This talk about Charter Change has become a habit in this administration.
Every time a crisis hounds it, it resurrects the Cha-Cha because it almost always draws all the attention. In the process, it deflects the issue that prompted the crisis thereby giving the Arroyo administration enough breathing spell.
This time, the uproar was over the memorandum of agreement over the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE). Government officials and civilians in the affected provinces have been coming out in droves to denounce the BJE, causing the administration to press the panic button.
The tension must have been such that no less than the President herself let the cat out of the bag.
True to form, the Cha-Cha drew the flaming arrows away from the BJE even as the Malacañang bright boys try to stall for time for as long as they can. Practice makes perfect and it looks like they are holding the fort respectably.
And yet, something tells us this could be the real McCoy.
With time inching closer to 2010, the fears that the Cha-Cha is nothing more than a ruse to extend the President's term seems more tantalizingly real than ever.
Like the standard denial script, the Palace dismisses the fears over the term extension trap as nothing more than a baseless fear. To prove this point, they point out that the President is not interested to hold on to power beyond 2010.
Now, there lies the problem. Except for those who have self-serving reasons to do so, few people are willing to give the President's word the benefit of the doubt. On the contrary, they hammer even more strongly on the fears this move is stoking.
Few people forget that the President had categorically declared, during the Rizal commemoration rites no less, that she would no longer be running for office in the 2004 elections.
Well, everybody knows what happens next. She not only reneged on that sacred promise before the tomb of the national hero, she in fact went on to hold on to power after being proclaimed in the most controversial election.
Since the countdown to 2010 is like a time bomb waiting to explode, time is running out on the President. While she may no longer be vulnerable to another impeachment notwithstanding the controversy on the BJE MOA, a bigger threat looms in the form of a new President taking over.
With her popularity ratings plunging deeper than any other President in Philippine history, it does not take much to realize where she would end up. She's holding on, but it seems fewer people are taking her word seriously.
That's what you get when you don't live up to your word. - Editorial, Sunday Post
Every time a crisis hounds it, it resurrects the Cha-Cha because it almost always draws all the attention. In the process, it deflects the issue that prompted the crisis thereby giving the Arroyo administration enough breathing spell.
This time, the uproar was over the memorandum of agreement over the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE). Government officials and civilians in the affected provinces have been coming out in droves to denounce the BJE, causing the administration to press the panic button.
The tension must have been such that no less than the President herself let the cat out of the bag.
True to form, the Cha-Cha drew the flaming arrows away from the BJE even as the Malacañang bright boys try to stall for time for as long as they can. Practice makes perfect and it looks like they are holding the fort respectably.
And yet, something tells us this could be the real McCoy.
With time inching closer to 2010, the fears that the Cha-Cha is nothing more than a ruse to extend the President's term seems more tantalizingly real than ever.
Like the standard denial script, the Palace dismisses the fears over the term extension trap as nothing more than a baseless fear. To prove this point, they point out that the President is not interested to hold on to power beyond 2010.
Now, there lies the problem. Except for those who have self-serving reasons to do so, few people are willing to give the President's word the benefit of the doubt. On the contrary, they hammer even more strongly on the fears this move is stoking.
Few people forget that the President had categorically declared, during the Rizal commemoration rites no less, that she would no longer be running for office in the 2004 elections.
Well, everybody knows what happens next. She not only reneged on that sacred promise before the tomb of the national hero, she in fact went on to hold on to power after being proclaimed in the most controversial election.
Since the countdown to 2010 is like a time bomb waiting to explode, time is running out on the President. While she may no longer be vulnerable to another impeachment notwithstanding the controversy on the BJE MOA, a bigger threat looms in the form of a new President taking over.
With her popularity ratings plunging deeper than any other President in Philippine history, it does not take much to realize where she would end up. She's holding on, but it seems fewer people are taking her word seriously.
That's what you get when you don't live up to your word. - Editorial, Sunday Post
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