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What's New? 2 Sets of PETITIONS BY JUN SALVADOR
The GMA administration is caught lying through its teeth again, and it's the biggest lie ever! Proclamation 1017 is not about preventing or suppressing "lawless violence, invasion or rebellion." A day before declaring a "national state of emergency," the Palace was in fact dismissing the "coup plotters" as a handful of disgruntled military elements. Proclamation 1017 is certainly not about a "clear and present danger to the safety and the integrity of the Philippine state and of the Filipino people." The greater threat to Philippine society, especially the integrity of our democratic institutions, is a presidency saddled and debilitated by electoral cheating and corruption. If the administration thinks it can cling to power through brute force, then it has failed to realize that the public outcry sparked by the tapes that reveal a morally challenged leadership is not just a flash of mass anger, but the implacable outrage of a people whose moral core has been violated without shame or genuine remorse. In reality, Proclamation 1017 is about saving GMA. It is about survival politics, about suppressing the truth that hounds the presidency. By invoking emergency powers, GMA hopes to silence opposition to her hollow claim to leadership. In the face of the worsening political crisis, we enjoin all overseas Filipinos to become part of the solution. As the nation's economic saviors, our remittances (more than 10 billion dollars a year) speak volumes of our
great role and responsibility. With huge stakes--the well-being of our families and the fate of our country--we call on
everyone to support the following initiatives:
Honest leadership is the cornerstone of national success, without which political stability and the opportunity for progress cease to exist. Our people have suffered enough! It's now time for the GMA administration to relinquish power and give way to a constitutionally prescribed special election administered by a purged COMELEC. Only then can the country transition to a new government, free from the stigma and encumbrances of the now disgraced GMA presidency. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
We, the sovereign Filipino people - invoking the help of the Almighty God and the common spirit that made Edsa I and Edsa II victorious - do solemnly petition to oust Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as president of our beloved republic, on the following just, valid, legal and rightful grounds:
1. Gloria's rule is oppressive, unjust and anti-poor
- Instead of providing relief to the poor, Gloria's policies make the poor poorer. She has brought the country to a fiscal crisis due to rampant foreign borrowing coupled with corruption. In fact, she has borrowed more than the combined amount borrowed by Marcos, Cory, FVR and Erap.
- Instead of saving the poor from poverty, Gloria and her allies craftily instituted new taxes such as the 20% increase in the Value-Added Tax (VAT). The price of noodles and other basic commodities will surely soar as these taxes are implemented. As this petition progresses, she and her allies continue to push for more stupid taxes such as the tax on books, tax on text and tax on water.
2. Gloria is a cheat and liar who cannot and should not be trusted.>
- We can't forget her promise on Rizal Day of the year 2002, that she will not run as president. After 279 days, she broke that promise due to George W. Bush Jr's command. If she can break that simple pledge, the more likely that she can break more complicated promises like the eradication of poverty and corruption. Those who can't be trusted with small things should not be trusted with more complex ones.
- We know that 55% of Filipinos believe that Gloria cheated her way to victory in the last election. And their colllective belief is based on fact. She has indeed cheated. That's why her ally and House Speaker Jose de Venecia hindered the attempt of the opposition to compare provincial tallies with precint results. She has been hurrieldy declared as president by the Congress, at a time when the people are asleep, because her proclaimers know that Gloria is a bogus president. Deep in their and our hearts, we all know that FPJ won, although some of us may hate the good-hearted but inexperienced guy.
3. The Filipino people abhors Gloria's rule.
- A survey says that 77% of Filipinos don't want Gloria as president. In more recent ones, her popularity sunk to its lowest level, notwithstanding the fact that her ratings are always low, anyway. In other words, an overwhelming majority of Filipinos wants her deposed. Sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them, as the Philippine Constitution asserts. Thus, it is just right and democratic to kick her out of office because the Filipino people is already fed-up of her mismanagement.
4. Gloria is a gross violator of the Constitution.
- Since the beginning of her post-Edsa II rule, Gloria violated Article XIV Section 5 of the Constitution which says that education must be prioritized in the national budget. Under her anti-people regime, debt payments and not education eat the bulk of our national budget.
- She also violates the fundamental and constitutionally-guaranteed right to peaceful assembly and right to seek redress of grievances. Many peaceful rallies have been dispersed upon her illegal order. Many rallyists and other active citizens have suffered and have been murdered by her anti-people regime.
5. Gloria's rule has worsened poverty, starvation, corruption and other socio-economic and political problems which the Filipinos suffer.
- From 34 million during Erap's regime, poor Filipinos now number 70 million (as computed from an IBON Databank report). 15% of families eat nothing. 6 out of 10 children are malnourished. What can be worse than these?
- We are now no. 11 among 146 nations, in the so-called world corruption list (In Asia, we're no.2).
- The minimum wage is still pegged at Php250/day but around Php600 is needed for daily living. The saddest thing is she refuses to raise the workers' wages despite grinding poverty copuled with continously-rising prices.
6. Gloria has done nothing to stop the skyrocketing costs of various commodities like food, oil, water and electricity.
- The price of everything has continuously soared under Gloria's mismanagement, while new taxes are imposed to further impoverish the people and as the minimum wage is still pegged at a very unreasonable rate.
7. Gloria is an enemy of peace and is a terrorist.
- She has supported the illegal US war on Iraq.
- She has junked peace talks with Communist insurgents and Islamic separatists by tagging the said groups as terrorists when in fact more terror has been generated by her order of an all-out war at the countryside which has killed hundreds upon hundreds of civilians and displaced millions more.
- She refuses to declare a ceasefire anywhere, but instead wants the military to pulverize all opposition both under and above ground.
8. Gloria is a coddler of plunderers.
- She has failed to jail down the Marcoses.
- She defended Jose Pidal, the great pillager, who in fact is her husband.
- She refused to fire corrupt officials like Winston Garcia of the GSIS.
- She herself is a pillager: billions of pesos of public money has been plundered for her election.
9. Gloria is a human rights-violator
- More than 30 activists have been killed during the fisrt half of her rule this year.
- The Hacienda Luisita Massacre have been done with her doing nothing to at least assuage the suffering of the peasants and farm workers; in fact it is widely-believed that her military has gone into a shooting spree of supporters of the Luisita strikers.
- Her mismanagement is now comparable and may even be worse than the Marcos tyranny.
Peace and progress would never come to our beloved nation if Gloria will remain as president. Thus, a call to sign and to the God of justice is all that's left us. Compatriots in the government and elsewhere, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Join the Filipino people's united voice to oust Gloria and save the Philippines from poverty, corruption and a thousand other ills.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
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