded the resignation of Arroyo.
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has declared that units of the New People's Army (NPA) are keeping away from urban population centers in order to encourage the broad masses of the people to march and rally against the regime. The NPA is concentrating on waging tactical offensives in the countryside.
At least four significant groups of military officers have welcomed the CPP declaration and have pledged to uphold civilian supremacy, respect the democratic rights of the people and withdraw support from Arroyo upon sight of at least 500,000 people in the national capital region.
The chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines has declared that the military would respect the democratic rights of the people to assemble and speak. But the chief of the Philippine National Police is expressing extreme loyalty to Arroyo and hostility towards the people who are exercising their rights in opposition to the regime.
US officials at various levels have announced that any change of government in the Philippine must follow the "constitutional path" and "rule of law" and have continued to express support for the Arroyo regime. Thus, the regime boasts that it will stay in power so long as it keeps US support. At the same time, some pro-US elements in the conservative opposition parties claim that Arroyo has lost that support.
While the regime is definitely disintegrating, Arroyo can still play a few tricks in ways more serious than apologizing for a "lapse injudgment" and "sending away" her husband and her son. She continues to proclaim that she will not resign. The forces of the broad united front are therefore forewarned not to become complacent but to be more resolute and militant than ever in arousing and mobilizing the people in their millions and in adopting a wide range of tactics to demonstrate the regime's inability to govern.
Plans are afoot for Arroyo to stage mass rallies in her favor, especially in some provinces where governors and mayors remain as her allies, and to use the Philippine National Police to suppress mass rallies that are not granted permits by pro-Arroyo local authorities. By these plans Arroyo is taking a gamble that is likely to inflame civil strife. The very crowds she tries to rally can also turn against her as in the Ceaucescu example in Romania.
As the public clamor for resignation or ouster continues to grow and her regime becomes untenable, Arroyo is supposed to have two possible courses of action. One is to take a leave of absence and have the vice-president Noli de Castro perform the functions of the presidency. Another is for her to become the "caretaker president", who will follow a script prepared by former president Fidel V. Ramos, Speaker Jose de Venecia and some smart guys of Lakas-NUCD.
The script entrusts the "caretaker president" with the task of letting a "high commission" to go through the motion of investigating some corruption scandals, the two houses of Congress to become a constituent assembly that will make constitutional amendments for satisfying the US and the local exploiting classes and for adopting a federal and parliamentary system and the parliamentary elections to take place in 2006.
However, the most that Arroyo can do is to gain a little more time on her political death bed. She has politically and morally suffered a fatal wound by being caught in the act of electoral fraud and stealing the GRP presidency. The tapes are the incontrovertible proof of her grave crime before the court of public opinion.
They expose the immorality and illegitimacy of Arroyo's usurpation of power. They have already kindled the fire that is fuelled by the wide and deep going social discontent of the people due to the crisis of the ruling system and that has the potential of burning down not only the political house of Arroyo but the entire ruling system of big compradors and landlords.
Since after the overthrow of Estrada in 2001, the institutions and stalwarts of the ruling system have considered the phenomena of mass uprisings repeatedly overthrowing a president as being very risky for the entire ruling system. They have been frightened by the expressed CPP view that the revolutionary forces and people strengthen themselves by overthrowing one ruling clique after another until they gain enough strength to overthrow the entire ruling system. In reaction, the apologists of the ruling system have invented the myth that the people are tired of mass uprisings.
But the ruling system has a problem in keeping a detested president long in power. The longer a president like Arroyo stays in power, the more rotten and despicable she makes the system to the increasingly exploited and oppressed people. And whoever is the president, so long as the rotten system persists, the people will detest it and have all the opportunity to strengthen themselves, irrespective of how long or short a president can stay in office.
The broad masses of the people demand that the basic roots of their oppression and exploitation are addressed. They wish to empower themselves against the US and the local exploiting classes that torment and make them suffer. They wish to uphold national sovereignty, conserve the national patrimony, carry out land reform and national industrialization, promote a national, scientific and democratic culture and adopt an independent foreign policy for world peace and development.
The crisis of the ruling system has become so grave that the ruling classes can no longer rule in the old way. The people want are volutionary change of government, in which the toiling masses of workers and peasants obtain and exercise their due share of political power. There are revolutionary forces that can lead the people in the revolutionary process.
Social degradation and political turmoil will continue so long as the ruling system of big compradors and landlords persists. The victoryof the broad united front against the Arroyo regime should lead to the formation of a transition council and a government that accommodate the patriotic and progressive forces of the legal democratic movement and pave the way for the success of peace negotiations with the revolutionary forces and people represented by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. ###
By: Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chief Political Consultant
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
The Arroyo regime is visibly cracking up and disintegrating under the pressure of the broad united front of opposition political parties, mass organizations, professional organizations, church people, business groups, retired military and police officers and other forces demanding the resignation or ouster of Gloria M. Arroyo from her usurped position as president of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP).
After consultation with Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales, former GRP president Corazon Aquino has categorically called for the resignation of Arroyo and her replacement by the vice-president, Noli de Castro. In turn, the latter has promptly begun to drum up his claims to competence as her successor. Through his most trusted agents, he has proceeded discreetly to contact military and police officers for support.
The ruling coalition is breaking up. The Liberal Party has taken the lead in calling for the resignation of Arroyo. Ten cabinet members and high officials of the Arroyo regime have resigned and in turn have demanded that Arroyo resign, instead of requiring all cabinet members to resign. They seem to be acting in coordination with church and business groups which have demanded the resignation of Arroyo.
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has declared that units of the New People's Army (NPA) are keeping away from urban population centers in order to encourage the broad masses of the people to march and rally against the regime. The NPA is concentrating on waging tactical offensives in the countryside.
At least four significant groups of military officers have welcomed the CPP declaration and have pledged to uphold civilian supremacy, respect the democratic rights of the people and withdraw support from Arroyo upon sight of at least 500,000 people in the national capital region.
The chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines has declared that the military would respect the democratic rights of the people to assemble and speak. But the chief of the Philippine National Police is expressing extreme loyalty to Arroyo and hostility towards the people who are exercising their rights in opposition to the regime.
US officials at various levels have announced that any change of government in the Philippine must follow the "constitutional path" and "rule of law" and have continued to express support for the Arroyo regime. Thus, the regime boasts that it will stay in power so long as it keeps US support. At the same time, some pro-US elements in the conservative opposition parties claim that Arroyo has lost that support.
While the regime is definitely disintegrating, Arroyo can still play a few tricks in ways more serious than apologizing for a "lapse injudgment" and "sending away" her husband and her son. She continues to proclaim that she will not resign. The forces of the broad united front are therefore forewarned not to become complacent but to be more resolute and militant than ever in arousing and mobilizing the people in their millions and in adopting a wide range of tactics to demonstrate the regime's inability to govern.
Plans are afoot for Arroyo to stage mass rallies in her favor, especially in some provinces where governors and mayors remain as her allies, and to use the Philippine National Police to suppress mass rallies that are not granted permits by pro-Arroyo local authorities. By these plans Arroyo is taking a gamble that is likely to inflame civil strife. The very crowds she tries to rally can also turn against her as in the Ceaucescu example in Romania.
As the public clamor for resignation or ouster continues to grow and her regime becomes untenable, Arroyo is supposed to have two possible courses of action. One is to take a leave of absence and have the vice-president Noli de Castro perform the functions of the presidency. Another is for her to become the "caretaker president", who will follow a script prepared by former president Fidel V. Ramos, Speaker Jose de Venecia and some smart guys of Lakas-NUCD.
The script entrusts the "caretaker president" with the task of letting a "high commission" to go through the motion of investigating some corruption scandals, the two houses of Congress to become a constituent assembly that will make constitutional amendments for satisfying the US and the local exploiting classes and for adopting a federal and parliamentary system and the parliamentary elections to take place in 2006.
However, the most that Arroyo can do is to gain a little more time on her political death bed. She has politically and morally suffered a fatal wound by being caught in the act of electoral fraud and stealing the GRP presidency. The tapes are the incontrovertible proof of her grave crime before the court of public opinion.
They expose the immorality and illegitimacy of Arroyo's usurpation of power. They have already kindled the fire that is fuelled by the wide and deep going social discontent of the people due to the crisis of the ruling system and that has the potential of burning down not only the political house of Arroyo but the entire ruling system of big compradors and landlords.
Since after the overthrow of Estrada in 2001, the institutions and stalwarts of the ruling system have considered the phenomena of mass uprisings repeatedly overthrowing a president as being very risky for the entire ruling system. They have been frightened by the expressed CPP view that the revolutionary forces and people strengthen themselves by overthrowing one ruling clique after another until they gain enough strength to overthrow the entire ruling system. In reaction, the apologists of the ruling system have invented the myth that the people are tired of mass uprisings.
But the ruling system has a problem in keeping a detested president long in power. The longer a president like Arroyo stays in power, the more rotten and despicable she makes the system to the increasingly exploited and oppressed people. And whoever is the president, so long as the rotten system persists, the people will detest it and have all the opportunity to strengthen themselves, irrespective of how long or short a president can stay in office.
The broad masses of the people demand that the basic roots of their oppression and exploitation are addressed. They wish to empower themselves against the US and the local exploiting classes that torment and make them suffer. They wish to uphold national sovereignty, conserve the national patrimony, carry out land reform and national industrialization, promote a national, scientific and democratic culture and adopt an independent foreign policy for world peace and development.
The crisis of the ruling system has become so grave that the ruling classes can no longer rule in the old way. The people want are volutionary change of government, in which the toiling masses of workers and peasants obtain and exercise their due share of political power. There are revolutionary forces that can lead the people in the revolutionary process.
Social degradation and political turmoil will continue so long as the ruling system of big compradors and landlords persists. The victoryof the broad united front against the Arroyo regime should lead to the formation of a transition council and a government that accommodate the patriotic and progressive forces of the legal democratic movement and pave the way for the success of peace negotiations with the revolutionary forces and people represented by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. ###
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Stop U.S. Intervention In The Philippines
by: Philippines Cultural Studies Center
Friday, Jul. 01, 2005 at 5:14 AM
philcsc1@yahoo.com
Signs of U.S. intervention in the political crisis in the Philippines are surfacing fast. Lessons need to be drawn from the mistakes and failures of People Power 1 and People Power 2. Systemic change is needed, not simply change in personnel. People Power 3 need not mimic the first two--otherwise, everything remains the same, even worse.
STOP U.S. MANIPULATION OF ARROYO'S DOWNFALL AND U.S. INTERVENTION IN CHOOSING HER SUCCESSOR
Incontrovertible signs from Washington and elsewhere indicate that theBush Administration and its reactionary cabal have already instructed their local agents in Manila to replace Arroyo with one of the elite factions, together with a bloc of traditional military-business groups. This is routine maneuver for the US State Department and Pentagon. As in the February 1986 overthrow of Marcos, their agents will use both normal and violent means to maintain its hegemony in its neocolony, particularly when its Mindanao military/political base is at stake.
The Philippines of course has historically been pivotal toUS. projection of its military power in Asia and the Middle East. Besides, Filipinos are famous worldwide for being 200% Americanized and martyrs for "Americanism" everywhere.
Washington is now plagued with the mounting disasters of the war inIraq and Afghanistan. Public resistance to the on going war is increasing, especially among military families and business sectors. Meanwhile, the challenges of Iran, North Korea, and of course China, not to mention Chavez's Venezuela and the insurgents in Colombia, Nepal, and elsewhere, are extremely worrisome to the corporate power elite.
To be sure, the Philippines is not comparable to oil-rich Indonesia ore ven touristy Thailand. Nonetheless, the U.S. hegemonic bloc is extremely fearful that a nationalist, nay a left-wing, alternative may take advantage of the chronic weakness of the Filipino oligarchy ridden with corruption, internal antagonisms, and sycophancy to corporate U.S. and foreign interests. Preparations to transfer the Okinawa operations to the Philippines are being expedited even as the militarization of Japan proceeds without let-up. The Philippines also provides about 10 million migrant contract workers to service corporate globalization around the planet (for example, building Guantanamo prison-cells and cleaning the barracks of the troops inIraq).
After September 11, 2001, the New People's Army and the Communist Party of the Philippines were promptly declared "terrorist organizations" by the U.S. State Department. This is meant to paralyze any international support for the nationalist insurgency. The millions of Filipinos abroad might be a support base for the NPA and the National Democratic Front—just as the Islamic nations supported the Moro National Liberation Front during the Marcos dictatorship. The systematic media exploitation of the Abu Sayaff as somehow comparable in scale to Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, together with its linking of the Abu Sayaff with left-wing and nationalist dissent, has conditioned the U.S. public to recent military incursions ("exercises") in the Philippines. It has allowed Bush and his generals to refurbish the politically bankrupt Arroyo and the AFP as part of their united front against opponents of U.S. neocolonial encroachment wherever profits can be made.
Ever since IBON and other pollsters began documenting the decline of public support for Arroyo amid the jueteng scandals involving her family, the U.S. has begun to follow their tested modus operandi on"regime change." They have consulted with opposition politicians, the Catholic Church, the Judiciary, and of course their military operatives. Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo recently solicited the backing of key U.S. lawmakers for Arroyo such as Republican Senator Thad Cochran, chair of the US Senate Appropriations Committee; Republican Senators Robert Bennett of Utah and Jim Kolbe of Arizona, as well as Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein of California (where the majority of Filipino Americans reside). Romulo also got the support of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, former adviser to President Bush, and one of the shrewd authors of the project to resuscitate the obsolescent American Empire in the post-Cold War epoch.
A revealing interview of US diplomat Karen Kelley, which appeared in the online Inquirer (reported by Agence France Press, June 29, 2005), suggests the duplicitous mode of preparing for "regime change" as seen from the US Embassy in Manila. While former lackeys of Arroyo are abandoning ship and jumping into the Susan Roces bandwagon, the U.S. poses to defend orderly transition, which means appearing to endorse transparency and accountability while engaged in cloak-and-dagger shenanigans to preserve business and military interests in their former "showcase of democracy" in Asia. The case of "Cold Warriors" Ramon Magsaysay, Benigno Aquino, and Col. Edward Lansdale of the notorious Phoenix program in Vietnam easily come to mind.
Given the pre-emptive and unconscionable means used by globalizing capital to prevent any real substantive change in the local power hierarchy, we shouldn't be deceived by all this legalese rhetoric about democracy and freedom. It is necessary for all progressive forces not to rely solely on bureaucratic or parliamentary means to get rid of Arroyo and her business network. The few wealthy families have never relied only on peaceful means to seize power and maintain supremacy. Nor have the bourgeoisie anywhere in the world. "Civil society" and State as presently constituted only serve to maintain the seemingly "normal" unequal division of power and wealth. We need to be critical of current institutions and practices, and also guard against sectarian dogmatism and opportunist vanguardism. Let the dead bury the dead.
As events in our history have proved, representatives of the ruling class can never represent the genuine long-term interests of the people. Neither Aquino nor Arroyo (who represent sections of the privileged minority) can solve the systemic evils of rampant poverty and unnecessary deaths caused by the unequal division of wealth (in particular, land and other means of production) and the chronic backwardness of the economy due to subservience to U.S. dictates (via World Bank and International Monetary Fund conditionalities). Nor can populist gimmicks tied to Estrada and assorted "social democrats" obsessed with capitalist globalization elsewhere except in thePhilippines, mobilize informed grass-roots support for a thorough going land-reform program, industrialization, a halt to OFW warm-body export policy, and the genocidal war against Moro and indigenous communities.
How can the owners of Hacienda Luisita and the plantations in Negros, Davao, and elsewhere support the loss of their property and class privileges? How can the classes represented by Aquino, Ramos, Estrada and Arroyo really allow the break-up of feudal privileges and their monopoly of political power in their territories? Behind them stand the corrupt mendacious officers of the AFP and the PNP(notwithstanding the presence of some nationalist middle-level personnel in the ranks), as well as warlords and gangster-vigilante formations sponsored by the CIA.
This is not to exclude individual members of these conservative and reactionary groups from joining the anti-imperialist united front. What we need is adherence to and step-by-step implementation of a tactical and strategic program of nationalist development that will mobilize the masses of workers, peasants, women, youth, professionals, and indigenous communities. We do not need to repeat the mistakes of the past. What is needed? Not a mountain stronghold policy of imposing a party line in a sectarian manner, but a way of unleashing the energies, wit, cunning, and intelligence of the masses to destroy the old structures of oppression and exploitation that have victimized us since the days of Spanish colonialism, and particularly since the missionary agents of U.S. "Benevolent Assimilation" landed on our shores and civilized 1.4 million dead Filipinos.
We need to initiate and explore new radical means of emancipatory transformation. A transitional nationalist and popular-democratic government is needed to prevent the usual trick of using so-called legal procedures that have always reproduced the status quo to restore peace and "business as usual." If we want to avoid repeating the mistakes of People Power I and the delusions of People Power II, we need to rely on a united alliance of armed workers' and peasants' councils, community organizations, existing guerilla forces, and other grass-roots agencies to destroy the mechanisms of imperial domination through the institutions used by the landlords, compradors, bureaucrats and traditional politicians. Otherwise, we will prolong the injustice of the present set-up and the suffering of millions ofFilipinos now and in the future.
Only a massive mobilization of the majority of citizens, of all oppressed and exploited sectors, in particular the Moro people and the tribal communities, can rid us of the evils of the exploitation of labor, political tyranny of the U.S., WB/IMF, and WTO, foreign control of the economy, and the racialized inferiorization of our cultural heritage. We need to arm the masses to defend themselves against the counter-revolutionary violence of the U.S. and its local followers.
A thousand defeats and sacrifices litter the past; is history repeating itself?
But our countrymen who gave their lives fighting against Spanish, U.S. and Japanese colonialisms speak to us from the future, saying: "A new world is possible. It is there for us to win."Let us seize this crisis of the enemy—the oligarchic elite and U.S. imperialism—as an opportunity to advance the national democraticrevolution of the Filipino masses and liberate ourselves from the evils of neocolonialism, racial and gender oppression, commodification, and globalized misery.
KUNG HINDI NGAYON, KAILAN PA? MAKIBAKA, HUWAG MATAKOT!
By: The DIRECTOR AND STAFF
PHILIPPINES CULTURAL STUDIES CENTER
Friday, Jul. 01, 2005 at 5:14 AM
philcsc1@yahoo.com
Signs of U.S. intervention in the political crisis in the Philippines are surfacing fast. Lessons need to be drawn from the mistakes and failures of People Power 1 and People Power 2. Systemic change is needed, not simply change in personnel. People Power 3 need not mimic the first two--otherwise, everything remains the same, even worse.
STOP U.S. MANIPULATION OF ARROYO'S DOWNFALL AND U.S. INTERVENTION IN CHOOSING HER SUCCESSOR
Incontrovertible signs from Washington and elsewhere indicate that theBush Administration and its reactionary cabal have already instructed their local agents in Manila to replace Arroyo with one of the elite factions, together with a bloc of traditional military-business groups. This is routine maneuver for the US State Department and Pentagon. As in the February 1986 overthrow of Marcos, their agents will use both normal and violent means to maintain its hegemony in its neocolony, particularly when its Mindanao military/political base is at stake.
The Philippines of course has historically been pivotal toUS. projection of its military power in Asia and the Middle East. Besides, Filipinos are famous worldwide for being 200% Americanized and martyrs for "Americanism" everywhere.
Washington is now plagued with the mounting disasters of the war inIraq and Afghanistan. Public resistance to the on going war is increasing, especially among military families and business sectors. Meanwhile, the challenges of Iran, North Korea, and of course China, not to mention Chavez's Venezuela and the insurgents in Colombia, Nepal, and elsewhere, are extremely worrisome to the corporate power elite.
To be sure, the Philippines is not comparable to oil-rich Indonesia ore ven touristy Thailand. Nonetheless, the U.S. hegemonic bloc is extremely fearful that a nationalist, nay a left-wing, alternative may take advantage of the chronic weakness of the Filipino oligarchy ridden with corruption, internal antagonisms, and sycophancy to corporate U.S. and foreign interests. Preparations to transfer the Okinawa operations to the Philippines are being expedited even as the militarization of Japan proceeds without let-up. The Philippines also provides about 10 million migrant contract workers to service corporate globalization around the planet (for example, building Guantanamo prison-cells and cleaning the barracks of the troops inIraq).
After September 11, 2001, the New People's Army and the Communist Party of the Philippines were promptly declared "terrorist organizations" by the U.S. State Department. This is meant to paralyze any international support for the nationalist insurgency. The millions of Filipinos abroad might be a support base for the NPA and the National Democratic Front—just as the Islamic nations supported the Moro National Liberation Front during the Marcos dictatorship. The systematic media exploitation of the Abu Sayaff as somehow comparable in scale to Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, together with its linking of the Abu Sayaff with left-wing and nationalist dissent, has conditioned the U.S. public to recent military incursions ("exercises") in the Philippines. It has allowed Bush and his generals to refurbish the politically bankrupt Arroyo and the AFP as part of their united front against opponents of U.S. neocolonial encroachment wherever profits can be made.
Ever since IBON and other pollsters began documenting the decline of public support for Arroyo amid the jueteng scandals involving her family, the U.S. has begun to follow their tested modus operandi on"regime change." They have consulted with opposition politicians, the Catholic Church, the Judiciary, and of course their military operatives. Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo recently solicited the backing of key U.S. lawmakers for Arroyo such as Republican Senator Thad Cochran, chair of the US Senate Appropriations Committee; Republican Senators Robert Bennett of Utah and Jim Kolbe of Arizona, as well as Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein of California (where the majority of Filipino Americans reside). Romulo also got the support of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, former adviser to President Bush, and one of the shrewd authors of the project to resuscitate the obsolescent American Empire in the post-Cold War epoch.
A revealing interview of US diplomat Karen Kelley, which appeared in the online Inquirer (reported by Agence France Press, June 29, 2005), suggests the duplicitous mode of preparing for "regime change" as seen from the US Embassy in Manila. While former lackeys of Arroyo are abandoning ship and jumping into the Susan Roces bandwagon, the U.S. poses to defend orderly transition, which means appearing to endorse transparency and accountability while engaged in cloak-and-dagger shenanigans to preserve business and military interests in their former "showcase of democracy" in Asia. The case of "Cold Warriors" Ramon Magsaysay, Benigno Aquino, and Col. Edward Lansdale of the notorious Phoenix program in Vietnam easily come to mind.
Given the pre-emptive and unconscionable means used by globalizing capital to prevent any real substantive change in the local power hierarchy, we shouldn't be deceived by all this legalese rhetoric about democracy and freedom. It is necessary for all progressive forces not to rely solely on bureaucratic or parliamentary means to get rid of Arroyo and her business network. The few wealthy families have never relied only on peaceful means to seize power and maintain supremacy. Nor have the bourgeoisie anywhere in the world. "Civil society" and State as presently constituted only serve to maintain the seemingly "normal" unequal division of power and wealth. We need to be critical of current institutions and practices, and also guard against sectarian dogmatism and opportunist vanguardism. Let the dead bury the dead.
As events in our history have proved, representatives of the ruling class can never represent the genuine long-term interests of the people. Neither Aquino nor Arroyo (who represent sections of the privileged minority) can solve the systemic evils of rampant poverty and unnecessary deaths caused by the unequal division of wealth (in particular, land and other means of production) and the chronic backwardness of the economy due to subservience to U.S. dictates (via World Bank and International Monetary Fund conditionalities). Nor can populist gimmicks tied to Estrada and assorted "social democrats" obsessed with capitalist globalization elsewhere except in thePhilippines, mobilize informed grass-roots support for a thorough going land-reform program, industrialization, a halt to OFW warm-body export policy, and the genocidal war against Moro and indigenous communities.
How can the owners of Hacienda Luisita and the plantations in Negros, Davao, and elsewhere support the loss of their property and class privileges? How can the classes represented by Aquino, Ramos, Estrada and Arroyo really allow the break-up of feudal privileges and their monopoly of political power in their territories? Behind them stand the corrupt mendacious officers of the AFP and the PNP(notwithstanding the presence of some nationalist middle-level personnel in the ranks), as well as warlords and gangster-vigilante formations sponsored by the CIA.
This is not to exclude individual members of these conservative and reactionary groups from joining the anti-imperialist united front. What we need is adherence to and step-by-step implementation of a tactical and strategic program of nationalist development that will mobilize the masses of workers, peasants, women, youth, professionals, and indigenous communities. We do not need to repeat the mistakes of the past. What is needed? Not a mountain stronghold policy of imposing a party line in a sectarian manner, but a way of unleashing the energies, wit, cunning, and intelligence of the masses to destroy the old structures of oppression and exploitation that have victimized us since the days of Spanish colonialism, and particularly since the missionary agents of U.S. "Benevolent Assimilation" landed on our shores and civilized 1.4 million dead Filipinos.
We need to initiate and explore new radical means of emancipatory transformation. A transitional nationalist and popular-democratic government is needed to prevent the usual trick of using so-called legal procedures that have always reproduced the status quo to restore peace and "business as usual." If we want to avoid repeating the mistakes of People Power I and the delusions of People Power II, we need to rely on a united alliance of armed workers' and peasants' councils, community organizations, existing guerilla forces, and other grass-roots agencies to destroy the mechanisms of imperial domination through the institutions used by the landlords, compradors, bureaucrats and traditional politicians. Otherwise, we will prolong the injustice of the present set-up and the suffering of millions ofFilipinos now and in the future.
Only a massive mobilization of the majority of citizens, of all oppressed and exploited sectors, in particular the Moro people and the tribal communities, can rid us of the evils of the exploitation of labor, political tyranny of the U.S., WB/IMF, and WTO, foreign control of the economy, and the racialized inferiorization of our cultural heritage. We need to arm the masses to defend themselves against the counter-revolutionary violence of the U.S. and its local followers.
A thousand defeats and sacrifices litter the past; is history repeating itself?
But our countrymen who gave their lives fighting against Spanish, U.S. and Japanese colonialisms speak to us from the future, saying: "A new world is possible. It is there for us to win."Let us seize this crisis of the enemy—the oligarchic elite and U.S. imperialism—as an opportunity to advance the national democraticrevolution of the Filipino masses and liberate ourselves from the evils of neocolonialism, racial and gender oppression, commodification, and globalized misery.
KUNG HINDI NGAYON, KAILAN PA? MAKIBAKA, HUWAG MATAKOT!
By: The DIRECTOR AND STAFF
PHILIPPINES CULTURAL STUDIES CENTER
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
AUPWU Position: No To a Bogus President
The All U.P. Workers Union, Manila Chapter and the National Executive Board have made a stand to the raging controversy on the Presidency of the Republic. Our stand: NO to a bogus and do nothing GMA regime.
The decision was arrived today in successive meetings: at 9:00 AM, the expanded Manila Chapter Executive Board meeting held at the PGH Pfizer Vitual Library and; at 1:00 PM the National Executive Board meeting held at the AUPWU Manila Conference Room. Prior to the unanimous decisions by both bodies, each meetings were marked by lengthy discussions and verbal tussle on the contents of the Gloriagate Tape and the wide ranging options-from "patawarin na" to ouster.
For the Manila Chapter, the stand was for the chapter to add its voice on the clamor for the ouster of a corrupt, anti-people and bogus GMA Presidency. An Ad Hoc Committee headed by Ms. Amond Olivar, the Chapter Secretary and four other members was formed to draft the official statement of the Chapter. The committee is expected to hand-in a draft statement to the Chapter President/National PRO on Monday, July 11, 2005 for editing and printing. The statement will be mass circulated by the Public Affairs and Special Projects Committees.
Meanwhile, the National Executive Board's stand was to get rid of the GMA government under any situation-from resignation to ouster. The National President and the Diliman Chapter were given the tasks of drafting, finalizing and printing of the Union's statement.
The decision was arrived today in successive meetings: at 9:00 AM, the expanded Manila Chapter Executive Board meeting held at the PGH Pfizer Vitual Library and; at 1:00 PM the National Executive Board meeting held at the AUPWU Manila Conference Room. Prior to the unanimous decisions by both bodies, each meetings were marked by lengthy discussions and verbal tussle on the contents of the Gloriagate Tape and the wide ranging options-from "patawarin na" to ouster.
For the Manila Chapter, the stand was for the chapter to add its voice on the clamor for the ouster of a corrupt, anti-people and bogus GMA Presidency. An Ad Hoc Committee headed by Ms. Amond Olivar, the Chapter Secretary and four other members was formed to draft the official statement of the Chapter. The committee is expected to hand-in a draft statement to the Chapter President/National PRO on Monday, July 11, 2005 for editing and printing. The statement will be mass circulated by the Public Affairs and Special Projects Committees.
Meanwhile, the National Executive Board's stand was to get rid of the GMA government under any situation-from resignation to ouster. The National President and the Diliman Chapter were given the tasks of drafting, finalizing and printing of the Union's statement.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Apology In A Can of Worms
INSIDE PCIJ: Stories behind our stories
June 28, 2005 @ 2:58 am
Posted by Sheila Coronel
Filed under In the News
PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's apology raises more questions than it answers. Tonight, after three weeks of silence, she admitted calling a Comelec official before and during the canvassing of the results of last year's elections. She apologized for this "lapse in judgment" and insisted that her actions were meant "not to influence the outcome of the election" but merely to protect her vote.
Mrs. Arroyo admitted to an impropriety, and asked Filipinos that she be allowed "to close this chapter and move on with the business of governing.
"This statement is a gamble. For sure, the President did not admit to conspiring to rig the vote. But her carefully worded apology in effect confirmed that the conversation or conversations with an unnamed Comelec official, presumably Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, took place.
Tonight's announcement also confirmed, if only indirectly, the authenticity of the "Garci" tapes (or at least portions of these), which have been at the center of the controversy roiling her administration. Such a confirmation has serious repercussions, if not for the President herself, then for a whole slew of other individuals, most of all Garcillano himself, who is recorded as being involved in various transactions aimed at rigging the count.
The conversations, after all, provide damning proof that Garcillano was, in the words of a Comelec official, "the plotter for electoral fraud, the overall supervisor and commander in chief" of the manipulation of the count in favor of the administration. The recording points to systemic and institutional fraud perpetrated by the Comelec. Does this mean that the President, by confirming her phone calls to the commissioner, also provided, albeit indirectly, a virtual confirmation of the fraud?
The President also in effect implicated former Senator Robert Barbers, who was caught on the tape arranging a payoff of P1.5 million to P2 million to Garcillano. About a dozen other Comelec officials and bureaucrats, whose conversations with the commissioner alluded, however indirectly, to manipulating the vote, should also be held to account, even if the President were found to be innocent.
But is she really? Were her calls to the commissioner really as harmless as she claims?
The President, according to the three-hour recording of Garcillano's conversations from May 17 to June 19, 2004, made 15 phone calls to the Comelec commissioner. On one day alone, May 29, she made three phonecalls. Were so many calls needed to "protect" her vote? Wouldn't a blanket statement to the commissioner that he should ensure that no cheating is done have sufficed? And why didn't she call the Comelec Chairman, instead of a functionary lower down the totem pole? Did she have to personally ask Garcillano about the count in specific towns and about specific incidents regarding the opposition's accusation of fraud in Mindanao?
Perhaps the most damning conversation between Garcillano and thePresident was the one that took place at 10:29 p.m. on June 2, 2004. During that call, Mrs. Arroyo expressed concern that the statement of votes (SOVs) that support the provincial/municipal certificates of canvass (COCs) in Basilan and Lanao del Sur did not match.
In that call, Garcillano said that the mismatch was possible but that the president should not worry because "itong ginawang pagpataas sa inyo…maayos naman ang paggawa, eh (the way in which your votes were increased was done well)." This was in effect an admission that there was, as the opposition had alleged then, a manipulation of the votes in those two provinces. Confirming that this conversation took place is a virtual admission that the cheating in those places also happened.
In the same conversation, Garcillano alluded to a rigging of the canvass in Basilan and Sulu. He told the President: "Sa Basilan, alam nyo naman ang military doon eh hindi masyadong marunong kasi silang gumawa eh. Katulad don sa Sulu, si Gen. Habacon. Pero hindi naman ho, kinausap ko na yung chairman ng board (of canvassers) sa Sulu. Ang akin pataguin ko muna ang EO (election officer) ng Pangutaran para hindi siya makatestigo ho. (In Basilan, the military wasn't so good at doing these things, like in Sulu, with Gen. Habacon. But I already talked to the chairman of the board of canvassers in Sulu. I think we should just ask the election officer of Pangutaran to hide first so he doesn't have to testify).
"This conversation implicates Maj. Gen. Gabriel Habacon, commanding general of the Army's 1st Infantry Division, whose area of operation covers Basilan, Sulu and the Zamboanga Peninsula. Garcillano implied that Habacon was party to the fraud.
The election officer of Pangutaran town in Sulu was Cipriano Ebron. It was in Pangutaran that the opposition alleged massive dagdag bawas operations took place, with Mrs. Arroyo's vote being padded by 8,000 and Poe's being shaved by 2,000. Such an operation would not have been possible without Ebron's cooperation. Apparently, the President was worried that Ebron would talk. This was why Garcillano assured her that Ebron would be asked to hide in the meantime so that the opposition he would not be able to force him testify on the anomalies. If the President says this conversation took place, then was she also not party, if not to fraud, at the very least to obstruction of justice?
In fact, more details surface in another conversation, this time with a certain "Ruben" to whom Garcillano recounted that the military had already told Ebron to make himself scarce. In yet another call, the commissioner described Ebron as his man ("tao ko yan") and even boasted that "kahit pakainin mo ng bala yun, di na magpapakita (evenn if they made him eat bullets, he wouldn't show up)."
But that is not all. Other conversations in the three-hour recording leave a trail of doubt about the intent of the President's conversations. At face value, the most frequently replayed question she asked of Garcillano, in a call at 9:43 a.m. on May 29, 2004, "So will I still lead by more than 1 M(million)?" may seem innocent enough.
But Garcillano's reply, "Pipilitin ho natin 'yan," would seem to indicate that the commissioner was in a position to ensure such alead. How can a Comelec official do that, except by manipulating the count?
In fact, Garcillano told the President during the same phone call that while Poe was leading in some places in Mindanao, votes from seven municipalities in Lanao would make up for the shortfall. The reality on the ground was this: Poe was ahead in Lanao del Sur 42,374 to32,389, at least according to the preliminary Namfrel count. But upon the Comelec's orders, special elections were called in seven towns where a failure of elections had been declared. Unsurprisingly, Mrs.Arroyo got an overwhelming majority of the vote in those towns: 30,447, against Poe's 6,805.
But the Namfrel chapter in the province, after comparing the certificates of canvass and the precinct-level election returns, found that the President's tally in seven Lanao del Sur towns was padded by 21,217 votes, while Poe's were shaved by 9,174. In another town, Poona Bayabao, the certificate of canvass showed Arroyo getting 4,700 votes, while Poe got zero, and this was what was reflected in the final count. The Namfrel chapter, however, showed precinct-level election returns that listed Arroyo getting 964 votes against Poe's 767.
In the end, the congressional canvass showed her final count in Lanao del Sur at 128,301 versus 43,302 for Poe. Given this context, Garcillano's assurance to the President that she could get her one million "if we can get more in Lanao" does not seem as innocuous as Mrs. Arroyo would like us to believe.
In fact, the overall sense of Garcillano's conversations was that the fraud was extensive and systemic, as it involved not just the Comelec but also the military and the police. Mrs. Arroyo's admission and apology tonight therefore open a can of worms. If Garcillano said all of those things, then he was guilty of fraud. But he was surely, certainly, not alone. He had a whole infrastructure of fraud behind him, and as Mrs. Arroyo herself confirmed tonight, also the implicit support of the President for what he was doing.
June 28, 2005 @ 2:58 am
Posted by Sheila Coronel
Filed under In the News
PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's apology raises more questions than it answers. Tonight, after three weeks of silence, she admitted calling a Comelec official before and during the canvassing of the results of last year's elections. She apologized for this "lapse in judgment" and insisted that her actions were meant "not to influence the outcome of the election" but merely to protect her vote.
Mrs. Arroyo admitted to an impropriety, and asked Filipinos that she be allowed "to close this chapter and move on with the business of governing.
"This statement is a gamble. For sure, the President did not admit to conspiring to rig the vote. But her carefully worded apology in effect confirmed that the conversation or conversations with an unnamed Comelec official, presumably Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, took place.
Tonight's announcement also confirmed, if only indirectly, the authenticity of the "Garci" tapes (or at least portions of these), which have been at the center of the controversy roiling her administration. Such a confirmation has serious repercussions, if not for the President herself, then for a whole slew of other individuals, most of all Garcillano himself, who is recorded as being involved in various transactions aimed at rigging the count.
The conversations, after all, provide damning proof that Garcillano was, in the words of a Comelec official, "the plotter for electoral fraud, the overall supervisor and commander in chief" of the manipulation of the count in favor of the administration. The recording points to systemic and institutional fraud perpetrated by the Comelec. Does this mean that the President, by confirming her phone calls to the commissioner, also provided, albeit indirectly, a virtual confirmation of the fraud?
The President also in effect implicated former Senator Robert Barbers, who was caught on the tape arranging a payoff of P1.5 million to P2 million to Garcillano. About a dozen other Comelec officials and bureaucrats, whose conversations with the commissioner alluded, however indirectly, to manipulating the vote, should also be held to account, even if the President were found to be innocent.
But is she really? Were her calls to the commissioner really as harmless as she claims?
The President, according to the three-hour recording of Garcillano's conversations from May 17 to June 19, 2004, made 15 phone calls to the Comelec commissioner. On one day alone, May 29, she made three phonecalls. Were so many calls needed to "protect" her vote? Wouldn't a blanket statement to the commissioner that he should ensure that no cheating is done have sufficed? And why didn't she call the Comelec Chairman, instead of a functionary lower down the totem pole? Did she have to personally ask Garcillano about the count in specific towns and about specific incidents regarding the opposition's accusation of fraud in Mindanao?
Perhaps the most damning conversation between Garcillano and thePresident was the one that took place at 10:29 p.m. on June 2, 2004. During that call, Mrs. Arroyo expressed concern that the statement of votes (SOVs) that support the provincial/municipal certificates of canvass (COCs) in Basilan and Lanao del Sur did not match.
In that call, Garcillano said that the mismatch was possible but that the president should not worry because "itong ginawang pagpataas sa inyo…maayos naman ang paggawa, eh (the way in which your votes were increased was done well)." This was in effect an admission that there was, as the opposition had alleged then, a manipulation of the votes in those two provinces. Confirming that this conversation took place is a virtual admission that the cheating in those places also happened.
In the same conversation, Garcillano alluded to a rigging of the canvass in Basilan and Sulu. He told the President: "Sa Basilan, alam nyo naman ang military doon eh hindi masyadong marunong kasi silang gumawa eh. Katulad don sa Sulu, si Gen. Habacon. Pero hindi naman ho, kinausap ko na yung chairman ng board (of canvassers) sa Sulu. Ang akin pataguin ko muna ang EO (election officer) ng Pangutaran para hindi siya makatestigo ho. (In Basilan, the military wasn't so good at doing these things, like in Sulu, with Gen. Habacon. But I already talked to the chairman of the board of canvassers in Sulu. I think we should just ask the election officer of Pangutaran to hide first so he doesn't have to testify).
"This conversation implicates Maj. Gen. Gabriel Habacon, commanding general of the Army's 1st Infantry Division, whose area of operation covers Basilan, Sulu and the Zamboanga Peninsula. Garcillano implied that Habacon was party to the fraud.
The election officer of Pangutaran town in Sulu was Cipriano Ebron. It was in Pangutaran that the opposition alleged massive dagdag bawas operations took place, with Mrs. Arroyo's vote being padded by 8,000 and Poe's being shaved by 2,000. Such an operation would not have been possible without Ebron's cooperation. Apparently, the President was worried that Ebron would talk. This was why Garcillano assured her that Ebron would be asked to hide in the meantime so that the opposition he would not be able to force him testify on the anomalies. If the President says this conversation took place, then was she also not party, if not to fraud, at the very least to obstruction of justice?
In fact, more details surface in another conversation, this time with a certain "Ruben" to whom Garcillano recounted that the military had already told Ebron to make himself scarce. In yet another call, the commissioner described Ebron as his man ("tao ko yan") and even boasted that "kahit pakainin mo ng bala yun, di na magpapakita (evenn if they made him eat bullets, he wouldn't show up)."
But that is not all. Other conversations in the three-hour recording leave a trail of doubt about the intent of the President's conversations. At face value, the most frequently replayed question she asked of Garcillano, in a call at 9:43 a.m. on May 29, 2004, "So will I still lead by more than 1 M(million)?" may seem innocent enough.
But Garcillano's reply, "Pipilitin ho natin 'yan," would seem to indicate that the commissioner was in a position to ensure such alead. How can a Comelec official do that, except by manipulating the count?
In fact, Garcillano told the President during the same phone call that while Poe was leading in some places in Mindanao, votes from seven municipalities in Lanao would make up for the shortfall. The reality on the ground was this: Poe was ahead in Lanao del Sur 42,374 to32,389, at least according to the preliminary Namfrel count. But upon the Comelec's orders, special elections were called in seven towns where a failure of elections had been declared. Unsurprisingly, Mrs.Arroyo got an overwhelming majority of the vote in those towns: 30,447, against Poe's 6,805.
But the Namfrel chapter in the province, after comparing the certificates of canvass and the precinct-level election returns, found that the President's tally in seven Lanao del Sur towns was padded by 21,217 votes, while Poe's were shaved by 9,174. In another town, Poona Bayabao, the certificate of canvass showed Arroyo getting 4,700 votes, while Poe got zero, and this was what was reflected in the final count. The Namfrel chapter, however, showed precinct-level election returns that listed Arroyo getting 964 votes against Poe's 767.
In the end, the congressional canvass showed her final count in Lanao del Sur at 128,301 versus 43,302 for Poe. Given this context, Garcillano's assurance to the President that she could get her one million "if we can get more in Lanao" does not seem as innocuous as Mrs. Arroyo would like us to believe.
In fact, the overall sense of Garcillano's conversations was that the fraud was extensive and systemic, as it involved not just the Comelec but also the military and the police. Mrs. Arroyo's admission and apology tonight therefore open a can of worms. If Garcillano said all of those things, then he was guilty of fraud. But he was surely, certainly, not alone. He had a whole infrastructure of fraud behind him, and as Mrs. Arroyo herself confirmed tonight, also the implicit support of the President for what he was doing.
Friday, June 17, 2005
Arroyo's 'Martial Law' Will Be Thwarted By Waves Of Broad Protests
NEWS RELEASE
June 17, 2005
Reference: Elmer Labog, KMU Chairman
0920-6388960
Workers say never again to dictatorship" -- KMUMilitant labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) today said that whatever plans by Malacanang and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to put the country under Martial Law in order to suppress the people's growing clamor for her ouster will be frustrated by broad people's protests and resistance.
"KMU received information this morning that Arroyo is planning to declare Martial Law on or before June 21 and that hit squads are positioned within Metro Manila and surrounding provinces. The hit squads can either arrest or exterminate leaders of militant mass organizations.
We are currently taking all necessary precautions and security measures," said KMU Chairman Elmer Labog.
"The information may or may not be true, but we are expecting the worst. We are preparing our ranks for any scenario. Knowing Gloria, she can and she will do anything to hold on to her weakening presidency. But she will not succeed, workers say never again to another dictatorship," Labog stressed.
"Arroyo knows for sure that her regime is destined to collapse. She will be thrown out of Malacanang either through by people power or impeachment procedures following the exposure of audio tapes that are hard proof of the electoral fraud she committed during the elections last year. The political and economic crisis is so intense, even Arroyo and her clique doesn't know how to handle it."
"Like what Marcos did in 1972 when the country is in deep political and economic turmoil and tens of thousands of people are protesting against Marcos' policies, Arroyo is likely to declare open fascist rule to save her illegitimate leadership.
Actually, there is already an undeclared Martial Law with Arroyo's militarization campaign and severe political repression. Political activists and members of militant organizations are constantly harassed, abducted or murdered.
"We will frustrate Arroyo's Martial Law. We will hold a major mobilization on June 24 at Liwasang Bonifacio together with other sectors who are fed up with Arroyo's leadership. ###
June 17, 2005
Reference: Elmer Labog, KMU Chairman
0920-6388960
Workers say never again to dictatorship" -- KMUMilitant labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) today said that whatever plans by Malacanang and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to put the country under Martial Law in order to suppress the people's growing clamor for her ouster will be frustrated by broad people's protests and resistance.
"KMU received information this morning that Arroyo is planning to declare Martial Law on or before June 21 and that hit squads are positioned within Metro Manila and surrounding provinces. The hit squads can either arrest or exterminate leaders of militant mass organizations.
We are currently taking all necessary precautions and security measures," said KMU Chairman Elmer Labog.
"The information may or may not be true, but we are expecting the worst. We are preparing our ranks for any scenario. Knowing Gloria, she can and she will do anything to hold on to her weakening presidency. But she will not succeed, workers say never again to another dictatorship," Labog stressed.
"Arroyo knows for sure that her regime is destined to collapse. She will be thrown out of Malacanang either through by people power or impeachment procedures following the exposure of audio tapes that are hard proof of the electoral fraud she committed during the elections last year. The political and economic crisis is so intense, even Arroyo and her clique doesn't know how to handle it."
"Like what Marcos did in 1972 when the country is in deep political and economic turmoil and tens of thousands of people are protesting against Marcos' policies, Arroyo is likely to declare open fascist rule to save her illegitimate leadership.
Actually, there is already an undeclared Martial Law with Arroyo's militarization campaign and severe political repression. Political activists and members of militant organizations are constantly harassed, abducted or murdered.
"We will frustrate Arroyo's Martial Law. We will hold a major mobilization on June 24 at Liwasang Bonifacio together with other sectors who are fed up with Arroyo's leadership. ###
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