This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 25, July 31-August 6, 2005
New Negros Alliance Seeks Arroyo Ouster
A new alliance of grassroots
organizations and opposition parties calling for the ouster of the President
showed its muscle when it led a big rally in Bacolod City last week. Another
rally was also in Dumaguete.
By Karl G. Ombion and
Ranie Azue BACOLOD CITY – Organized
Negrenses have formed an alliance with middle forces and opposition groups
called the Negros Movement for Moral Regeneration (NMMR), to move for the
resignation of incumbent President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Led by the NMMR, cane
workers, farmers, urban poor, clerics and laity, middle class, teachers and
students, many coming from as far as remote upland barangays (villages), massed
up in the morning for two separate rallies on July 25: one in Bacolod, Negros
Occidental, and another in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental. In Bacolod, about 10,000
rallyers braved heavy monsoon rains to stage their real state-of-the-nation (SONA);
about 1,000 turned up in the Dumaguete rally. The two rallies coincided
with similar protest actions in Metro Manila, where close to 100,000 rallyers
gathered along Commonweal Avenue in Quezon City, about a kilometer away from the
Batasang Pambansa where the Congress was to resume session, as well in several
other cities and town centers all over the country. The protests were held as
Macapagal-Arroyo prepared to deliver her SONA before Congress. The President is
facing possible impeachment for alleged electoral fraud and jueteng (illegal
numbers game) payoffs, among other charges. Monsoon
rains By noontime, thousands had
converged in Bacolod, beating drums and carrying huge streamers, banners and
placards that bore calls and slogans for Macapagal-Arroyo’s resignation and
ouster. By 1 p.m. heavy rains began to pour. But instead of dispersing, the
rain-soaked protesters marched through the streets as they headed for the city’s
public plaza. As they marched, the protesters chanted slogans while others beat
the drums almost burying the rhythmic sounds of rains.
Teresa Apitan, deputy secretary general of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan
or New Patriotic Alliance), told Bulatlat that she was surprised with the
turnout. “I didn’t expect the huge participation in this anti-GMA (Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo) rally because in the past, rains usually lessen the number of
rallyers,” Apitan said. “This is proof that people are so discontented that they
will bear anything to air their grievances.” Alejandro Deoma,
coordinator of Bayan Muna (BM or people first) Negros, said the rally was much
bigger compared to previous ones “despite the fact that, upon the President’s
orders, many schools suspended classes and that black propaganda and intrigues
that the anti-SONA rally would turn violent had spread a week before.” He said
that had the weather been cooperative, their protest action could have been
bigger. Gloria, a
fake president In the rally, Allan Paguia,
a law professor from the University of the Philippines, said “GMA is a fake president,
because she stole both her assumption to power in 2001 and the elections in
2004.” In an earlier briefing with
the media, Paguia said Macapagal-Arroyo should be removed because she has “no
constitutional and moral mandate to lead our nation.” “The longer she stays in
power, the more our people would suffer from division, violence, lies and
violence of the GMA regime,” the lawyer also said. Asked by reporters what
would happen if the President refused to step down as latest events bear out,
Paguia said, “Then the people have the sovereign right to unseat GMA by
extra-constitutional means, by people power. It is given in our Constitution and
in international conventions that if the people believed that their government
leaders no longer serve them, the people have all the right to change them by
constitutional and extra constitutional means.” Mayor Ricardo Presbitero of
San Enrique town, south of Negros, agreed with Paguia saying, “Now it is clear
that GMA will not step down, so the people power is the only way to force her
down.” Presbitero is the Negros coordinator for the Partido ng Masang Pilipino (PMP)
and a member of NMMR. Joining in, Stanley Flores,
spokesperson of Bangon Pilipinas in Negros, said that “Macapagal-Arroyo should
be removed by popular actions if she insisted to stay in power.” Like a
lizard Meanwhile, in a press
statement, Ka Frank Fernandez, spokesperson of the National Democratic Front of
the Philippines (NDFP) in Negros, described “GMA like a lizard that clinging on
to her throne in Malacañang because of her greed for economic and political
power.” Ka Frank said that “GMA is
isolated as a result of her own anti-people and anti-democratic laws and
policies, and subservience to U.S. imperialism and its running dogs.” “The entire revolutionary
forces unite with and support the people’s call for the ouster of GMA, alongside
with the efforts of the revolutionary movement to intensify tactical offensives
in the countryside, to weaken the entire reactionary ruling system,” Fernandez
added. Ka Frank also lauded
patriotic soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and national police
“who have openly or discreetly withdrawn their support for the Arroyo regime,
and side with the people’s cause.” GMA’s
SONA useless, diversionary Meanwhile, rally speakers
as well as ordinary folk interviewed by Bulatlat called Macapagal-Arroyo’s
SONA as “useless and diversionary.” Lawyer Rudy Parreno,
speaking at the rally, said “the real SONA is in the streets, the ordinary
people braving the rains, from their urban poor slums, upland areas, sugar
plantations farms, coastal barangays, to pour out their grievances against the
corrupt and fake presidency, and demanding immediate reforms.” Prof. Gil Pellejo of
University of St. La Salle, said that the President’s SONA “is packed with lies
and contempt against the Filipino people.” Fr. Bebe Gordoncillo,
former Social Action Center Director, said that the SONA which is supposed to
report on the real state of our economy and politics, and the performance of the
President, was instead used to promote the vested interests of GMA and the
politicians who are bent on perpetuating themselves in power” through charter
change, constituent assembly (ConAss) and the shift to parliamentary-federal
form of government. “It was not at all a SONA,
but another desperate politicking of a deeply-isolated leader out to survive in
power,” Gordoncillo said. Jessie Arcillas, a local
laity in a parish in Bacolod, said that “I agree more with the bishops that this
is not the time to change government, but for reorientation in the vision and
values of our leaders. GMA should be removed, and the government leadership is
in need of that reorientation.” Pedro de Dios, a driver,
said in Ilonggo “I couldn’t care less about president’s SONA because whatever
she says would mean nothing to my miserable life. Maybe, when people like me are
in power, there could be some changes.” Paz, an economics student
in a local university said that hearing the President’s SONA made her feel
“disgusted and afraid, especially when GMA said that she will pursue her
commitment to globalization, whatever is the political cost.” “If she stays longer in
power, she likely be more worse than Marcos,” the student told Bulatlat. Anti-GMA
alliance Organized in early June,
the NMMR includes, aside from the militant cause-oriented mass organizations,
the most active anti-Arroyo opposition groups and alliances, like the workers
alliance WALA GMA (Workers Alliance Against Gloria), Youth DARE, Iglesia
Filipina Independiente, Bangon Pilipinas, Be Not Afraid Movement, Partido ng
Masang Pilipino, Konsensya ng Bayan, Organization of University of St. La Salle
Students and Teachers against GMA (Oust GMA), Alliance of Concerned Teachers,
and the Social Science Educators Circle (SEEDCORE), and some individual former
and active local government officials. In Dumaguete, the Negros
Oriental Movement to Remove GMA (NO MORE GMA), which spearheaded the big protest
action, includes opposition groups in the province as well as the Integrated Bar
of the Philippines-Negros Oriental, UCCP bishops, clerics and seminarians, the
Dumaguete vice mayor, and teachers and supervisors of the Negros Oriental State
University. Bulatlat © 2004 Bulatlat
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