GMA: Step down now!

By Frank Wenceslao

Nobody believes Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her allies in the House of Representatives are pushing Charter-change purely on economic grounds and wouldn’t try extending her term.

Thus, I echo President Reagan’s “Break down the Berlin Wall” speech and ask, “Mrs. Arroyo, step down now. Sobra na, tama na.”

This entreaty for GMA to step down is based on incontrovertible logic that if she doesn’t really want to extend her term beyond 2010, it doesn’t make sense to stay in office up to June 30, 2010. It stands to reason that after her administration squandered eight years without improving the quality of life of our people, she can’t achieve economic growth and jobs creation to cope with the impending global economic crisis in one and a half years.

Her presidency’s illegitimacy hasn’t been resolved. Pervasive graft and corruption with virtually God-less leadership has characterized her administration to make it impossible she’d regain popular support and public confidence to govern successfully and spur national recovery. Our people need change they can believe in.

Pamusa’s organizers, supporters and sympathizers (the latter requesting anonymity) across America, Canada and other parts of the world believe that GMA insisting to stay on up to 2010 is pure selfishness and greed. She’s lost any moral ascendancy to govern and our people are fed up with her.

Graft and corruption grew by leaps and bounds during the Arroyo administration which has debilitated the country’s moral and cultural foundation. It’s the main cause of election irregularities and frauds, bureaucratic inefficiencies and malfeasance, poor public services of unqualified government executives and personnel, corrupt justice system and bureaucracy, and loss of government revenue.

All of which is the root cause of acute poverty and its debilitating effects of poor educational, social services and human resource development, stunted economic growth, high unemployment accompanied by high crime rates and so on.

How could GMA justify term extension when since becoming President to the present the country’s biggest dollar income come from overseas Filipino workers and their suffering families? Filipino Americans are almost in tears on learning OFW relatives have lost foreign employment because of retrenchment caused by economic downturn.

GMA faces worse and easier to prove corruption charges the Senate should investigate. It’s the losses of GSIS, Pagcor, DBP and other government owned or controlled corporations (GOCCs) in Wall Street due to the U.S. financial meltdowns.

The evidence is available with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York Stock Exchange. These offices have complete records of the GOCCs’ transactions since 2001 including their signatories, brokers or investment counselors, trading profits & losses, and acquisition & present market values of investments all of which can be corroborated by investment banks and brokerage houses that have availed of federal bailout from accounting records of clients’ and their losses.

The records are Pamusa’s prima facie evidence to sue GMA, FG Mike Arroyo, GSIS president Winston Garcia, Pagcor chair Efraim Genuino, Jocjoc Bolante and several others to be named later in the complaint for wire fraud, money laundering, racketeering (RICO) and probably grand theft. Pamusa is on the record of FBI and USDOJ for the recovery not only of misappropriated government funds but also the ill-gotten wealth of the Arroyos et al. from the proceeds of corruption pursuant to the U.N. Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and applicable U.S. laws.

Pamusa’s initial criminal filing will be their using government funds to trade stocks and skim off profits during the bull market. When stock prices went south the GOCCs suffered tremendous losses but the Arroyos and co-conspirators kept the profits that could have lessened the losses. The records in the SEC and NYSE would be subpoenaed during the legal discovery process to tighten our case.

GMA stepping down is for her and family’s good, or else they would suffer the fates of leaders who abused their offices such as Peru’s former President Alberto Fujimori with his intel chief Vladimiro Montesinos. Fujimori is still on trial while Montesinos is serving a 20-year jail sentence. Former Chile’s strongman Augusto Pinochet whose widow, children and close associates are charged of corruption based on millions of dollars of U.S. bank deposits dug up by FBI and USDOJ and other evidence transferred to a local court at the request of the Chilean Government.

Pamusa has ascertained that GMA and FG Arroyo have become recipients of the dividends from Marcos’ stocks in San Miguel Corporation held by Danding Cojuangco, Lucio Tan’s Group of Companies and other big Chinese-Filipino corporations helped by Marcos in exchange for 60% equity. The Arroyos’ quid pro quo is protection from PCGG’s stringent recovery of Marcos’ stocks and dividends in those corporations.

In other words, Mr. and Mrs. Arroyo have replaced Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos as silent partners in the different corporations of Danding Cojuangco, Lucio Tan, Henry Sy, John Gokongwei and many more.

The latest partnership is Sea Refinery’s acquisition of Petron Corporation to raise Sea’s equity to over 90% of which 51% would eventually be sold to San Miguel Corporation. Pamusa’s evidence suggests former Marcos trade minister Roberto Ongpin’s participation in the deal involved Marcos’ ill-gotten wealth entrusted to Ashmore that Ongpin has shielded from PCGG’s recovery. Ongpin has likewise partnered with FG Arroyo, Genuino, Tom Alcantara, etc. in Pagcor’s online gaming.

When push comes to shove, the partners would save themselves in a plea bargain by minimizing their guilt while maximizing the Arroyos’ culpability based on documentary and testimonial evidence they keep. The partners such as Danding Cojuangco, Lucio Tan, Henry Sy, Enrique Razon Jr., Donald Dee, Dante Ang, Rolando “Bong” Pineda, Ongpin, Alcantara, etc. would wash their hands of GMA and FG Arroyo when they’re sued in the U.S. and opt for settlement to avoid imprisonment for said crimes under UNCAC.

Rather than go to prison their respective corporations that GMA has helped to grow beyond their wildest expectations would pay millions of dollars in fines like Siemens that paid nearly a billion euros ($1.4 billion) to the U.S. and German Governments to settle corruption charges for bribing foreign government officials to obtain and renew contracts. The fines reportedly would be divided among the countries hurt by Siemens’ corrupt practices.

Surely, such illicit partnerships have hurt the Philippines in so many ways. Hence, the country should be compensated with the fines U.S. prosecutors would impose in case of negotiated settlement. The irony is even if GMA’s term and immunity were extended, how long would she remain free and can she live with the thought her husband and children are in U.S. prison while she’s President of the Philippines?

(fcwenceslao@hotmail.com)