Thousands of protesters clashed with police as Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, seeking to reassure a country battered by economic woes and criminal gangs, set a target yesterday of winning the war on poverty within a decade and vowed to arrest kingpins of corruption and drugs.
In her second state of the nation address, Arroyo outlined her vision for a classless society with a heavy emphasis on creating and improving job opportunities. She tried to woo jittery foreign investors, calling the Philippines the third-best performing economy in Asia and the best in Southeast Asia.
Referring to a US military exercise aimed at helping Philippine troops wipe out the brutal Abu Sayyaf Muslim extremist group, Arroyo said the global anti-terror coalition has helped break what she called "the cycle of terrorism and criminality."
PHOTO: AFP
She said Washington will conduct more exercises to boost the poorly trained Philippine military's capabilities. About 1,000 US troops are in the Philippines as part of the current six-month exercise, which ends July 31. Abu Sayyaf has been loosely linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
"We shall enhance our strategic relationship with the US through continuing training exercises to sharpen our soldiers' capabilities to move and communicate, to fix and finish off their targets," Arroyo said.
Arroyo also urged the Congress to urgently pass an anti-terrorism bill now under consideration.
With its long-term goals and plea for patience, the speech sounded like a campaign launch for the 2004 presidential election.
Arroyo asked for an end to political divisiveness, saying the government needs strong institutions and bureaucracy to implement policy.
"Where we have fallen short of achieving what we intended, it has not been from misdirection or a lack of trying," she said.
She also took a swipe at now-jailed predecessor, Joseph Estrada -- who last week said the Philippines is dying slowly and accused Arroyo of weak leadership -- by claiming the country would have been bankrupt within a few months if the former action-film star hadn't left office early.
In a statement published in newspapers yesterday, Estrada said there was no way Arroyo could gloss over the country's political and economic ills and the worsening law-and-order problems that have driven away investors.
"Even statistics and figures, no matter how cleverly manipulated, cannot hide wretched lives or resurrect failed businesses," Estrada said.
Outside Congress, thousands of left-wing protesters -- including many who backed Arroyo's rise to power -- clashed with police as the demonstrators called for her resignation and demanded land and an end to the US counterterrorism exercises.
Two layers of riot police kept the protesters several blocks away from the House of Representatives, where Arroyo arrived by helicopter to deliver her speech.
At one point, some of the protesters burned her effigy and tried to remove iron railings used as a roadblock. Backed by water cannons, riot police charged the unruly crowd with truncheons. Stones rained down, injuring several people and at least four photographers.
Protest leaders claimed 10 of their companions were arrested. The protesters left the area after the brief clash, leaving a few thousand pro-Estrada supporters, who were not involved in the scuffle.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS