NEWS
TRENDS
February 16, 2008
Kick-off
rally calls for Arroyo’s resignation
In
a kick-off rally calling for the resignation of President Gloria
M. Arroyo, about 20,000 people converged on the heart of Makati’s
financial district, Ayala Avenue, Feb. 15. Representing various
people’s organizations led by the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan
(Bayan – New Patriotic Alliance), the interfaith community,
students, lawyers and business groups, as well as opposition parties,
the rallyers called for the removal of Arroyo because of corruption
scams, stealing the presidency in 2004, human rights violations,
and moral bankruptcy.
The
rally was held on the heels of the abduction of Rodolfo Noel Lozada
reportedly by Arroyo security forces. Lozada is a key witness in
the Senate’s investigation of the $329-million national broadband
network scam linking the president’s husband and former poll
commissioner Benjamin Abalos.
Organizers
of the Feb. 15 rally have vowed to launch more massive protest actions
until Arroyo is removed from office. If that happens, she will be
the third Philippine president to have been removed from office
by people power after Ferdinand E. Marcos (1986) and Joseph E. Estrada
(2001).
“Communal
action will set our country free”
Whistleblowers
Rodolfo ‘Jun” Lozano Jr. and Jose “Joey”
de Venecia III earned praises from leaders of the Roman Catholic
Church in the country for their courage in exposing the anomalous
National Broadband Network (NBN) project as well as other questionable
government deals in millions of dollars, including huge kickbacks.
Jaro
Archbishop Angel N. Lagdameo, president of the Catholic Bishops’
Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), issued the statement on the
eve of the resumption of the Senate hearing on the broadband scandal.
“It was courageous of them to expose questionable government
deals,” Lagdameo said referring to ZTE whistle blowers.
“The
truth will set our country free, this truth challenges us now to
communal action,” Lagdameo said.
A
reluctant warrior
After
being ousted as House speaker and lambasting erstwhile ally President
Gloria M. Arroyo for failing to stop her men’s alleged death
threats against him and son Joey de Venecia III, Jose de Venecia
last week backtracked and declined an invitation to join Feb. 15’s
protest rally in Ayala.
"My
first inclination is to give her a chance to explain,” De
Venecia said. “I have been appealing consistently to her to
lead our call for a moral revolution to cleanse the Philippine society
to put a stop to corruption in the cabinet in Malacañang,
in Congress, in Senate, in the courts, in the judiciary, [and] in
the business community.”
Lozada’s
next expose’: South rail project scandal
It
looks like Rodolfo Noel Lozada, the Senate’s key witness in
the $329-million broadband scam, is out to expose all he knows about
other anomalous deals involving the Arroyo administration. On Feb.
18, Lozada will testify on the alleged corruption and overpricing
of the P1-billion South Rail Project at a Senate committee hearing.
The
railway project is designed to rehabilitate the railway system connecting
Manila and the southern region of Bicol.
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