Arroyo Resignation: Options and Scenarios

By the Policy Study, Publication, and Advocacy
Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)

The “critical mass” that can lead to the forced resignation of Gloria M. Arroyo can only rise from the spectrum of diverse groups and personalities agreeing who or what will replace the widely-discredited president.

Most of the 80,000 people who converged at the interfaith prayer-rally in Ayala, Makati City on February 29 supported the call for Arroyo’s resignation or removal. The call was echoed by tens of thousands other rallyers who held similar protest actions during the same week in several cities throughout the country as well as in Hong Kong, the United States, Europe, and other countries.

The Arroyo regime is in red alert - in panic mode, if you will - since the February 29 rallies. The events showed the confluence of major advocacy groups, opinion leaders, and a big number of students in just two weeks following whistleblower Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada’s corruption exposes’ with their resounding call for the president’s resignation.1 It was like the thunderbolt that sent waves of masses taking to Edsa 1 and Edsa 2 – a political combustion that could electrify more mass actions increasing in frequency and in bigger numbers until the final day of reckoning for Gloria M. Arroyo.

Unprecedented

In many respects, the resign call is giving birth to a progressive plank even among the moderate groups as well as interfaith, lawyers, and youth sectors that see Arroyo’s resignation or removal as a step toward a deep-going reform in government and in the state’s political institutions. Outside the militant groups, this nuance was never seen before in Edsa 1 and Edsa 2. Seven years of the Arroyo regime have exposed alarmingly the fragility of the country’s institutions on account of the subversion of the electoral system to prolong the president’s rule, the manipulation of the legislature through bribery and tyranny of numbers to block impeachment moves, and military supremacy over the justice system particularly on so-called national security cases. What are claimed to be constitutional processes have succumbed to the use of force, threats, and corruption through bribery as a means of protecting the questionable rule of Arroyo.

Thus, the ground for starting a movement for democratic reform in governance by the people is already present.2 Having said that, in the short-term, what should be the post-Arroyo replacement? This crucial question remains unresolved among the various and eclectic anti-Arroyo forces at this point. Almost everyone agrees however that some unity should be reached on this matter if the momentum for the resignation of Arroyo is to be sustained and pushed to its desired conclusion. There are various scenarios being floated:

1) Constitutional succession, with Vice President Noli de Castro assuming the presidency. This option is being pushed by the so-called “La Salle 60” which is composed of the Hyatt 10++ - the resigned members of the Arroyo cabinet – and other past cabinet members.