Wednesday, March 12, 2008 Church leaders call on Arroyo, Palace execs to resign By Edmund B. Sestoso
CHURCH leaders and allied organizations in Negros Island banded together to call for the immediate resignation of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and other Palace officials involved in the ZTE-NBN scandal.
The resignation call is contrary to the general stand of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) that only calls on the President to lead a moral revolution and for the scrapping of Executive 464, which prohibits Cabinet members from appearing in Senate investigations.
The religious group that identifies itself as the Negros Regional Ecumenical Council has for its members some priests, bishops, and pastors of the Roman Catholic Church, Iglesia Filipina Independiente, United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), and the Philippine Baptist Conventions.
Several mandated organizations under various denominations also are members of the unified grouping.
Reverend Reuel Norman Marigza, NREC secretary general, said their group after an exhaustive meeting came up with a consensus to call for the resignation of the President as she is one of those principally involved in the anomalous ZTE-NBN contract.
He added that in the country's governance and systems, greed, through kickbacks and commissions, has become so acceptable that it is no longer questioned-it needs only to be "moderated" so as not to draw the people's attention.
The group in its statement said enough is enough and that it frowns on government officials involved in anomalous.
The group specifically called on Secretary Romulo Neri, who now heads the Commission on Higher Education (Ched) and other Malacanang officials who are in the know, to tell the truth and not hide under the skirt of executive privilege.
