MANILA - When I read a chilling book “The Terror Presidency” about U.S. President George W. Bush’s incautious assertions of extraordinary constitutional powers, I was really startled. It quickly reminded me of Gloria Arroyo’s own unconstitutional actions in the last six years of her purloined presidency.

The portrait of Bush’s administration was drawn by Jack Goldsmith, a legal scholar who was hired to head the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, but quit after only nine months in office. It is a devastating portrait.

Indeed, Goldsmith drew a portrait of Bush’s highly insular White House obsessively focused on expanding presidential powers, a White House that frequently made up its mind about a course of action before consulting experts, a White House that sidelined Congress in its policymaking and willfully pursued a “go-it-alone approached” based on “minimal deliberation, unilateral, and legalistic defense." (Just like the way Gloria and her Palace coterie have been doing, too, remember?)

The American legal scholar was alarmed when he discovered that many of Bush’s policies, particularly on counter terrorism and the torture of suspected terrorists detained in prison cells in Guantanamo and elsewhere, were based on “flimsy, sloppily reasoned legal opinions.”

And Goldsmith also cited the White House’s “arrogant and careless and overly expansive legal arguments" in asserting extraordinary constitutional authorities on behalf of President Bush. (Doesn’t this remind you, too, of the ill-thought out legal opinions of Gloria’s own justice department and Malacanang legal advisers to buttress her policies?)

Goldsmith pointed to Alberto Gonzales, US attorney general, as one of those behind the deplorable actions of Bush. And eventually, under tremendous pressure from the U.S. Congress, he was forced to resign from office. (Here, despite persistent calls by the public for his resignation, Gloria’s secretary of justice, Raul Gonzalez, continues to cling on for dear life to his post, even from his sick bed.)

Just like Bush’s portrait, a similar devastating portrait can also be drawn about Gloria Arroyo and her administration in the handling and the twisting of constitutional powers in the past six years, and predictably in the next three years until 2010 of her illegitimate presidency.

She, too, has expanded her presidential powers, and she relied solely on her Palace legal advisers with their sloppily reasoned and incautious legal opinions, just like those of Bush’s own White House legal counsel. We have seen how in innumerable cases the legality of her actions, policies and executive diktats were challenged before the Supreme Court, and which the wise magistrates declared as unconstitutional and in blatant violation of other laws of the land.

We also have seen how in many instances she was obsessively focused on expanding her powers, unilaterally pursuing her policies, with the same “go-it-alone approach” of Bush, her political idol and ally. And just like Bush, Gloria Arroyo has acted with such tenacity to the point of going beyond the bounds of the chalk line of legality, accounting for the unsound legal footing of her actions, undermining the judiciary and other institutions of our democracy, weakening the rule of law and trampling our sacred Constitution. Yes, indeed, if in America they have a “Terror Presidency,” then here in the Philippines we have a “Terrible Presidency”!