MANILA, 13 July 2005 — President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, hanging tough in a crisis that threatens to unseat her, named a new finance secretary yesterday to try to reassure investors her economic reforms were still on track.
Anti-Arroyo groups, pressing allegations of vote-rigging in last year’s election and graft in the president’s family, have vowed huge protests in Manila’s financial district this week.
Recent rallies have had 8,000 marchers at most, a fraction the size of “people power” revolts that ousted Ferdinand Marcos as dictator in 1986 and Joseph Estrada as president in 2001.
Arroyo, who met her Cabinet yesterday after mass resignations from her economic team last week, said she was committed to seeking input from various groups on political reforms to overhaul a system widely seen as dysfunctional.
The “fundamental law of the land” needed to be changed to address the issues of federalism, a parliamentary form of government, campaign finance reform and “the economic provisions of the constitution,” Arroyo said in a brief address.
Arroyo was reportedly considering a plan by former President Fidel Ramos for her to stay on as caretaker to oversee a shift to a parliamentary system, followed by a referendum on a new charter and elections in 2006.
All Eyes on Marchers
The national police force, concerned that communist rebels or Muslim militants may try to infiltrate the rallies in Manila, went on maximum alert yesterday.
A police intelligence officer said anti-Arroyo forces had a war-chest of 25 million pesos ($450,000) and hopes of building up the protests to 1 million people by Sunday.
In past rallies, core anti-government elements — leftist, student and farmers’ groups that routinely stage small, noisy protests — have been fortified by supporters of Estrada, whose overthrow led to Arroyo’s rise from vice president in 2001.
Protests are often swollen by people offered a fast-food meal and a small payout to wave banners and shout slogans.
A crowd bigger than 20,000 today might signal a shift in public anger but the protests would have to be sustained to threaten Arroyo, said Tom Green, executive director of risk consultancy Pacific Strategies & Assessments.
“The danger is if the crowds grow and start marching on the presidential palace, then the military could say it might not be able to guarantee the safety of the president and her family because they don’t want to shoot these people,” he said.
The military, the source of a dozen coup attempts since 1986, has stressed its neutrality in the political crisis.
The turmoil has made investors nervous about the risks to economic reforms designed to improve revenues and cut debt.
Two major credit ratings agencies, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch, voiced their displeasure on Monday by cutting their outlooks on the Philippines and some of its biggest companies to “negative” from “stable.”
New Team, Familiar Woes
Arroyo, starting to rebuild her economic team, named the president of the state-owned Land Bank of the Philippines, former congressman Margarito Teves, as finance secretary.
“He’s an independent talent. He’s a competent guy for the job,” said political analyst Alex Magno.
Teves, who replaced Cesar Purisima, faces a difficult task in keeping the reforms going while Arroyo battles for her political life and markets react nervously.
Arroyo is also under pressure from a Supreme Court freeze on a key package expanding the national sales tax.
But the political tide may have turned in her favor, some newspapers said yesterday, amid indications that she would accept constitutional reform as a way out of her worst crisis.
The Inquirer said Arroyo was laying the groundwork by pressing for the merger of two parties loyal to her in the lower house of Congress.
The influential Ramos, a former general who was president from 1992 to 1998, came out to support Arroyo at a crucial time on Friday as supporters and cabinet members deserted.
She also received a vital reprieve on Sunday when powerful Catholic bishops avoided calling on her to resign.
Congress is due to take up an impeachment motion against Arroyo when it returns from recess on July 25.
But the opposition is reluctant to pursue that route because of the president’s majorities in both houses.
Yesterday, the political party of television evangelist and failed presidential contender Eduardo Villanueva, who claims several million followers of his “Jesus is Lord” church, joined calls for Arroyo to quit.
“When we elect corrupt politicians to office, we have displeased God,” it said in a statement.
About 3,000 supporters of Villanueva’s party along with Muslim activists gathered in Manila’s business district in trademark yellow shirts, singing religious songs as they waved anti-Arroyo placards.
