Arroyo Proposes New Constitution

MANILA —  Battling to save her administration, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo cast herself as a radical constitutional reformer Monday and blamed her country’s political system for endemic corruption that has also stained her time in office.

“Over the years, our political system has degenerated to the extent that it is difficult for anyone to make any headway yet keep his hands clean,” Arroyo, 58, said in her annual state of the nation address to an audience heavily weighted with supporters. “Perhaps we politicians have done our best. But maybe our best is not enough given the present system.”

Arroyo said she favored a constitutional makeover that would replace the U.S.-style political system with a parliamentary system. She also called for turning the country into a federation by diminishing the power of the central government in Manila. Such major changes would require new elections and would shorten Arroyo’s term, which has five years remaining.

Her opponents described the proposal as an effort to divert attention from the gathering storm of fraud and graft allegations against her.

The president’s speech came just hours after the opposition filed a motion in the House of Representatives calling for her impeachment. A third of the 236 members must vote in favor of the motion within 60 days to send the complaint to the Senate for a trial.

Contending that Arroyo “stole, cheated and lied” to stay in office, the motion accuses her, among other things, of using the police and military to rig the vote count in the May 2004 election that returned her to office.

It also contends that Arroyo family members have pocketed payoffs from an illegal gambling scheme.

The opposition acknowledges it lacks the 79 votes needed to trigger a trial, and there was a sense within the political establishment that Arroyo might have found some breathing space.

“President Arroyo’s speech bought her time,” said Julius Fortuna, political analyst and newspaper columnist. “Her image changed: no more a stubborn leader clinging to power but one willing to sacrifice several years of her term for a better form of government that would at the same time grant more powers to provincial governors and town and city mayors.”

Arroyo drew a standing ovation for her praise of local politicians, who have become a crucial power base for her survival. They attended the speech in greater-than-usual numbers.

The president’s supporters maintain that much of the hostility toward her is centered in the hothouse atmosphere of Manila, where opposition politicians and the media have created a sense of panic.

“It is time to change the way that government is done,” she said to loud applause. “People want good government that begins at their doorstep ... and does not end before the closed door of a bureaucrat in metro Manila. Perhaps it is time to take power from the center to the countryside that feeds it.”

The battle comes at a perilous time for the Philippine economy, which has been battered by high interest payments on its debt coupled with the shock of paying record-high prices for imported oil.

The country’s international credit rating has tumbled as the political follies have worsened.

Many of the calls for Arroyo to resign have come from those who fear that the combination of a protracted impeachment process and a national effort to overhaul the constitution will distract the government from unpopular but essential fiscal repairs.

“The charges against Mrs. Arroyo are very serious,” said Sen. Panfilo Lacson, one of the leading contenders to replace Arroyo. “We need to debate on these charges and settle the issues against her before Congress and the nation plunge into discussions on government changes and constitutional reforms.”

But political disputes in the Philippines are often settled on the streets. Opposition forces have not been able to generate crowds to match the tens of thousands who came out to help overthrow presidents Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada in 2001.

But on Monday, the largest crowd yet, estimated by police to number about 35,000, showed up for a mostly peaceful anti-Arroyo protest that security forces kept far away from Congress.

Arroyo has insisted she will not quit. The president has already issued an informal legal rebuttal to the charges against her, and has remained defiant even as her husband and son fled into “voluntary exile” in the United States last month after being implicated in corruption hearings.

“Gloria’s got guts, you have to give her that,” said Imelda Marcos, the widow of President Marcos, a political opponent of Arroyo’s father, Diosdado Macapagal, who preceded Marcos as president in the 1960s. “She is going to be a lot harder to get out of the [presidential] palace than her father.”