RP Bishops Give GMA a Big Boost

MANILA –President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s bid to stay in power, received a major boost when the influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines rejected calls for her to step down amid the scandals rocking around her administration.
The sunday announcement gave the president a reprieve after weeks of turmoil which prompted her husband Mike Arroyo and son Rep. Mickey Arroyo to leave the country and ten of her cabinet ministers to resign . The embattled president hung tough and refused to resign even after former president Corazon Aquino joined the mass clamor for her to quit.
“In the spirit of humility and truth, we therefore declare our prayerfully discerned collective decision that we do not demand her resignation,” Archbishop Fernando Capalla, president of the CBCP, said. He added: “Yet neither do we encourage her to simply dismiss such a call from others for we recognize that nonviolent appeals for her resignation, the demand for a truth commission and the filing of the impeachment case are not against the Gospel.”
The CBCP, a politically influential body in the country, also rejected the creation of juntas or revolutionary councils to replace the Arroyo administration.
The CBCP reiterated its call for a thorough investigation of the alleged wiretapped recordings that allegedly contained conversations between the President and a Commission on Elections official.
Capalla said it is important to “examine the authenticity of the so-called Garcillano tapes. Beyond apology is accountability,” the CBCP said in its statement, adding that with forgiveness comes justice.
President Arroyo earlier apologized for a “lapse in judgment” for talking to an election official while the presidential vote was being counted. The CBCP also lauded the military and the police for its refusal to participate in calls for Mrs. Arroyo’s resignation.
In Sunday sermons, priests told their congregations it was not yet time to take to the streets as they did in 1986 to oust dictator Ferdinand Marcos and again in 2001 to topple President Joseph Estrada. “Let us not be swayed by what other people are saying. Don’t interfere,” Father Ludovico Tacdoro said at morning mass in Manila’s business district. “Let the truth be known for us to decide and make our judgment with regard to this issue.”
But a group representing various Catholic orders in the Philippines came out against Arroyo late on Saturday, saying in a statement that she should quit.
“In light of the events of the past few days and the president’s own decisions, we have come to the sad conclusion that she is not willing to be accountable to the people on this matter,” the Association of Major Religious Superiors said.Mrs. Arroyo, whose term runs until 2010, faces allegations of trying to influence the vote-count in last year’s presidential election and that members of her family took kickbacks from the numbers racket jueteng.
Her chances of political survival took a dramatic turn for the worse on Friday when, one by one, bastions of the establishment deserted her: cabinet secretaries, corporate chieftains, civic groups and political allies.
Several of the eight secretaries who resigned this week said they believed Arroyo had lost the ability to make tough decisions on reform because of the allegations against her.
Military waits in wings<W0>
Arroyo, often criticized as being too aloof, attended mass Sunday morning and then strolled near Manila bay with family members, shaking hands and exchanging greetings with passersby. She has urged her opponents to impeach her in Congress in line with the Constitution, but the opposition is reluctant to take that route because of the president’s strong majorities in Congress.
The proud daughter of a former president has refused to quit, raising the prospect of prolonged uncertainty in a country with a recent history of military coups and popular uprisings. The military leadership warned “all sectors of society” on Saturday not to call on the armed forces to take sides. “The very idea that the military will be drawn once again into the public square, whether out of misplaced ambition or a sense of patriotic duty, should give everybody pause,” the Inquirer said in an editorial.
“It is therefore incumbent on the major players in the political crisis to agree on the constitutional mechanism for solving it.” Congress is due to take up an impeachment.