Thousands Demand Arroyo Resignation

By Carlos H. Conde

MANILA — In what could be the largest public protest against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo since she rose to the presidency in 2001, tens of thousands of Filipinos took to the streets Friday, demanding her ouster following a corruption scandal that has united her enemies against her.

Two former presidents – Corazon Aquino, who led the first People Power in 1986, and Joseph Estrada, who was ousted in the second People Power in 2001 – joined priests, nuns, farmers, activists and students in a march in Makati City, the country’s financial district, as confetti made from shredded phone books rained down on them.

Chants of “Gloria resign!” reverberated on the four avenues leading to the statue of Aquino’s husband, Benigno Aquino Jr., whose assassination in 1983 sparked the first People Power that ousted the dictator Ferdinand Marcos and installed Corazon to the presidency 22 years ago this week.

Tied to the Aquino bronze statue was a white placard that read “Gloria is evil,” a reference to a testimony by whistleblower Rodolfo Lozada Jr. in the Senate early this month in which Arroyo was described as an “evil person” following allegations that her husband, Jose Miguel, tried to influence the approval of a $330-million government contract with the Chinese company ZTE Corporation to build an Internet broadband network connecting government offices.

Allegations of impropriety, among them that a key Arroyo ally was going to receive a $30-million kickback out of the project, has led to public protests against Arroyo, who has repeatedly denied the allegations.

Police estimated the crowd at 15,000 but organizers said it at more than 75,000.

Friday’s protest was ironic in at least one respect. Estrada, who strode to the stage alongside Aquino, was ousted in 2001 in the second People Power that installed Arroyo, who was then his vice president. Aquino herself had led protests against Estrada, who was accused of pocketing money from illegal gambling and tobacco taxes. Estrada was convicted of the charges last year but was pardoned by Arroyo not long afterward.

“Gloria, it’s enough! Resign!” Aquino, garbed in her signature yellow dress, said in her brief speech. When it was Estrada’s turn to speak, sections of the crowd shouted his name. “What should we do if someone is overstaying?” Estrada asked the crowd, which replied, “Resign!”

“It’s a testament to how despicable Arroyo is that the impossible suddenly becomes possible,” said Teddy Casiño, a leftist congressman, referring to Aquino and Estrada’s shared moment onstage.

Since 2004, Arroyo’s critics and the political opposition had been relentlessly trying to elicit public support for their call to oust Arroyo, when she was accused of cheating in that year’s election. This month, Lozada, a hitherto unknown bureaucrat who had been tapped to review the broadband contract, gave their cause a huge boost when he testified in the Senate, corroborating earlier allegations about the alleged overpricing and kickback.