ManilaMailDC.Net - GMAs Warning

GMA’s Warning

Says her patience is wearing thin
MANILA – President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared upon her return from New York after presiding at the UN Security Council summit meeting Sept. 14 that she had been strengthened by the support of Congress and the success of her trip to New York. She said she was now ready to tackle the problems of state.
But a few days later, in a TV interview, she predicted hard days ahead. She said she expects the political turmoil to continue even after Congress threw out all impeachment charges against her. She said the turmoil would make it “very, very tough” for her to rule effectively.
Four days later, on Sept. 22, in a speech before barangay officials in Clark, the President warned her political opponents that her patience was wearing thin and issued an order banning street protests in the financial district of Makati, bailiwick of opposition Mayor Jejomar Binay.
“I am tired of chasing the bully around the school yard,” the President declared."Those who will accept my call for unity... are welcome, but those who reject it and continue making troubles... we will enforce the law."
The President’s harder line on rallies drew fire from the opposition, which said the administration’s “calibrated preemptive response" to protests was “nothing but martial rule in gibberish.”
The House of Representatives’ vote to dismiss all charges of vote-rigging, corruption and other crimes against her on a technicality, has sparked renewed threats of street protests by her opponents. Coup rumors also intensified over the weekend.
The “turmoil will continue, but I just have to face it each time,” Arroyo told ANC television.
Earlier, AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Generoso Senga said security forces have been distracted by rumours of plots to unseat President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, warning of harm to efforts to fight communist and Muslim rebels.
Hundreds of soldiers and police officers were recalled to Manila to watch over street protests as Arroyo faced the worst crisis of her four years in office over allegations she cheated her way to a fresh term in the 2004 presidential election.
“The rumours tend to create confusion,” said Senga. “These things have distracted the Armed Forces of the Philippines from pursuing its primary mission of going after the enemies of the state.”
Senga said even the national police were distracted because “instead of running after the criminals, many of the police are devoted to securing rallies".
Arroyo’s opponents have been warning of possible military intervention after the Supreme Court and her allies in Congress ended all possibilities of removing her from power through legal and constitutional means.
Opposition leaders, leftist groups and some church-based organisations had vowed to hold larger street protests to force the president to quit over allegations of electoral fraud and corruption.
The military has stressed its neutrality, but rumours of unrest in the ranks are swirling in a country that has seen more than a dozen coup attempts in the past two decades.
The president also said that while economic reforms had poised the Philippines for take off, a decrepit political system was weighing it down and “has made it really very, very tough for anybody to be able to govern effectively."
After the charges against her were dismissed, Arroyo urged all sides to refocus their efforts on domestic issues, including steep increases in commodity prices sparked by high oil prices. But her adversaries appeared bent on working for her ouster.
Opposition senators said they would continue to investigate charges against her, her family and Cabinet advisers.
And about 20,000 people took part in an anti-Arroyo march on Sept. 21 to mark the declaration of martial rule by dictator Ferdinand Marcos 33 years ago.
“A regime that came to power and holds on to power based on fraud, lies, suppression of truth and subversion of democratic rights cannot hold on to power for long," the Bukluran ng Katotohanan (Coalition for Truth), which is organizing the march, said in a statement.
The coalition leaders include former president Corazon Aquino and others who led nonviolent “people power” revolts that ousted Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada in 2001. The largest rallies against Arroyo have only been a fraction of those.
Warnings of unauthorized troop movements in the capital and imminent attacks on Manila’s airport and power plants spread through mobile phone text messages over the weekend, but none of these materialized.
The military and police, Senga said, “are suffering from this, our efforts are distracted, our minds are distracted, our constituents are affected, so we have been asking all along that if possible, please leave us alone."
MANILA – “I have returned from my trip to the UN in New York filled with a new hope for our country and the world."
This was how President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo summed up her trip when she returned home at dawn Sept. 17 after presiding at the UN Security Council summit marking the 60th anniversary of the United Nations.

The 58-year-old President did not hide her elation over what she claimed was the successful outcome of her six-day trip.
Ms Arroyo said she was proud of the respect the Philippines received through her efforts in the United Nations, including her presiding over a UN Security Council meeting.
She described as “uplifting” her role as the first woman and first Asian leader to preside over the Security Council meeting and for being part of the approval of a UN resolution to combat terrorism.
“I am returning with a new energy in facing problems that need immediate attention," she said.
She said one of the priority items on her agenda was the approval of a budget that would create jobs and finance education programs and health care.
Ms Arroyo also vowed to continue government efforts to increase tax collections and to go after tax cheats and corruption in the system. Protection of the poor from high prices of basic commodities was also another priority, she said.
She did not make any mention of the problems that have been spawned by the aborted impeachment over the Hello Garci tapes.
During the TV program, Ms Arroyo took up with Trade Secretary Peter Favila how his department was monitoring the prices of goods.
Favila said that 50 teams, composed of government employees and volunteers, had been fielded in private and public markets in Metro Manila.
Asked by the President whether he had received complaints from consumers, Favila said several people had sent him text messages after he gave out his telephone number.