MERGED: All About Gloria Arroyo - Past, Present, Future

[tempest]

Sorry is not enough, says
Rosales

Manila prelate says GMA must account for actions

"Let us remember that the offended cannot simply be consoled by expressions of regret. Forgiveness does not eliminate the need for justice, nor should it block the search for truth. Genuine forgiveness demands more than an apology, and those who seek forgiveness should be ready to be called to accountability."

Thanks Bishop!

[tempest]

[img width=226 height=222]http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b246/tempests97/rally3.jpg[/img][img width=342 height=221]http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b246/tempests97/rally5.jpg[/img][img width=220 height=134]http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b246/tempests97/rally6.jpg[/img]

[img width=351 height=235]http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b246/tempests97/bishops.jpg[/img]

"There is the ever increasing feeling that practically all government agencies have become progressively politicized. Leaderships are perceived to be assigned to personalities more for political accommodations than professional consideration," the archbishop said.

"There is also the emerging awareness that many important purely civilian offices are now headed by former military generals and/or retired PMA police authorities. This is precisely why there appears to be a fast developing exasperation on law practitioners. They feel the big frustration when they have redress against the government, government agencies and/or government officials," he said.

Archbishop Cruz said this "impenetrable self-walling" by the government "has become more of a legal impossibility for obtaining justice."

The government seems to be becoming gradually dictatorial and persecutory, untouchable and infallible, he said.

"In the Philippine experience, when the government has become impotent or amoral, when its agencies are no longer justly operational, when its officials live and act above the law, it is ultimately the sovereign people who take over and become both the prosecutor and the judge: they accuse, they decide, they act," Â* Cruz said.
[img width=400 height=299]http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b246/tempests97/rally1.jpg[/img]

"When the legal becomes unattainable, the extra-legal comes to play. And this can be dangerous as it is unpredictable. What is legal has its given understanding and limits. What is extra-legal in the socio-political life of a country can mean anything, could go anywhere, in any way," he added.

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"The well known EDSA I and II - irrespective of its merits and/or demerits - were both the judgments rendered by the "court of public opinion," Cruz said.

[bagofcandies]

a presdent should set an example, her background should be so spotless,,, but only here in the phil wer u can hav politicians elected even if ther in jail, or even if they hav such bad records & background & even stil win the elections! president should have no room for mistakes! since she has the highest position n the land.

[bagofcandies]

thats a joke!!!

[FK]

tan-awa ninyo ang peso hapit na mo 60-$ sa inyong kabuang!

bai ngano sa panahon sa impeachment ni ERAP ni saka og maau ang peso gi-blame man si ERAP... pero karon ni saka ang peso wala man gi-blame si Gloria.

[FK]

@monrose29: problema kong walay investigation nga himoon... kay hangtod karon wala pa jud third party nga ga-investigate... or kong naa man gani basin ingnon na pud nga destabilizer.

bisan gani kong kinsa ang ga-wiretapped wala pa jud gi-investigate og maau sa police. kato si agent doble igo ra gi-ingon sa police nga dili si doble ang ga wiretapped. I'm afraid nga katong theory nga gi-present kong kinsa ang ga wiretapped could be true.

[monrose29]

ma o lagi na problema nato... kanus-a mag sugod ang imbestegasyon kinsa ang mo handle.... kinsa ang nag wiretapped sa president....kinsay dapat ipuli sa president... pa resignon ang president.....

rallly.. ddto rally deri.... ma human kaha na?

what do u think kong na a man gali mo handle sa invistagation.. rally han nasad kay... wa sila ka oyon sa nag handle sa case kay basin pabor ni arroyo.....

i want to those people nga kanang nag cgeg rally.. mga activista... nag cge putak ang baba.. ang mo handle sa case.... and let their president takes place on the malacanang..... and let see what will happen kong kaya ba nila tubagon ang reklamo sa mga katawhan.. ang problema sa pilipanas..og ang paglambo sa ekonomiya....

daghan istorya. gud daghan sayop.. daghan rally.. daghan ma hasol.... unya ang problema di na ma taga-an og sullotion.... kay ang mga huna2x sa tawo..... lain2x.. na-ay uban na dani sa opposition.. na-ay uban nag duha og wa nay salig ni arroyo..

i think..kaning sitwasyona.. padung na jud ni sa pinaka bati sa tanang bati... imposible ka ayo kong y mag patay ani.......

ma o mani atong gusto gud.. peoples power dayon.. edsa...rebolosyon..cudeta... pinoy laban pinoy.... wa dyuy unity....

hangtod kanus-a mani mahuman?

dli jud ni mahuman kong walay mo salig og way acceptance og forgiveness, patient.. ang tagsa nato ka mga lider nga atong gi toho-an nga maoy mo giya sa atong nasod...

[JoRed]

[img width=360 height=353]http://bulatlat.com/images/5-21/salungguhit.jpg[/img]

As President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo appeared June 27 on television saying “I’m sorry� for talking to an election official during the counting of votes – trying very hard to shed tears, critics said – reports were rife that congressmen involved in the hearings on her series of taped conversations allegedly dealing with fraud in the 2004 presidential election were being bribed with P2 million each. These reports add fuel to public suspicion that Macapagal-Arroyo cheated her way to a second shot at the presidency. Were the tears she was trying to shed then merely crocodile tears?

Â* Â*Crocodile tears? Dako 'ra kaau ang buaya....more like tiki sa kisame...lolz!

[FK]

@monrose29:

I think dili si GMA ang gi-wiretapped... it was Garcillano.

[JoRed]

GMA Could Get 23 ½ Years in Jail
President also committed four impeachable offenses, lawyer says

The contents of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s taped conversation with an election official – widely believed to be Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano – could get her as much as 23 ½ years in jail.

BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat

[img width=216 height=163]http://bulatlat.com/images/5-21/GMA-at-businessforum.jpg[/img]
EMBATTLED: President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

The contents of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s taped conversation with an election official – widely believed to be Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano – could get her as much as 23 ½ years in prison.

And those are only the jail terms. In an interview with Bulatlat, lawyer Neri Javier Colmenares, a convenor of the Pro-People Lawyers Network (PLN) and the Committee for the Defense of Lawyers (Codal), said Macapagal-Arroyo also committed four impeachable offenses: graft and corruption, bribery, betrayal of public trust, and culpable violation of the Constitution.


A conviction in any or all of these constitutional offenses could cost her graver punishment.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye had released June 6 two CDs containing audio files of what he said was a taped conversation between the president and a political leader of the administration Lakas-CMD in Mindanao, southern Philippines. One of them, Bunye said, was a version purportedly altered by the opposition to make it appear that Macapagal-Arroyo had cheated in the 2004 presidential election.

Both “original� and “tampered� have portions in which a woman – said to be Macapagal-Arroyo – was asking a man (“Gary� in the alleged original version, “Garci� in what Bunye called the tampered version) if she would still win by a million votes. Official election results showed Macapagal-Arroyo won by a million votes over her closest rival, Fernando Poe, Jr.

A few days after Bunye’s press conference, Alan Paguia, a former counsel for deposed President Joseph Estrada, came out with a longer tape, and after a few days he would be followed by Samuel Ong, former deputy director of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), who claimed to possess the “mother of all tapes.�

Macapagal-Arroyo, in a television appearance June 27, admitted that the voice on the tape was hers.

According to Colmenares, Macapagal-Arroyo committed “various violations� of the Omnibus Election Code and the Revised Penal Code.

Election offenses

In the conversation of May 26, 2004, for example, Macapagal-Arroyo is heard asking a man on the other line: “Hindi kaya puwedeng ma-delay yung senatorial canvassing until after the voting on the rules tonight?� (Can’t we delay the senatorial canvassing until after the voting on the rules tonight?)

“Under Sec. 231 of the Omnibus Election Code,� Colmenares told Bulatlat, “canvassing should be continuous subject to the availability of election returns or statements of votes and certificates of canvass. Any candidate who tries to delay the canvassing is guilty of an election offense. That is punishable by six years’ imprisonment.�

Colmenares, who has done work for a Ph.D. in Law at the University of Melbourne, also pointed out that Macapagal-Arroyo committed undue influence on an election official by asking the election official – said to be Garcillano – to delay the senatorial canvassing.

Colmenares said, “It is she who appointed Garcillano. Whenever Garcillano is bypassed she reappoints him. So she has a hold on Garcillano. Under the Election Code, that is undue influence on an election official. In fact, that violates the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act or Republic Act 3019, which provides that unduly influencing another public officer is a crime punishable by 10 years’ imprisonment and permanent disqualification from holding public office.�

Under the Omnibus Election Code, undue influence on a public official is punishable by imprisonment of not less than one year but not more than six years.

According to Colmenares, it does not matter whether Garcillano delayed the canvassing or not as long as the president tried to influence him to do the act.

Criminal offenses

Colmenares also said that Macapagal-Arroyo is also guilty of “abetting or tolerating a crime� under Art. 238 of the Revised Penal Code.

He cited a portion of the series of conversations in which the man believed to be Garcillano offered to prevent an election officer from testifying to electoral fraud in Pagutaran, Basilan, southern Philippines. Macapagal-Arroyo did not comment. “If the Pagudaran election officer was forcibly taken, that is kidnapping,� Colmenares said. “Still, if the election officer cooperated, that is still an election offense. Macapagal-Arroyo was a conspirator there.�

“The fact that she didn’t report or file a case against Garcillano but, instead, reappointed him – despite the bare-faced admission of a crime – that is a criminal offense,� Colmenares added. “That is tolerating the commission of an offense.�

Colmenares mentioned two other instances in which she committed the same offense: the portion where she asked whether she will win by a million votes and the election official said “Pipilitin natin� (We will try our best to see to that) and the part in which the election official talked of vote-padding for Macapagal-Arroyo as having been done “cleanly� in two Mindanao provinces, Basilan and Lanao del Sur. On both cases, Macapagal-Arroyo did not comment.

Jail

Under the Revised Penal Code, public officials evading or abandoning the duty of preventing, prosecuting, or punishing a crime are to be meted out the punishment of arresto mayor or imprisonment of one month and one day to six months. If convicted of the three counts of abetting or tolerating a crime, Macapagal-Arroyo could get 18 months or one and a half year in prison.

All in all, conviction of all the offenses cited by Colmenares could get the President a total of 23 ½ years in prison