MANILA, 30 June 2005 — Pressure mounted on Philippines President Gloria Arroyo yesterday with the resumption of a public inquiry into allegations of vote fraud, expected noisy protests against her rule and the start of an impeachment complaint for improperly calling an election official in last year’s vote.

Amid all these Arroyo said yesterday that her husband had opted to leave the country after accusations that he wrongly influenced government policies threatened to further undermine her presidency.

“My husband has volunteered to go abroad,” she said, without specifying where Jose Miguel Arroyo, a lawyer, would be relocating or how long he would be staying abroad.

No mention was made of her reported plans to also send her son, Mikey, and brother-in-law, Ignacio, out of the country. Both have been accused of accepting payoffs from jueteng (an illegal numbers game) and of besmirching the name of the president.

Susan Roces, the widow of defeated presidential candidate and popular actor Fernando Poe Jr., had earlier called on the president to resign on suspicion of electoral fraud.

Roces said during a noon press conference at Club Filipino that she would not accept the apology made by Arroyo for talking to an election official during the May 2004 polls. She accused Arroyo of stealing the presidency “not once, but twice.”

Meanwhile, the probe comes two days after Arroyo had apologized for what she said was a “lapse in judgment,” but denied she intended to rig the May election. The admission has triggered calls for the president to quit, with one congressman endorsing an impeachment complaint against her for “betraying public trust.”

Arroyo’s popularity has taken a battering since the vote-rigging allegations surfaced, with those opposed to her presidency promising a series of protests yesterday.

A “noise barrage” and marches against the government would culminate in a “national day of protest” today, opposition groups said.

In Congress, party-list Representatives Rodante Marcoleta yesterday endorsed a complaint from private citizen Oliver Lozano against Arroyo for “betrayal of public trust,” one of several grounds for impeachment.

The House will assign a committee to investigate whether there are sufficient grounds for the complaint. If the complaint stands up it must then be voted on in the House of Representatives before the Senate would have the final say.

Analysts believe it is unlikely that the president would be impeached without mass defections to the opposition ranks, since Arroyo allies have greater numbers in both chambers.

Opposition congressman Francis Escudero expressed misgivings over the endorsement of the complaint. “The impeachment filed by Attorney Lozano clearly lacked substance. Secondly, there are legal and technical issues that have to be resolved before actually endorsing a complaint,” Escudero said.

“Thirdly, congressman Marcoleta is not a member of the minority and endorsing a complaint should be a prerogative of the opposition,” he said.

In a business forum yesterday, Arroyo said: “Today, my family is once again called to sacrifice our personal happiness to allow me to serve best as president of our country.”

“My husband has volunteered to go abroad. I mention this here today because I want to signal to everyone that nothing can stop my administration from implementing ... our reform agenda.”

Senate President Franklin Drilon praised the president’s move. “I applaud her for making such an enormous sacrifice. Her decision only shows the extent of her determination to fulfill her mandate as president of our country,” he said in a statement.

Drilon, however, remained firm that “the president should replace key officials who are unable to contribute to her efforts to implement tangible reforms.”

Television station ABS-CBN later quoted unnamed sources close to Arroyo as saying she would purge her Cabinet tomorrow of at least four ministers and three other senior officials close to her husband.

It said Transport Secretary Leandro Mendoza, Public Works Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane, Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap and chief presidential legal counsel Merceditas Gutierrez would lose their jobs.

Arroyo’s spokesman, Ignacio Bunye, said the report was “disinformation.”

Political analyst Earl Parre?o said it was too early to tell whether Arroyo’s tactics would work.

“If the opposition fails to mobilize public opinion in the next few weeks, she could recover and land on firm ground. If the opposition to her snowballs, she would probably lose her job in the next six months,” Parre?o said.

— Additional input from agencies.