Changing government overnight? No way, say Bohol mayors.
Rushing in to rescue the beleaguered President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (PGMA), members of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) Bohol Chapter took a progressive stand and said said no way will Manila be deciding for the whole country.
The same calls have been the gist of the League of Cities of the Philippines statement as they stood to defend the President against the vicious attacks by her detractors.
As calls for the president to resign resound, the local LMP, in a meeting held in Jagna, Bohol March 5, Wednesday, resolved to show their open statement of support to the beleaguered president through a public statement on a national daily.
The decision, which the local organization made in a closed-door conference during an out-of-town meeting was leaked to the press by a key LMP official, a few minutes after the conference.
Citing that the President deserves the constitutional processes she is entitled, LMP Bohol executive Vice President Roberto Salinas in a separate interview said, "we just can not keep just fence-sit while others are circling like vultures on a prey."
Salinas added he was just as glad that the group made a real solid stand, one accordingly did not expect.
"I just told them [mayors] we have to make a stand, no matter what it is, just as long as we say what we want," he told reporters.
The statement, which the LMP said would be published in a national paper would appear before protest organizers in Manila boasted to mobilize another rally to force the President to vacate the Palace, sources close to LMP Chair Exuperio Lloren said.
By that, at least Manila people would know that not the whole of the country is willing to join them on their noisy protests, they added.
Moreover, Salinas said at present, he does not believe there is anyone more capable of leading the country other than President Arroyo.
"Why can't they wait until 2010?" he asked.
Over the argument that the Ombudsman is the home-base of the President, he said it is a vary "it is a dangerous proposition."
"We can not besmirch the office [of the Ombudsman] just because the man sitting there is a presidential appointee, he bared, because if we say so, then all the courts may also be questioned, another Bohol mayor said.
As the debates ripple on to the countryside, President Arroyo recently said "until that day [in 2010], I will continue to push for reforms so I can hand over a strong nation to the next leader," she said in Filipino.
"I will be true to the Constitution and to myself who has been mandated to leave the post when my term ends in 2010," she said.
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