Juan Country » Gloria Macapagal Arroyo

The Arroyo Virus

Carlo Ople — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 04:59:23 +0000

If I were to name the biggest sin that the Arroyo administration has done it’s that they have singlehandedly corrupted and destroyed various institutions in the country. These are longstanding and proud institutions which used to enjoy the trust of the people. But now their credibility is in the dumps. Everything PGMA touches, it crumbles into ashes because people automatically lose trust in that department or group. This is by far PGMA’s worst crime to the Filipino people and I hope that the next President will be able to at least help bring back that trust to these institutions.

COMELEC
The body that supposedly guards our right to vote is no longer trusted as well. Because of her phone call to Garci and her national public apology, the COMELEC was forever damned. When people say COMELEC, there’s no longer a feeling of security or trust. All you have is this dreadful notion that your vote is useless because COMELEC will rig it in favor of whoever has the biggest amount of money in their wallet. All of this happened because of PGMA’s call to Garci several years ago.

Congress: Representatives of the people or PGMA?
The most obvious is the House of Representatives. PGMA does not give out the allocated Pork Barrel to congressmen in the opposition. This means that without money, these congressmen will not have funds to do projects in their local districts. Come election time, they won’t get the votes of their constituents because they practically weren’t able to do anything because of the lack of money. Malacanang literally has congress on their knees. Because of this people who deserve to get investigated and punished in the lower house get a free pass. Whatever the President wants, she gets.

Supreme Court
A recent show of her deadly touch is the selection of the next Supreme Court justice. Personally I think she should just wait for the next administration to appoint because if she does push through with her plans to put someone there it would just put a total cloud of doubt and suspicion on the last remaining institution which has stood firm against the advances of the Palace. That would truly be a sad day indeed.

What’s alarming is that even if PGMA is stepping down, she still wants to be a major player in the political landscape. She’s most likely going to win for Congress. There’s a big chance she’ll be the next Speaker of the House. What then? If she has the numbers she can actually impeach the President.

Last, but not least, it looks like the virus is also passed on genetically. PGMA’s son, Mikey Arroyo, is planning to run for Congress again via the Party List system. How the hell does Mikey Arroyo represent any marginalized sector in the country? If this ever comes to pass then I don’t think anyone will appreciate the Party List system anymore.

I can’t imagine how challenging it will be for the next President to face a congress led by PGMA.

PGMA Flash Game

Carlo Ople — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:49:45 +0000

Filipinos are really creative, especially when it comes to expressing their outrage. I stumbled upon this particularly interesting website that hosts a flash game involving President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. It’s called the “GMA Stress Reliver” game and it’s by far one of the most innovative ways I’ve seen someone share his discontent with the current administration.

Basically you get to physically bash PGMA. You can either use your fists or you can use a good old fashioned “tubo”. Here’s a screenshot of the game:

She doesn’t really fight back, hehe. The game ends after you hit her 100 times. Based on the site statistics, more than 115,000 people have already visited the site so far. To play the game, just click here.

Why Gloria will run in 2010

Carlo Ople — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:04:02 +0000

I enjoyed the recent blogger session with Congressman TG Guingona (will post about that within the day). One of the topics that cropped up was how the current administration has literally bastardized our institutions and the budget system. Apparently if congress passes the budget and it’s approved, it’s considered law. PGMA has went overboard with the budget and therefore has broken the law. However she can’t be criminally prosecuted because she’s enjoying immunity being a national official. That’s the reason why she will run in 2010 – either for Vice President or Congress. The moment she steps down and becomes a normal citizen, charges left and right will be piled up against her and she’s spend the rest of her remaining years in this planet fending off corruption allegations in court.

How Impeachment and the Ombudsman Failed Us
Since national officials enjoy immunity, the only thing that we have that will allow us to “punish” an erring official is through either the Ombudsman or through Impeachment. However, both have failed miserably. PGMA has held congress hostage by refusing to give Pork Barrel funds to opposition congressmen and senators. The Ombudsman, on the other hand, hasn’t really done anything that will signal her independence from the Arroyo administration.

VP, Senate, or Congress?
This leaves PGMA with the option of just running for national office. She can run for VP, Senate, or Congress. I don’t think she’ll dare set foot in the Senate since she’s made so many enemies there. That and I personally don’t think she’ll be able to get enough votes to get into the top 12 since it is a national consensus. She has a chance of making it in Congress though since she’s done nothing lately but visit her home province again and again for the past year.

If PGMA wins a seat in Congress, she will be immune again from prosecution. That’s why I support Prof. Randy David’s previous announcement that he will run against Arroyo should she pursue her bid in Congress.

I’m currently working on a series of blog posts which aims to gather all the data and facts that will support my personal stand on why I won’t vote for anyone aligned to President Arroyo. Until they answer those questions that I have, they will be fundamentally bankrupt of morals, therefore making it hard to trust them with anything.

Vice President De Castro is PGMA’s choice

Carlo Ople — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:50:00 +0000

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has finally broken her silence on who she wants to succeed her as the standard bearer of the administration party. According to Vice President Noli De Castro, the President has invited him to join the administration party and that she wants him to be the presidential candidate of the party for 2010. Despite the invitation by the President, De Castro said that he gave no commitment to Arroyo and that he still needs time before he makes his final decision if he will indeed run or not for the Presidency.

Power of the Administration
People are wondering why it’s such a big deal if a candidate were to run with the administration party. The truth of the matter is that they are far superior in terms of local on-the-ground machinery. Majority of local government officials are with the administration – Mayors and Governors. These are key figures that can influence the vote in their respective provinces because of their stature and resources.

This is definitely a very tempting offer for VP De Castro. That’s why I was a bit amazed that he decided not to say yes yet. It’s logical for GMA to go for De Castro though since the other administration bets are really doing poorly in surveys. MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando just rated at 1% in the last PULSE ASIA survey and Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro also didn’t do well. I also don’t think BF will get any better because he’s now being hounded by the cash gift scandal. The only one who’s been showing consistent performance is VP De Castro, probably because of the media mileage he got when he was still a broadcaster for ABS-CBN.

This is what De Castro said when asked about his reaction:

“When the President is hardworking, the members of the Cabinet cannot be lazy. So when your leader is hardworking, we learn and my OJT (on the job training) for the last six years has been great,” he said.

De Castro, however, stressed that he was not waiting for the President’s anointment to convince him to run.

“Not really. I’m not asking for it, but kung ibibigay, of course, I will be grateful,” he said.

On a being third placer in the latest Pulse Asia survey of presidential candidates, De Castro said he was pleased with the ranking since he has not declared his candidacy for the top post.

He also said that he was not worried if his standing in the surveys would continue to decline.

“It’s just a survey. My rating is still good,” he said.

Source: Inquirer.Net

It will be very interesting to see how VP De Castro will fare now that he’s received GMA’s kiss of death. I’m very interested to see his ratings in the next SWS or Pulse Asia survey.

Media Outlets “Kill” President Arroyo

Carlo Ople — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:16:54 +0000

Several media outlets made glaring mistakes when they published stories on President Cory Aquino’s memorial service. From print, TV, radio, to online, all of them replaced “President Aquino” with “President Arroyo”. As expected, the media stations didn’t bother coming up with an apology or an official statement about the matter. The palace though said that they are sure that there wasn’t any malice in this and it was just an honest mistake on the part of the media. Let me share some pictures after the break.

Some script writers and editors probably got a major spanking in the Bulletin and ABS CBN. Makes you wonder if they actually did it on purpose, hahaha.