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Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Cory links up with Susan in protest v. Arroyo
MANILA -- Former president Corazon Aquino, who had led people uprisings, is taking to the streets again, as she urged Filipinos to back the impeachment of President Arroyo by joining a protest march.
“Maybe this (marching) is one way of telling them how much it means...to all of us who love our democracy and who are searching for the truth,” Aquino said at a news conference on the launch of the Bukluran Para Sa Katoto-hanan (Coalition for the Truth), an alliance of civil society groups and opposition political parties.
“Every avenue for arriving at the truth has been blocked, and every opportunity to find the truth is being closed,” said a coalition statement read by Bro. Armin Luistro, president of the De La Salle University.
“We say with one voice, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo must go,” the statement said.
The coalition also includes Susan Roces—the widow of Arroyo’s main presidential rival Fernando Poe Jr.—and popular televangelist Eddie Villanueva.
The protesters are set to march today to the House of Representatives in Quezon City, where legislators will vote on a committee report dismissing the impeachment complaints against President Arroyo.
Both Aquino and Roces were at the Batasan complex until late last night to listen to the debates and privilege speeches on the complaints during the privilege hour, before the vote in a plenary.
51st signatory
The opposition’s campaign to get the required 79 signatures to send the amended complaint directly to the Senate for trial convinced a President’s ally to join their cause.
Camarines Sur Representative Arnulfo Fuentebella, member of the Nationalist People’s Coalition, became the 51st congressman to sign the complaint. He also resigned as vice chairman of the House committee on justice.
Villanueva, a presidential candidate last year, called the impeachment process “the last chance for us to show that peaceful, constitutional process is doable.”
But Cabinet Secretary Ricardo Saludo told ABS-CBN television:
“They are not asking for the truth. They just want the President to go.”
Police were on alert ahead of expected protests.
About 100 leftist activists, some wearing surgical masks marked “Congress stinks,” demanded Arroyo’s ouster outside Congress yesterday as riot police stood by.
The House plenary vote was expected to finally kill off the impeachment moves against Arroyo “even if we have to stay until the early hours of (Tuesday) morning,” said Representative Prospero Nograles, an Arroyo ally.
According to the Constitution, 79 votes—one-third of the 236-member House—can overturn the committee report and send an impeachment complaint to the Senate for trial.
“We need 79 warm bodies on the floor to overturn this,” said Representative Gilbert Remulla.
The opposition has said it has as many as 73 lawmakers ready to vote for impeachment, and the president’s foes are keen to delay the vote in order to have more time to drum up support.
The political crisis began with the leak of an audiotape in which a woman sounding like Arroyo told a man thought to be senior elections commissioner Virgilio Garcil-lano to fix the outcome of the May 2004 vote.
Remulla took to the floor and accused the government of a large-scale cover up to block efforts at locating Garcillano, who according to opposition sources flew to a third country via Singapore aboard a private jet owned by an Arroyo friend.
Cover-up
“This cover-up and conspiracy of Garcillano’s departure only further solidifies the perception that there is truth to the conversations in the ‘Hello Garci’ recordings which indicate massive electoral fraud and a host of other crimes that took place during the 2004 presidential election,” he said.
Arroyo said she made a mistake by calling an electoral official before the result of the voting had been announced but denied any wrongdoing and has resisted calls to step down.
The justice committee decided that two of the complaints filed against Arroyo were illegal because the constitution allows only one impeachment motion against a single official within a year.
The third complaint filed by lawyer Oliver Lozano was dismissed because the evidence cited to back the complaint was illegally obtained through wiretapped telephone conversations. (AP/AFP) |
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Congress dismisses impeach raps against Arroyo