Pres. Gloria M. Arroyo belated happy birthday

Yesterday, Pres. Gloria Maca-pagal-Arroyo observed her 59th birthday and the fact that Holy Week starts on Monday made us recall that she got her first name Gloria from the fact that she was born on a Sabado de Gloria. What makes us feel bad is the fact that she celebrated her birthday with some oppositionists trying to prepare the ground for a second impeach bid against her. As she herself pointed out, it is sad that there are still oppositionists using "search and destroy" tactics while the whole nation is already jumping on her plan to unify and build so we will no longer be classified as a third world country.

What is good is that the Gloria Step Down rallies now seem to be a thing of the past. It never really captured the public’s concern because all the rallies demanding that she voluntarily step down from office never even mentioned her successor. At best, they say that she will be succeeded by a transition government but there is no mention as to who will head said government. The truth is that if she steps down, her legal successor should be Vice-President Noli de Castro.

During a Senate hearing, Elections Commissioner Resurreccion Borra said that both sides had engaged in cheating in the May 2004 elections. What he said is undoubtedly true. We don’t believe that we have ever had any elections where there was no cheating. But the cheatings were seldom enough to change the true results of the elections. And most of the cheating is done by individual sympathizers and not by the candidates themselves.

Ms. Susan Roces, who is the widow of the late Fernando Poe Jr., filed an election protest questioning the results of the last presidential elections. The Supreme Court dismissed it saying that only the actual candidate that lost can file an election protest and Fernando Poe Jr. unfortunately died after the elections. This means that if he had actually won the elections he would not have been able to occupy the top position to which he was elected.

As far as we are concerned, the results of the last presidential elections is final and unappealable. To try to remove the President from office on the ground that she cheated in the last elections is futile. What the opposition should do is to unite under one leader and have their own program of government. As it is, the opposition still has no official spokesman or stand on national issues. All they can say is that they are anti-Gloria. What the public has to know is who is their leader and what do they stand for. We should be dealing with issues – not personalities.

We honestly believe that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is doing well. A good proof is that our peso is now one of the most stable currencies. Let us all work to wipe our poverty and become another progressive nation in Asia.