11/20/2009
President Arroyo has finally stepped down, not from the Philippine presidency but only as administration Lakas-Kampi party leader as she relinquished her post as national chairman while handing over the reins of the party’s top leadership to resigned Defense Chief Gilbert “Gibo Teodoro, the ruling party’s standard bearer who has chosen, as his running mate, TV game show host, Eduardo “Edu” Manzano.Arroyo, however, offered no clues on her future political plans amid talk she may seek a seat in Congress.
Her son, Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo, in an interview, said he was unsure about running for the same seat, giving more fodder for strong speculation that it will be his mother who will be running for his seat in 2010.
Arroyo, whose six-year presidency, tainted with allegations of graft, ends next year, urged her party to rally behind Teodoro.
“I am relinquishing (my post) today as national chairman and handing over the reins of the party’s top leadership to the brilliant, young standard bearer selected by our national executive committee, Gilbert Teodoro,” Arroyo told some 3,000 members of the Lakas-Kampi-CMD coalition.
in her speech, she said that the administration party has the biggest and strongest political machinery and influence among local leaders that were able to transcend generations.
“Our party is the dominant party of our generation. Our party has been the largest political party in the country for 15 of the last 17 years,” she said.
“We were a coalition of Lakas-Kampi-CMD. Now, this coalition is a full-fledged national political party. The Commission on Elections has upheld the validity of our merger. We have successfully hurdled the legal challenges thrown our way by those whose personal interests were prejudiced by the merger. It is now time to consolidate our ranks and fortify our party for the electoral battle ahead,” Arroyo said.
Media have speculated that Arroyo will run for Congress in the May 2010 vote to win a temporary reprieve against possible corruption charges that the opposition has threatened to launch against her.
In 2001, then vice president Arroyo took the remaining three years in office of elected president Joseph Estrada when he was tried by an impeachment court for corruption and later deposed in a coup.
She won a full six-year term in 2004 in elections marred by allegations of widespread fraud.
A victory by Teodoro, it is said, would give Arroyo an extra layer of protection from her enemies. However his popularity rating remains low amid defections that have hit the coalition in recent days.
Arroyo on Thursday described the presidential campaign as “a big and arduous task. But our party has been challenged many times before and has won,” she said.
“May each and every party leader, and each and every grassroots member, work hard and work together for the victory of our standard bearer and all our party’s candidates in 2010,” she said.
Taking a cue from his television game show, the administration’s vice presidential bet Manzano beamed his famous catchphrase “Game na!” to the more than 3,000 party officials and members at the jam-packed Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) formalizing his team-up with administration standard bearer Gibo Teodoro.
All of the party’s regional chairmen, representing a total of 11,618 elected officials nationwide, pledged support for the Teodoro-Manzano tandem and work to ensure the victory of all administration candidates.
Arroyo beckoned her partymates to further strengthen the party and make the present Lakas-Kampi-CMD a party of the future.
“Let’s transform Lakas-Kampi-CMD of the present to become the party of the future,” she said.
During the two-hour event, the party approved four National Council resolutions, including two resolutions nominating Teodoro and Manzano as official presidential and vice-presidential candidates.
It also approved the resolution ratifying the new charter and by-laws of the merger and the resolution naming the new set of officials of the party.
Teodoro was named the new national chairman, replacing Arroyo, who is now the party’s president emeritus. The new vice-chairmen are Manzano and Misamis Oriental Gov. Oscar Moreno.
The party also proclaimed Saranggani Gov. Miguel Dominguez as its new president and Francis Xavier Manglapus, son of former foreign affairs secretary Raul Manglapus, as secretary-general.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, former party president, was designated as chairman of the National Advisory Board, which would have Speaker Prospero Nograles, Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno and Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs Gabriel Claudio as members.
The ruling party, however, has yet to announce its line-up of senatorial candidates.
In his acceptance speech, Teodoro vowed to “shake up Malacañang”, adding he is prepared to continue what the Arroyo administration has started.
“Watch us on May 10, 2010. The winnders of the elections will be Gibo Teodoro at Edu Manzano,” Teodoro said as he vowed to continue to “serve the people in the context of a peaceful Filipino society built on the rule of law that enables every citizen to pursue his dreams and renders to each citizen what is his due.
“Justice is the cornerstone of a progressive society and the state shall pursue a rights-based development. Sustainable development can only commence and only continue unless it is based on the rights of citizens and the dignity of persons,” he added.
A Harvard-educated and bar topnotcher, Teodoro said he will make sure that poor families will have a direct share of the annual income to ensure that their children complete basic education and access to tertiary education.
Under his watch, Teodoro said indigent families will be automatically and universally covered by state health insurance and shall pay no excess fees for their healthcare and hospitalization.
He said he will also work for the development of a social market economy and pursue economic growth by empowering the people.
“We shall educate more citizens to become entrepreneurs so that their enterprises shall provide the engine for productivity in our economy. We shall enable small business access to capital and credit so that profitable enterprises may provide opportunities for livelihood for the population,” Teodoro said.
Manzano, for his part, took a swipe at his detractors in his speech accepting the vice-presidential nomination, saying he is aware that many have raised their eyebrows after he announced that he had accepted the invitation to be Teodoro’s running-mate.
“In questioning my qualifications for the vice presidency simply because of one of my professions, my detractors virtually made a wholesale condemnation of those in the entertainment industry as being unfit and incapable of providing competent leadership to our people,” Manzano said.
“What they probably do not realize is that in effect, they also question the intellectual capacity of everyday Filipinos to decide who their leaders should be,”he stressed.
Meanwhile, the presidential son belittled the effect of party members bolting the administration party and belied Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri’s claim of some 40 percent of Lakas members bolting the party and joining two other parties, noting the number of incumbent officials who showed up at the PICC, saying those who stay with them outnumber those who have left them.
“Look at all the people here, everyone is seated, everyone has a mandate. And everyone here is firm, not flighty,” said the younger Arroyo.
“There maybe some members who have decided to join other parties but then there are many who have also joined us. Unfortunately, the ones being highlighted are the ones who left Lakas-Kampi and not those who have joined us,” said the presidential son.
But with most of their strongest and popular allies lately figuring in an exodus to other political parties, the administration party’s chances of keeping its administrative clout are now trimmed to mere hopes that the same campaign strategy they employed in 2004 national elections will work again.
Party elder and Palace chief aide Ermita broadly hinted yesterday that they can only wish for a more consolidated force for their coalition especially in the regions of Visayas and Mindanao where there are plenty of voters.
“Presidential candidate Gibo will have to go to Mindanao consolidate the forces in Mindanao so that we can make certain that the advantage in Mindanao will still grow and most especially in the Visayas region which covered most of President Arroyo’s lead in 2004,”Ermita said during a chance interview right after Lakas-Kampi CMD’s National Convention.
“By way of strategy, of course, we will check on areas where voters can be consolidated by the party for the candidates of Lakas-Kampi CMD and so we will not be focusing that much in Luzon but we will go to Visayas and Mindanao,” Ermita said.
Ermita, however, failed to mention whether “Hello Garci” scenarios from 2005 which had Mrs. Arroyo figuring in an outrageous vote-rigging controversy might make a repeat.
Ermita only implied in his answers that thus far, only consolidation efforts among stalwarts and members of their party, from the national level gown to local government units, served as clear manifestation insofar as strategic plans are concerned.
On the defections of Lakas members, Ermita said that these are part of the political realities they have to accept, having described those that jumped ship as “like dogs that are determined to escape” from their leash. With AFP
Source: http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/20091120hed1.html
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