Supporters of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo poured into a park in the capital yesterday for a much-needed show of strength that upstaged a recent rally by 40,000 protesters demanding she step down.
Police said about 120,000 people, many from government offices and Christian groups, came to Manila's Rizal Park under hazy skies to back Arroyo in what was billed as a "gathering for peace and unity for the rule of law." That was well short of organizers' goal of 200,000 but still much larger than the 40,000 who gathered for Wednesday's rally in the capital's financial district.
Dozens of buses and colorful jeepneys, some bringing people from adjacent provinces, lined seaside Roxas Boulevard leading to Rizal Park. The atmosphere was festive with drummers and other musicians offering entertainment from the grandstand.
Still, the message was serious.
Banners read "President Arroyo please stay" and "God bless the president and the Philippines."
Steadied by a few key allies, Arroyo has dug in her heels to ride out mass resignations and defections that a week ago appeared to be driving her four-year presidency to a rapid end.
"This is not really a showdown," said Mike Defensor, a close Arroyo ally. "We don't really plan to come here with a show of force to weaken the position of the opposition. More than that, our position is to call on our people for us to reconcile, for them to give the president a chance."
The opposition accuses Arroyo of cheating her way to victory in last year election and her family of corruption. She has denied wrongdoing but now faces the threat of impeachment by Congress, a prospect that worries financial markets.
"It does not matter how many rallied for Arroyo," said Joseph Roxas, president of Eagle Equities in Manila.
"Since the opposition did not muster enough numbers to cause alarm, it has had to shift the battlefield to the impeachment process in Congress," he said.
Manila Mayor Lito Atienza, an Arroyo loyalist, earlier denied reports that city workers were promised 2,000 pesos (US$35) each to attend, fair common way of beefing up rallies in the Philippines.
Arroyo was not expected to attend yesterday's event. But the large crowd in the midst of the crisis will help her reinforce the image of a president focused on running the country and reforming the economy with the support of the people.
But House of Representatives minority leader Francis Escudero called the rally a sign of the government's duplicity. The opposition claimed the government restricted the rally on Wednesday by keeping busloads of opposition supporters from coming to Manila.
"They are now eating their own words," Escudero said. "They said, `Rallies are bad, they are destabilizing and only create trouble,' but now they are doing the same thing."
Arroyo's political enemies concede she is unlikely to be dislodged by marches nowhere near the size or social breadth of "people power" uprisings that overthrew Ferdinand Marcos as dictator in 1986 and Joseph Estrada as president in 2001.
Instead, they are warming to the idea of trying to impeach her in Congress as shifting party loyalties threaten her majorities in both houses.
Another way out of the crisis has been proposed by former president Fidel Ramos, who envisions a parliamentary system after changes to the constitution. Arroyo would stay on as caretaker until elections next year.
The president's aides have said that Arroyo is seriously considering the Ramos plan.
An impeachment motion needs 79 votes, or one-third of the lower house, to progress to a trial by the upper house's 23 senators.
An impeachment conviction in the Senate, effectively sacking the president, needs two-thirds of the senators' votes.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS