Filipinos call for Arroyo to quit (Bush's friend)

[IndianaGreen]

As in Bolivia and Venezuela, all of the wealth in the Philippines is controlled by a couple hundred families, the rest have to struggle to make ends meet. The axis of evil in the Philippines are the elites, the army, and the reactionary Catholic Church.

Arroyo came to power by means of a coup that toppled a democratically elected President, Joseph Estrada.

Vast fields of natural gas have been discovered under the Sulu Sea.

Filipinos call for Arroyo to quit
Sunday, June 12, 2005 Posted: 1449 GMT (2249 HKT)

MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- An estimated 5,000 protesters have demanded that Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo step down, marking the biggest anti-government rally since allegations surfaced that she fixed last year's election and her family received gambling kickbacks.

The government has denied the allegations, saying they were part of a plot to unseat Arroyo. Police nationwide and soldiers in the capital, Manila, were on full alert on Saturday against a power grab in a country with a history of coup attempts.

Arroyo's popularity -- already at the lowest level since that for late dictator Ferdinand Marcos -- has taken more hits since the release of an alleged wiretapped conversation between Arroyo and an election official to fix the 2004 vote, and claims of payoffs to Arroyo's son and brother-in-law from illegal gambling operators.

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/06/11/philippines.protest.ap/index.html

Arroyo calls for end to 'dirty politics'
No mention of scandals in Freedom Day speech

First posted 11:54pm (Mla time) June 12, 2005
By Christine O. Avendaño
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A1 of the June 13, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

SHE CALLED for an end to "dirty politics" but avoided mention of "The Tape." She pledged to wipe out corruption spawned by "jueteng" within a year's time but made no reference to relatives allegedly mired in it.

In an Independence Day speech before a lean crowd of supporters at the Luneta, embattled President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo also appealed to the nation: "In this great national day, I ask you, my countrymen, to help me be a good President."

The celebration of the 107th anniversary of the country's independence from colonial rule occurred amid deep divisions among Filipinos and calls from Ms Arroyo's critics for her to resign.

The calls were spurred by testimony at the Senate by jueteng informers who implicated the President's husband, their elder son and a brother-in-law in the taking of bribes from illegal gambling, and the surfacing of a controversial audio tape supposedly suggesting Ms Arroyo's involvement in an alleged attempt to rig last year's elections.

http://news.inq7.net/nation/index.php?index=1&story_id=40132

Opposition asked to use constitutional means against Arroyo

First posted 10:12am (Mla time) June 13, 2005
By Lira Dalangin-Fernandez
INQ7.net

Get INQ7 breaking news on your Smart mobile phone in the Philippines. Send INQ7 BREAKING to 386.


OPPOSITION groups who want President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo out of power should make use of constitutional means and not resort to street protests, Malacañang said on Monday.
Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said legal and constitutional processes were available to the opposition, such as the impeachment process.

"Our constant appeal is for these groups to respect the rule of law, there are legal venues available," he said on radio, adding that people have become tired of street protests.

He said the President was prepared to answer all questions on the legitimacy of her tenure.

http://news.inq7.net/breaking/index.php?index=1&story_id=40177


Here is Friday's news of a clash between police and demonstrators posted by struggle4progress:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1540045

[shanti]

1. we're falling to the same level

this is the plan.

[tlcandie]

2. Curious what will Georgie Boy do for fun when everyone

has turned away from the US style of democracy and there's noone left to play with in the sandbox? I'm sure he doesn't like playing alone...

From the looks of it former third world countries are at minimal trying to throw off the yoke of democracy that is terrorizing their countries...

Viva La Revolution!

[rodeodance]

3. recall she was recieved by Bush (post-invasion) with a ball--red-carpet

style-Head of State type--as a reward for being in the coalition of the willing.

[Judi Lynn]

4. A magical event, no doubt!

[tlcandie]

7. But I no longer drink!!!!

Is that a "clinky clink" before the swiggle of a OMG martini they are toasting?!?!?

Heir * seems to be enjoying it a bit too much...

[oblivious]

5. America take notice: This is what happens when elites take over democracy.

PART 1 - The sick man of Asia
In the 1950s, the Philippines was the most dynamic economy in Asia - hailed by the World Bank as a future powerhouse. Half a century later the country is, in the words of Rommel Banlaoi, a political-science professor at the National Defense College, "the sick man of Asia".

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/FJ01Ae01.html

PART 3 - Poverty and corruption: he ties that bind

...on comparing S Korea and Philippines - why did one succeed and the other fail, when corruption is roughly the same?

These are the main points. Both countries started at the same level; the average Filipino even earned slightly more than a South Korean in the mid-1950s. In 50 years, the South Korean economy has grown by more than 10 times, while the Philippines' has only doubled. South Korea is a more egalitarian society: the richest 20% are only five times as wealthy as the poorest 20% (in the Philippines they are 13 times as wealthy); and only 7% of South Koreans are poor, while two in five Filipinos live below the poverty line.

...The authors of The Anti-Development State stress instead how the Philippine state has been "successfully taken over by one faction in order to dominate the other factions". So the big difference, compared with South Korea - or Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, for that matter - lies "not in the extent of corruption but the balance of power among ruling elites as well as the balance of power between these elites and the state".

In South Korea the elites were balanced, and disciplined by a very strict central state. In the Philippines, on the other hand, it has always been open war, with the state as the ultimate prize. So corruption, as Kang puts it, "swung like a pendulum. As one group or the other gained predominant power, it would busily set about lining its own pockets, aware that in the next round its fortunes might well be reversed." The crucial point, then, is that in the Philippines "the state has traditionally been hijacked at all levels by private interests, making it an ineffective instrument of national development".

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/FJ05Ae01.html

[IndianaGreen]

6. Update June 14: Arroyo dared: Break your silence on tapes

The plot thickens! The opposition is demanding that Arroyo confirm or deny that the voice on the tape is hers! Sounds like what Rep. Conyers is asking Bush to do, confirm or deny the Downing Street Memo!

Arroyo dared: Break your silence on tapes

Is it your voice? Yes or no, opposition asks

First posted 00:29am (Mla time) June 14, 2005
By Juliet Labog-Javellana, Philip C. Tubeza
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on page A1 of the June 14, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

CALLS have mounted for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to publicly declare if it is indeed her voice that is on a supposed tape about alleged fraud in the May 2004 elections, or the issue will remain a ticking bomb for her.

Allies and critics yesterday said Ms Arroyo may have weathered a potentially dangerous Independence Day weekend, but they warned that the crisis confronting her administration was far from over.

"It's still chaotic," Liberal Party Senator Rodolfo Biazon said, referring to the political mess created by twin allegations that the President had attempted to rig the results of the polls during a supposed phone conversation with Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, and that her close relatives had taken “jueteng” bribes.

House Minority Leader Francisco Escudero openly challenged Ms Arroyo.

"I am asking this question directly or point blank: Are you the voice on the tape? Is it your voice? Answer it yes or no," Escudero said.

http://news.inq7.net/nation/index.php?index=1&story_id=40249

President's voice on taped conversations '98% sure'--Bunye

First posted 01:54pm (Mla time) June 14, 2005
By Lira Dalangin-Fernandez
INQ7.net

PRESS Secretary Ignacio Bunye said he was "98 percent" sure that it was President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's voice on the wiretapped conversations with an election official but stressed that the bigger question was whether the tape was authentic.

"I have said that we are 98 percent sure," Bunye said in response to calls by lawmakers and independent groups for Arroyo to declare if it was her voice on the tape, which recorded her as having sought assurances from a poll executive of her win in the May 2004 election.

But Bunye said it was the "authenticity" of the tape that was in question.

http://news.inq7.net/breaking/index.php?index=1&story_id=40292