Friday, September 30, 2005 (Philippines)

’ House Minority Floor Leader Francis Escudero (left), with former IBP Cebu City president Democrito Barcenas, during an opposition forum at the UP in the Visayas Cebu College. Escudero said Cebu is neither a Gloria country nor an opposition country.(Sun.star photo/Arni Aclao) If President Arroyo hoped for silence after issuing a gag order, she thought wrong. Opposition legislators are planning to question before the Supreme Court President Arroyo’s order prohibiting government and military officials from testifying in congressional inquiries. It’s an order that saddens Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal. “We are sorry that they are being stopped, but we do not know exactly the intention. I don’t want to be judgmental. I do not know her (Arroyo’s) reasons,” the cardinal said in a television interview. [full story]