Group to Arroyo: Do a Musharraf, resign

MANILA, Philippines - Leaders of the fisherfolk alliance Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) on Monday asked President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to follow the footsteps of controversial Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf who resigned on Monday after nine years in power to avoid the threat of impeachment. “President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo is Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf trapped in a woman’s body. She should resign like her male counterpart in Pakistan to allow the Filipino people to recover scores of high crimes like political killings, rated A corruption and class A puppetry," Pamalakaya national chair Fernando Hicap said in a statement. In an emotional televised address, President Musharraf on Monday said he decided to resign because of his assessment of the present situation and upon the advice of his legal advisers and political allies. The former army chief, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999 was under heavy pressure from the governing coalition to step down before it launched the first impeachment proceedings since 1947. In November 2007, Musharraf imposed a state of emergency to force his re-election to another five-year term through the Supreme Court, but his so-called fresh mandate is threatened by the dominance of the opposition who won majority of the seats in Pakistani parliament, and capable of throwing him out of power. Hicap said like the Pakistani President, Mrs. Arroyo does not enjoy the support of the majority of the people and the country’s military and police. Hicap said like Musharraf, President Arroyo is accused of many counts of high crimes of corruption, election irregularities, crimes against humanity that stemmed from political killings and grave human rights abuses committed by the military and police loyal to Malacañang, gross violation and desecration of the 1987 Constitution and grave abuse of power and misconduct. “Musharraf is to Pakistan as to Arroyo is to the Philippines. That’s one way of correctly addressing this political equation," Pamalakaya said. The militant group also refused to buy the statement of Malacañang that President Arroyo is going to step down in 2010 and that she was only after a surgical amendment to the 1987 Constitution to allow the proposed creation of 11 federal states including the Bangsamoro homeland. “Once the charter is open for revision, Arroyo and her loyal congressmen and senators will seize the opportunity to cannibalize the reactionary charter and make it worse to the advantage of power obsessed President and her equally power starved allies in the Senate and House of Representatives," Pamalakaya warned. - GMANews.TV