President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines came under intense pressure yesterday after she admitted discussing last year's vote count with an election official, with opponents demanding that she resign and even supporters saying she must regain the people's trust.
A somber Arroyo broke her silence on Monday in a three-week-old scandal over wiretap recordings, acknowledging in a televised speech that she talked to an election official about protecting a million-vote victory margin in May last year presidential polls. But she denied rigging the polls and said she won't resign, apologizing for the lapse and appealing for unity.
Arroyo left many questions unanswered about the recordings, and opposition politicians vowed to pursue protests and legal steps against her, maintaining she cheated her way to victory.
Her spokesman, Ignacio Bunye, insisted yesterday that "nothing has been violated and there is no cause for impeachment." He said the wiretaps recordings were still being investigated.
"We believe that the president will be given a new chance to pursue the reforms she has started," he said, adding, "Today, in our country, there is a group that with or without this tape controversy, will try to sow chaos."
The opposition said Arroyo should step down.
"I wish she would examine her conscience and look at herself in the mirror and ask herself if she can still lead the country," opposition Representative Francis Escudero said.
Arroyo's former national security adviser, Representative Roilo Golez, she should resign because she has lost her moral authority and because the scandal would paralyze Congress when in convenes next month.
Senate President Franklin Drillon, an Arroyo ally, said there was no basis for asking Arroyo to resign but added that: "The president should take steps to bring back the trust of her leadership."
Arroyo also has been damaged by accusations that her son and brother-in-law, both members of Congress, pocketed huge illegal gambling payoffs. The two have denied the allegations, the subject of a Senate hearing.
The battle over Arroyo's future now moves to Congress, where pro-Arroyo lawmakers, who hold a majority in both houses, want to conclude a weeklong inquiry into the wiretaps.
Escudero objected to closing the inquiry, and said the administration was pushing the opposition "outside the legal framework. They are closing legal avenues available to the people seeking the appropriate punishment for the president."
Such comments are explosive because they suggest a move toward the "people power" revolts that ousted late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Arroyo's predecessor, Joseph Estrada, in 2001.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS