MANILA, 5 March 2008 — Eighty-one former top Philippine government officials yesterday gave President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo a five-point demand to cleanse her name in a multimillion dollar telecoms deal tainted by corruption allegations.

“The president should act immediately and decisively to enable the truth to emerge,” read a statement signed by the ex-officials, including former central bank governor Jose Cuisia and four one-time finance chiefs.

“The president must demonstrate her commitment to the truth through these actions within one week ... or the people will make their judgment and act on the basis of their conviction.”

The signatories once served in the Cabinet or key posts under Arroyo and her four predecessors — Ferdinand Marcos, Corazon Aquino, Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada.

The intervention came on the same day as Arroyo’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, formally denied wrongdoing at an inquiry into the deal by the anti-graft Ombudsman.

The ex-officials want Arroyo to:

• Allow former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri to resume his testimony before the Senate without any restrictions;

• Release and allow delivery to the Senate of all public records, including the minutes of the board meetings at the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), pertaining to the $329 million NBN contract with China’s ZTE Corp.;

• Suspend Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza and assistant secretary Lorenzo Formoso be suspended because the Department of Transportation and Communication was the lead agency over the project;

• Suspend Environment Secretary Lito Atienza, national police chief Avelino Razon, deputy executive secretary Manuel Gaite, deputy airport chief Angel Atutubo, Senior Superintendent Paul Mascariñas, and “all those involved in the attempt to prevent Senate witness (Rodolfo Noel) Jun Lozada from testifying” also be suspended; and

• Stop the Department of Justice, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, National Bureau of Investigation, and Bureau of Internal Revenue from harassing witnesses.

Lozada is the key witness in the ongoing Senate investigation into the NBN agreement that is threatening to bring down the Arroyo government if left unresolved. “This is the best way to get to the truth,” Cuisia said as he and 20 former senior officials in the government faced reporters at a clubhouse in Manila.

Among the signatories were former education secretary Florencio Abad; former budget secretaries Emilia Boncodin and Benjamin Diokno; former Civil Service Commission chairperson Karina Constantino-David; former executive secretary and former senator Franklin Drilon; former presidential management staff Victoria Garchitorena; former NEDA secretary-general Cielito Habito; former trade minister Vicente Paterno; former foreign affairs undersecretary Leticia Ramos-Shahani, among others, who asked the president to respond to their demands in a week.

Paterno, who was also a senator from 1987 to 1992, said the allegations of multimillion-dollar kickbacks have outraged many middle-class Filipinos.

Amid the current corruption scandal, disapproval and distrust for Arroyo in Metro Manila grew over the last four months, to levels comparable to the 2005 “Hello Garci” wiretapping scandal, results of an independent survey released yesterday by Pulse Asia showed. On Friday, tens of thousands of people gathered in Manila’s financial district calling for Arroyo to step down, the biggest crowd since about 40,000 protested against her in 2005 amid allegations she cheated in the 2004 election.

Some Roman Catholic bishops, priests and nuns and business and civil society groups vowed to hold more and larger protests against the president until she was forced to go, accusing her of covering up for her husband and officials.

Arroyo’s husband attended the anti-graft Ombudsman’s inquiry yesterday, but did not speak, allowing his lawyer to submit his affidavit denying involvement in the kickbacks scandal.

He and golfing buddy Benjamin Abalos, who was forced to resign as head of the elections commission, are among those accused of asking $130 million from China’s ZTE Corp to secure the telecoms deal.

Abalos was also accused of offering a 200 million pesos bribe to Neri to facilitate the deal, which Neri had affirmed during his testimony in a Senate inquiry.

But, he declined to give more details, invoking executive privilege when asked about his conversations with the president about Abalos’ bribe offer.

The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments over a petition by senators to lift an executive order preventing senior government officials from appearing in legislative inquiries into corruption in the Arroyo government.

The court was not expected to decide within the day on the petition that may allow Neri to resume his testimony in the Senate inquiry and detail how the broadband network contract was approved and awarded to ZTE.

In a speech yesterday, Arroyo said she would follow the constitution and “my own desire to step down at the end of my term in 2010.”

“But until that day, I will strive to pursue reforms so that I will leave a stable nation to the future leader,” she said. In her seven years in power, Arroyo has survived four attempted power grabs and three opposition impeachment bids over alleged corruption and vote-rigging.

Analysts have attributed her staying power to the refusal of the powerful military and the Roman Catholic Church to join calls for her ouster.

Those institutions played key roles in the revolts that ousted the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada in 2001. (Input from Agencies & Inquirer News Service)