President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines fought for his political life yesterday after the speaker of the House of Representatives said he was deserting government ranks with more than 40 congressmen.
A senator belonging to the ruling coalition also said he was withdrawing his support from the government over the gambling pay-offs scandal which has embroiled Estrada and threatens to end his presidency.
PHOTO: REUTERS
House Speaker Manuel Villar said he and his group of congressmen were resigning from the ruling coalition and would support impeachment of Estrada.
"Every day, the economy is becoming grave," he said. "Every day, the political crisis is becoming worse. Every day, Filipinos are becoming deeply polarized. So we have to resolve this soon.
"With this, we will now be able to send the impeachment to the Senate."
Villar's defection follows the resignation from the Cabinet on Thursday of Trade Secretary Manuel Roxas. The political storm broke as a typhoon lashed Manila yesterday morning, closing down the city of 10 million people and shutting its financial markets.
Estrada has been under pressure to quit for about four weeks, since a close aide said he had handed over millions of pesos to the president in bribes from gambling syndicates running an illegal numbers game.
Last month Vice-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo quit from her Cabinet post as Social Welfare Secretary and has led the campaign for the removal of Estrada.
The peso fell earlier this week to a historical low of 51.95 to the US dollar and international ratings agencies Moody's and Standard & Poor's have revised their outlook on the Philippines to negative from stable.
Villar's defection signals that the motion to impeach Estrada, now pending in the House, will be passed on to the Senate for trial.
The motion needs 73 votes in the 218-member House to be passed and opposition leaders have said they already have the support of about 60 congressmen.
Five congressmen announced they were deserting government ranks on Thursday.
For Estrada to be removed from office, a two-thirds majority, or 15 of the 22-member Senate, will have to vote in favor. The ruling coalition dominates the Senate, but pro-government Senator Nikki Coseteng said he would not support Estrada.
"That is the decision I have come to," Coseteng told local radio yesterday. He did not elaborate.
There was no immediate reaction from Estrada to the latest defections. Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora said yesterday morning a Cabinet meeting was in progress, but no decisions had been reached.
Estrada said on Thursday after Roxas' resignation that he was willing to face the impeachment trial and also submit himself to a national referendum.
"I am prepared to submit myself to trial before the Senate in accordance with the constitution. I am also willing to submit myself to a referendum to let the people decide whether I should stay as president or not," Estrada said in a statement.
He said he was confident he would be proved innocent of the charges and urged Congress to finish the impeachment process "as soon as possible."
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS