NEWS
AT A GLANCE
Metro Manila youth rejects Arroyo’s SONA -
survey
Majority of Metro
Manila youths would rather not listen to President Arroyo’s State of the
Nation Address, says a survey by youth think-tank Institute for
Nationalist Studies.
Joseph Cuevas, INS
spokesman, said 64 percent of the 427 respondents do not believe Arroyo
will tell the real score in the country. About 92 percent of the
respondents also disapproved Charter change and 78 percent were against
the all-out war.
He said that 53
percent believes that the P1 billion counter-insurgency fund should
instead be used to buttress the ailing education sector. He noted that 29
percent wanted the P1 billion fund to go to social services, debt
servicing (7%), health (4%), housing (2%) and only 1 percent believes it
should support the military and police.
“The survey results
tell that the youth is urging the government to prioritize the sector and
their future,” Cuevas said.
Fifty-six percent of
the youth also expressed support for the filing of the second impeachment
complaint against President Arroyo. The survey, conducted from July
17-19, used cluster sampling method with a margin of error plus or minus
2.5 percentage points. Jhong dela Cruz/ Bulatlat
* * *
GMA acting like dictator – church group
BACOLOD CITY – The
Negros chapter of the church-based organization Promotion of Church
People’s Response (PCPR) has hit President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for
acting like a dictator.
“Mrs. Arroyo
definitely act like a dictator who trampled on civil liberties and ordered
the killings of militants who strongly criticized her administration,” Fr.
Romeo Tagud, PCPR-Negros secretary-general, said in a press conference
here on July 21. “Through her police and military forces, she suppressed
the people’s right to rally and imposed schemes like the calibrated
preemptive response, Executive Order No. 464 and Proclamation No. 1017 to
silence the people’s continuing calls for her ouster.”
He said that despite
“ambiguities” in the recent pastoral stand of the Catholic Bishops
Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), his group still finds hope in Jaro
Archbishop Angel Lagdameo’s statement on July 8, during the opening of
two-day bishops’ plenary assembly. “One who is apprehensive with personal
safety and security will tend to have values that can develop in him the
character of a dictator,” Lagdameo had said in his statement.
“Because the
president and her cohorts do not fulfill their functions satisfactorily,
impeachment is the proper way for a peaceful and legal process of
searching for the truth,” Tagud also said.
PCPR-Negros and the
Negros Movement for Moral Regeneration and other petitioners will file
their consolidated impeachment complaint on July 26 at the House of the
Representatives.
Karl G. Ombion and Ryan Lachica/Bulatlat
* * *
Tell the truth in SONA – Casiño to GMA
BACOLOD CITY - Bayan
Muna (People First) Rep. Teddy Casiño said the Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s
State of the Nation Address (SoNA) on Monday should give the truth, and
not just “accomplishment reports” intended to put the administration in a
good light.
Casiño, who was here
last week to visit Bayan Muna projects in Manapla town said, “Ang
gusto kong marinig sana, na ideal na SONA, ay ang harapin nya ang
impeachment complaint laban sa kanya” (What I would like to hear, what
would make an ideal SONA, is for her to face the impeachment complaint
against her).
He also urged the
pro-administration legislators to “let the impeachment go its natural
way.”
Casiño further said that, “as a gesture of sincerity,”
Arroyo should tell the congressmen not to use technicalities and
“maneuvering of rules” in handling the impeachment case. “That we may know
if (Gloria really cheated, lied, stole,” he said.
Karl G. Ombion and Ryan Lachica/Bulatlat
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