NEWS
TRENDS
Downgrading
democracy under Arroyo
After
being downgraded by the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) due
to the country’s failure to address safety concerns on its
international airports, Transparency International’s (TI)
ranking of the Philippines as No. 10 most corrupt country in the
whole world; another downgrading was given to the Arroyo administration.
The country’s state of democracy has been rated as “partly
free” by a New York-based democracy NGO.
Freedom House, in its latest annual survey of 193 countries and
15 territories throughout the world, named the Philippines, along
with Bangladesh, Kenya, and other states as suffering a “significant
decline” in political rights and civil liberties. The downgrading
disqualified the country as an electoral democracy.
Among
the reasons cited for the downgrading is the pardon of convicted
plunderer and deposed President Joseph Estrada, incidents of high-level
corruption, and the killings surrounding the 2007 elections.
Palace
snubs EDSA Dos; farmers remember Mendiola mayhem
In
recent years, the Arroyo administration has not taken part in festivities
to commemorate Edsa Dos, the people’s revolt that toppled
President Joseph E. Estrada on January 20, 2001. This year’s
anniversary was no different.
Executive
Secretary Eduardo Ermita explained the presidential decision not
to celebrate Edsa Dos as part of the country’s “healing”
process. “The principal character (of EDSA II, Estrada, has
already been) given his freedom. So the less we talk about it the
better, OK?”
Arroyo,
along with other previous presidents, has thumbed down the holding
of Edsa celebrations in order to close the chapter on people-initiated
uprisings toppling the country’s leaders. But militant farmers
together with thousands of other people’s organizations ended
their Lakbayan (people’s march) in Manila to commemorate the
21st anniversary of the Mendiola Massacre on January 22 where 13
farmer activists died, with four others dying later in the hospital.
The
protesters also called for the non-extension of the Aquino-sponsored
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (Carp) and the passage of
the proposed genuine agrarian reform program bill filed by progressive
members of the House of Representatives.
High
court thrashes Loren’s electoral protest
Last
week, the Supreme Court, acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal
(PET), thrashed Sen. Loren Legarda’s electoral protest against
Vice President Noli de Castro for lack of “legal and factual
basis.”
Critics
said the SC’s decision to quash the electoral protest of Legarda,
who ran against De Castro for vice presidency in the May 2004 elections,
is tantamount to saying that there is no cheating in the 2004 election
and ruled out the illegitimacy question of President Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo.
Meanwhile,
after three aborted impeachment complaints filed against President
Gloria M. Arroyo with the House of Representatives, the issue of
electoral cheating involving the sitting president remains unsettled.
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