Philippine opposition leaders prayed on Thursday for a political miracle to remove President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo from power, turning to street protests and text messages to keep their bid to unseat her alive.
A Congress committee dominated by Arroyo’s allies and boycotted by the opposition rejected impeachment complaints against her on Wednesday, leaving the opposition clinging to slim hopes of winning a vote in the lower house of Congress next week.
The opposition needs one-third of lower house votes to overturn the committee report, but it remains at least six votes short of the 79 it needs to keep its hopes alive of impeaching Arroyo over allegations she cheated in elections last year.
“There’s still hope we can get the required number to change the justice committee’s decision to kill the impeachment case,” opposition lawmaker Darlene Antonino-Custodio told reporters.
“Between now and Monday, we’re confident we could still get the magic number of 79. We just have to work double time, work extra hard to convince our colleagues to join us in the search for truth and justice.”
Political analysts said achieving the extra votes by Monday would be difficult, but not impossible, especially if the opposition could raise pressure on the administration through street protests, a staple of Philippines political life.
Leftist groups said they were planning protests next week to pressure lawmakers to reverse the justice committee’s decision, although rallies in recent weeks have been relatively small and failed to attract the influential middle class.
“It’s a dim future for Filipinos,” said Benito Lim, a political science professor at Ateneo de Manila University.
“We have all the ingredients for social unrest and political turmoil."
'Pipe dream'
He said the committee’s decision to dismiss the impeachment case could anger many Filipinos already reeling from rising prices of basic commodities, particularly fuel.
An expected Supreme Court ruling on Thursday or Friday lifting a freeze on an expanded sales tax law would trigger another round of price increases.
Arroyo’s spokesman, Ignacio Bunye, said on Thursday the president’s foes should give up, urging them to show “statesmanship as expected of honorable representatives”.
“The process was fair, free and transparent,” he said. “Seventy-nine votes is a pipe dream.”
But pro-impeachment Congressmen planned an inter-faith Mass on Friday night, saying they would pray for their colleagues to be enlightened on the issue.
Former president Corazon Aquino, a former Arroyo ally who has called for her to resign, and Susan Roces, the widow of action movie hero Fernando Poe Jr. who came close to winning the presidency last year, are expected to attend the religious event.
Vicente Romano, leader of the middle-class “Black and White” movement supporting efforts to impeach Arroyo, said his group would swamp Congressmen with phone calls and text messages to persuade them to vote with opposition next week.
“The fight’s not over yet,” Romano told Reuters. “This morning we launched a campaign to email and text our Congressmen who have not signed the impeachment complaint. We still believe many would take the side of truth.”
In another attempt to keep the opposition’s hopes alive, a lawyer asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to issue a temporary restraining order to stop the impeachment proceedings, arguing that all three separate complaints should have been accepted.
REUTERS
