Arroyo regime teeters on the brink of ouster

The conversation between the taxi driver and his passenger showed how desperate life has become for many Filipinos: The driver made remarks on how life has become so difficult these days. Then he said, “If only someone can assure me that they will take care of my family, I am willing to die just so I can assassinate this no-good president Arroyo.”

A social volcano is indeed waiting to erupt with the pent-up anger of the long suffering Filipino people against a cheating, stealing and lying president.

A new and yet bigger wave of calls for Arroyo’s ouster or resignation has swept the country after revelations from former government official Rodolfo Lozada, Jr. confirmed the direct involvement of Mike Arroyo, the husband of Manila president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, in a multi-million dollar kickback scandal in connection with a proposed National Broadband Project awarded to Chinese company Zhong Xing Telecommunication Equipment Company (ZTE).

Rodolfo Lozada, Jr. has insider knowledge of the highly anomalous deal. Gloria Arroyo’s henchmen in the Philippine National Police, military intelligence community and in her cabinet tried everything to stop Lozada from testifying before Senate committees investigating the scandal. They sent him to Hong Kong. But the guilt-stricken Lozada decided to come back to the Philippines to reveal everything he knew. While disembarking at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, he was abducted by a unit of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) and PNP presumably upon orders of Arroyo’s top cabinet officials. But the incident came to the knowledge of journalists and subsequent outcries from the public forced the abductors to surface Lozada.

Testifying finally before the Philippine Senate, Lozada disclosed in great detail what he knew about the anomalous deal. He revealed how former Commission on Elections Chairman Benjamin Abalos, acting on instructions from Mike Arroyo, brokered a deal with the Chinese firm ZTE asking for US$130 million dollars in kickback or commission. He recounted that when the anomalous deal was exposed and subsequently shelved, he was sent to Hong Kong to escape being investigated by the Senate which had subpoenaed him to testify. He told about the harrowing ordeal he went through when he was abducted by elements of the PSG and PNP when he disembarked from the plane from Hong Kong thinking that he was going to be killed to prevent him from spilling the beans.

Reflecting the mood of the general populace, the President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, has called on the people to launch “communal action”. A broad spectrum of Philippine society, agitated by Lozada’s testimony, has interpreted the archbishop’s words as a call for the people to mobilize to remove Arroyo from the presidency.

The roots of discontent

Under the Arroyo regime, joblessness has grown to record levels. In 2007, conservative estimates put 4.1 million Filipinos without jobs. Since 2001, when Arroyo assumed the presidency, up to 2006, average family income has dropped by PhP20,400.

There is a great disparity in incomes with the top 20% or 3.5 million families accounting for 52.8% of the total income, while the poorest 80% or 13.9 million families taking the remaining 47.3%. The income of the top 10% is 19 times that of the poorest 10 percent. The Forbes.com estimates the net worth of the country’s 20 richest individuals of US$15.6 billion in 2006 as equivalent to the combined annual income of the poorest 10.4 million families or 52 million Filipinos. Eighty percent of families or 70 million Filipinos struggle to survive on around US$2.50 a day.

This situation has impelled the workers to fight more resolutely for a wage increase which has always been stubbornly opposed by the regime. In 2007, the average wage of workers in the most industrialized area around the capital is not even half of the actual cost of living. Poverty in the countryside is even worse.


The trade deficit in 2006 was $6.817 billion The perennial trade deficit is the result of the basic weakness of the country’s semifeudal economy which does not have an industrial base. Because of this, it imports most of its manufactured goods. Even its so-called manufactured exports are merely low-value added re-exports because as in the electronics sectors the products contain from 90%-95% imported raw materials. These re-exports actually earn very little for the local economy.

A fiscal crisis is threatening to explode on the regime’s face in 2008. The regime has been able to buy time in 2007 only because it had gone on a privatization binge unparalleled in the country’s history. In 2007 alone, PhP90.6 billion in government assets were sold to private capital which was nearly as much as the PhP93.9 billion sold in the previous 15 years spanning three administrations. Without the proceeds from privatization there would have been a PhP78.0 billion deficit.

Seemingly, the only bright spot in this grim economic horizon are the remittances of around eight up to ten million Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). The US$12.761 billion remittances in 2007 served to offset the US$6.817 billion trade deficit. Ironically, this has redounded to the detriment of the families back home dependent on these remittances. Partly because of the surge in dollar remittances from abroad, the peso has appreciated against the dollar. By the end of 2007, the average family dependent on OFW income lost PhP2,440 a month due to the appreciation of the peso against the dollar.

The OFW phenomenon is one clear indicator of the economy’s backwardness. Eight to ten million Filipinos are abroad because the economy has been failing to provide enough jobs for the people.

Already suffering from economic hardships brought on by the regime, a litany of shady deals and corruption scandals involving the first family has further fueled the anger of the people against the Manila president. Among these were the US$70 million payoff by German firm Fraport AG to the Office of the President for a US$425 million airport terminal expansion project; the Php400 million laundering of ill-gotten wealth from monthly kickbacks from government corporations; the diversion of PhP728 million in fertilizer funds for the campaign kitty of Gloria Arroyo in the 2004 presidential elections; US$50 million in “commissions” for the overpriced North Luzon Railways Project; the 5.1 kilometer Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard whose PhP1.1 billion cost was reportedly overpriced by PhP536 million, and many others.

Massive demonstrations are being planned in the coming days to demand the resignation of Arroyo. Restive anti-Arroyo soldiers and policemen are reportedly watching in the sidelines ready to move at the proper time. (Please see related story on anti-Arroyo demonstrations)

NDFP Chief Political Consultant Jose Maria Sison said that Arroyo is “ripe for ouster”. He explained that “the sheer growth of the legal and peaceful mass actions in the National Capital Region and on a national scale in the coming days, weeks and months can encourage the military and police to withdraw support from the Arroyo ruling clique and can suffice to cause the resignation, impeachment or outright ouster of the illegitimate and morally bankrupt president”.

Sison further said that prospects for the resumption of formal talks in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations are bright if the broad masses of the Filipino people and the broad united front succeed in ousting Gloria M. Arroyo. He added, “The broad mass movement can succeed to oust Arroyo only with the full active participation of the patriotic and progressive forces. These (forces) would have some significant weight in the new government and would certainly demand the resumption of the aforesaid formal talks in order to address the roots of the civil war through comprehensive agreements on social, economic and political reforms”.