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Thursday, March 13, 2008
Ex-Cabinet officials say Arroyo is unfit to be President
MANILA (Updated 12 p.m.) -- Former Senior Government Officials (FSGO) expressed their loss of confidence on the President and questioned her moral authority to govern because of her uncooperative stance in finding the truth behind the controversial national broadband deal.
The FSGO also disputed the Arroyo government's claim that the economy is gaining momentum saying, " Mrs. Arroyo's economy is just a "power point mirage", good for presentations in airconditioned conference rooms but false and fake to ordinary Filipinos struggling to make a living."
Arroyo Watch: Sun.Star blog on President Arroyo
The former senior officials presented their statements, " The People Must Remind the President of Her Obligation to Public Trust " and " Fighting Corruption is Never Harmful to the Economy," in a media briefing Thursday morning.
"We conclude that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo refuses to serve the people's demand for truth about a matter of great public interest. We see in this refusal, despite ample chances and many sound reasons, a clear basis for our people to find her complicit with and, in fact, at the center of, the corruption and cover up of the NBN-ZTE deal," the statement read by former Civil Service Commissioner Karina David stated.
"We express our loss of confidence in her. As a consequence we question not only her moral authority to govern, but also her ability to govern given the mounting garbage of lies and obfuscation that she is constrained to build to cover up the increasing stench of corruption in her administration," the statement further said.
David in a television interview further explained that the statement essentially means, "we are declaring that she should no longer be the president of the country, but on how it should going to be done whether via resignation or via pressure or whatever is a different issue all together."
"The terminology of loss of confidence is a phrase that is known all over the world and in the civilized part of this world for example the British Parliament, when you say loss of confidence there are specific actions that are taken by the person who has lost the confidence of the govern," David said.
Two weeks ago, the group presented to the President five actions for the President to act on to show her government's commitment to the truth behind the NBN-ZTE deal.
Statement of the Former Senior Government Officials
The FSGO said they demanded certain actions from the President "not as an interest group but as a straightforward way for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to demonstrate that she is a blessing not a curse in the Office of the President."
The group explained that recent action is to help start the repair and rehabilitation of government institutions already severely damaged from past scandals.
FSGO said revoking EO 464 is not enough since former Socio Economic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri still invokes executive privilege and does not testify in the Senate investigation on the NBN-ZTE deal.
In addition, records pertaining to the controversial deal with the Chinese corporation have still not been submitted to the Senate.
"She must act to help bring out the full truth about this deal if her hands are truly clean. The Arroyo Presidency must shelter the truth or it will be judged as a fortress for lies," the FSGO said.
Former National Economic and Development Administration (Neda) Secretary Ceilito Habito also presented the statement of the FSGO's economic cluster.
Habito said there is disconnect in different government data. There is worsening poverty at a time when the economy is reportedly growing, he added.
"First, there is growing concern among experts about glaring and unprecedented inconsistencies in official statistics on growth, income and poverty that raise doubts about the reliability of the economic growth data. Second, even recent official poverty statistics affirm that whatever economic growth was achieved in the past 5 years has benefited only a few. Third, this "growth" had even swelled the ranks of the poor by almost four million additional Filipinos. Poverty has risen not only in absolute numbers, but in relative terms as well, with the proportion of poor families rising from 24 percent to 27 percent between 2003 and 2006. Our economy cannot gain momentum when its actual growth is much lower than its reported numbers, when whatever growth occurred benefited only a few, when more Filipinos slide into poverty despite this growth," the statement said.
The economic cluster is set to present an economic paper regarding the country's economic situation.
FSGO's other clusters - social development, political and rural development - are already meeting to also present their respective papers.(Sunnex)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Dumaguete.
(March 13, 2008 issue)
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