PALACE TOLD TO STOP LOOKING FOR GMA’S ROCK-BOTTOM POPULARITY
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. (PDP-Laban) today told
Malacañang to stop looking to scapegoats and excuses for the continued
downward slide of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s popularity.
Pimentel blasted the Palace for pinning the blame on an outside factor – the
soaring prices of imported oil – for the record-low minus 38 percent public
satisfaction rating obtained by the President in the second quarter-2008
nationwide survey of the Social Weather Stations.
He said the people’s disenchantment with Mrs. Arroyo’s leadership remains
because she refuses to heed the clamor for measures that will ease their
economic plight – particularly their demand for the removal of the 12
percent Value Added Tax on petroleum products and electricity.
Pimentel said the President is merely hurting their sensibility by trying to
appease them through the grant of fuel subsidy for jeepney drivers and
one-time subsidy to small consumers of electricity.
“By refusing the give up the billions of pesos in VAT revenues from oil, the
government is exploiting the people’s misery instead of alleviating their
plight,” he said.
He asked why the President has alienated herself from the people by turning
a deaf ear to their demand for scrapping of the EVAT on petroleum products
in order to lower prices of fuel and basic commodities.
“Gloria Arroyo’s below zero rating reflects the people’s disgust over the
administration’s incompetence, misgovernance and corruption, as well as the
extra-judicial killings and disappearances most of which remain unsolved.
Besides, hers is a presidency without mandate and the people know that,” he
said.
Pimentel said the Filipinos are fed up with the rampant stealing and
corruption under the present administration, for which the Philippines has
earned the unsavory tag, the most corrupt country in East Asia.
He said corruption was the reason why the $329 million National Broadband
Network-ZTE project was abandoned and why the $503 million North Rail
Project has been suspended and is now in danger of going to waste.
Pimentel said the government’s ineptness in extending relief and
rehabilitation assistance to families in typhoon-devastated provinces has
also stoked public anger.
“They are pretending to be looking for money to be used for calamity
assistance. But the President has at her disposal huge calamity,
contingency, confidential, intelligence and social funds contained in the
2008 National Budget which are intended for use during disasters,” he said.
According to the minority leader, Mrs. Arroyo suffers from lack of
credibility because the people think that she robbed the presidency from the
late Fernando Poe, Jr.
Pimentel said the unending decline in the President’s popularity could also
be attributed to the spate of extra-judicial killings of political activists
and journalists, most of which remain unsolved.
Up to now, he said the mother of missing farmer-activist Jonas Burgos and
the mothers of two UP coeds are still looking for them and fighting for
justice for their loves ones who were believed to have been abducted by the
military.
Date: July 20, 2008
Ref: Omeng Maglangit / (02) 5526733 |
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