Pagbabago@Pilipinas Press Release

pagbabago@pilipinas
PRESS RELEASE

Reference: Bart Guingona, pagbabago@pilipinas President
Tel. No. 751-7647

PRESIDENT Arroyo must act directly and immediately to avert the crisis of credibility besetting her presidency and her government, a multi-sectoral group of young professionals said yesterday.

They also called on members of the Arroyo Cabinet to convince the President to face the issues raised by the so-called “Gloriagate” tapes and respond to the Filipino people’s demand for the truth.

In a statement entitled “Our people demand their leader to be accountable: Did the President cheat in the May 2004 elections?” members of Pagbabago@Pilipinas asserted that the “onus for action” rests entirely on the President to either disprove the authenticity of the tapes and therefore reinforce her legitimacy as President, or, failing that, act on the consequences of having been proved to be occupying a post “she had no moral right to occupy.”

The accusations contained in the tapes “are too gross, blatant and disgusting to be ignored or forgotten,” the statement added. The Arroyo administration’s legitimacy “cannot be defended by mere legality about the inadmissibility of these tapes…(and) certainly…not by threats of arrest or prosecution because such efforts would only appear like bullying people whom she is unable to convince.”

As to the President’s raising the need to concentrate on more urgent priorities like the economy and poverty reduction, Pagbabago@Pilipinas said “the quickest and most effective path to our people’s unified and focused action on these problems” is precisely by “promptly and definitively (laying) this controversy to rest with the truth and nothing but the truth.”

“This is a time for accountability and only the truth will matter to the people’s judgment,” Pagbabago@Pilipinas concluded.