MANILA, 8 July 2005 — With Vice President Noli de Castro cutting short a holiday in Hong Kong to return to Manila yesterday, word flew fast that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was finally stepping down.

Arroyo disappointed her foes, however, when she said she was staying put that she was in fact reorganizing her Cabinet to make it more effective.

“First of all, I am not resigning my office,” said Arroyo, who complained thatshe was being unfairly demonized for something she said she has not done.

Arroyo is trying to fend off allegations that she fixed last year’s election, a charge being investigated in Congress after the opposition distributed wiretapped tapes of her phone conversations with election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.

“I will restructure and strengthen the Cabinet,” Arroyo, who has five years left in her term, said in a radio address.

“I am asking the entire Cabinet to tender their resignations.

“This is neither political ploy or gimmick. This will be a legacy.”

Opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who finished third in the May 2004 presidential election — runnerup Fernando Poe Jr. died of a stroke last December — derided Arroyo’s move.

“She has no idea of who she will appoint to fill up the vacancies,” Lacson told DZBB radio. “She should be the one to resign, not the members of her Cabinet, because she is the cause of political instability and the root of political turmoil.”

Pre-emptive Action

Rumors emerged earlier yesterday that at least two, and perhaps a dozen, of her Cabinet members were preparing to resign, so the increasingly desperate Arroyo clearly took the offensive to forestall a sense that moves to force her out were turning into an avalanche.

A religious leader said yesterday that two Cabinet members met yesterday with the influential Association of Major Religious Superiors to seek the group’s advice on whether to step down.

Association Vice Chairman Edmundo Fernandez said did not name the two, but said one has links to the business community, and that he advised them to stay put until the country’s Roman Catholic bishops take a position on the crisis when they meet this weekend.

“My appeal to these Cabinet secretaries is to allow a little more time for the bishops and the school heads to come out in the open, and don’t be hasty in making a decision in a day or two because that can be messy,” Fernandez told ABS-CBN television.

The National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), a protestant organization that boasts 13 million members in the predominantly Catholic country, became the latest group to call for Arroyo’s resignation.

Academics, student groups and at least one prominent Catholic bishop, along with Arroyo’s political opponents, have also urged her to quit.

Martyr Feeling

In asking her Cabinet to resign, Arroyo said she wanted to have a free hand in governance while she focuses on fundamental changes to the constitution and the political system.

The daughter of a president, Arroyo lamented that her statement on the election controversy was seen by some as an admission of guilt.

“It is very painful for me to know that among many of our countrymen today, I have been demonized as the `bad guy,”’ Arroyo said.

“This is unfair, but it is a cross that God in his wisdom has given me to bear, so I will bear it.”

Arroyo’s backing from the Roman Catholic community has eroded, with a growing number of religious groups joining opposition lawmakers and left-wing groups in publicly seeking her ouster and an orderly transition of power to Vice President de Castro.

A defiant Arroyo rejected such calls.

“People ask can I govern? Yes, I can govern,” she told an awards ceremony for outstanding police officers.

“Our opponents have no platform, they have no complete and viable plan to help the poor. They only find the time to plan to reverse progress. This is the most cynical manipulation of hardworking and caring Filipinos,” Arroyo said.

New Elections Chief

In what was widely seen as a bid to burnish the tarnished image of the Commission on Elections, Arroyo announced the presiding judge on the Court of Appeals would be the new elections commissioner.

Justice Romeo Brawner, 69, will assume the post on Sept. 17, following his retirement from the judiciary, Presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said yesterday.

He replaces Garcillano, the official accused by the opposition of conspiring with President Arroyo to steal the May, 2004, presidential election.

Garcillano’s appointment expired last month.

“This is a conscious effort to put behind her the Garcillano controversy,” Earl Parreno, an analyst from Institute for Political and Electoral Reforms told Reuters.

Despite claims by Arroyo’s allies that the military was solidly behind her, rumors persisted of discontent in the powerful military, another key base of her support.

A three-star army general said yesterday he has quit his post, only a day after the government claimed there were no signs of restiveness.

A poll released Wednesday showed only two of every 10 Filipinos still trust Arroyo and nearly half believe she should no longer be president.

Arroyo also has been buffeted by allegations that her husband, son and brother-in-law received illegal gambling payoffs at a time when she was focused on economic reform and trying to deal with widespread poverty, rising oil prices and a gaping budget deficit.

Filipinos are angry about rising prices and pervasive graft but seem wary of the economic and social costs of more upheaval after “people power” uprisings against dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Estrada in 2001.

The late dictator Ferdinand Marcos was ousted by a “people power” revolt in 1986, a model used by pro-democracy movements around the world.

Arroyo took office in “people power 2,” which forced out President Joseph Estrada in 2001 but led to criticism that ousting a leader had become too easy.

Arroyo warned that a third “people power” would “condemn the Philippines as a country whose political system is hopelessly unstable.” Massive street protests haven’t materialized.

About 5,000 left-wing protesters gathered in a Manila square yesterday, chanting “Oust Arroyo now.” The stock market and the peso have slumped as the crisis has unfolded daily on live television. (Additional input from Agencies)