The President Should Resign Now!
Sen. Nene Pimentel, Jr.
June 9, 2005
FOR THE SAKE OF THE NATION, THE PRESIDENT SHOULD NOW CONSIDER RESIGNING.
THE REASONS ARE CLEAR:
1. SHE HAS NO CREDIBILITY LEFT IN HER WHOLE BODY FROM HEAD TO TOE.
2. SHE HAS EXHAUSTED WHATEVER MORAL ASCENDANCY SHE HAD SINCE SHE REPLACED
ERAP.
3. HER EDSA 2 ALLIES HAVE LEFT OR ARE LEAVING HER.
I. NO MORE CREDIBILITY
(A) The jueteng scandal has reached the ramparts of Malacanang. While
there is no direct evidence as yet linking her to jueteng, the web
of evidence is fast closing in on her. Witness Sandra Cam told ABS-CBN
that she personally handed over jueteng money to the presidential
son, Mikey, and the presidential brother-in-law, Iggy Arroyo.
(B) The smoking gun on the presidential election fraud that Sec.
Bunye provided consisting of the “original” (Bunye’s
words) and the “spliced” tapes demolished whatever claims
to legality she has to her new electoral “mandate” arising
from the 2004 election.
II. NO MORAL ASCENDANCY
With a credibility rating several notches below zero, with corruption
snapping at her heels and with a clearly questionable electoral mandate,
the President no longer has any right to claim that she has the integrity
or the moral ascendancy to continue sitting as the President.
III. NO LONGER IN CONTROL
Now, corruption in pandemic proportions distorts official transactions
and private lives. Criminality rides rampant on the streets of the
land.
To the man on the street, the economy is turning for the worse. Prices
of basic commodities, oil products, electricity and water, among other
things, are rising with VAT costs threatening to cause their further
spiral.
The President’s allies are abandoning or have already abandoned
her. A quick glance at the pictures of her most recent visitors at
the Palace shows that some of her allies who really count are no longer
there. Even her print, radio and television now give full play to
the anomalies that render her continued occupancy of Malacanang an
imminent threat to the national interest.
All this adds up to the spreading belief that the President is no
longer in control of the levers of governance.
IV. THE SOLUTION
There are three possible solutions:
1. Another People Power revolution. In my mind, this is not a good
solution. Too frequent a resort to people power revolutions diminishes
their moral force and suasion.
2. A bloody upheaval. In my mind, this is no option. Revolution often
devours its sons and daughters and does not ensure good government
even after the loss of so many lives.
A coup d’tat is likewise not a good idea. Military juntas –
that coups create - tend to prolong military rules that often end
up more disastrous to the nation than the civilian rules they replace.
3. New elections for President and Vice President.
Under the Constitution, the terms of office of the both the President
and the Vice President are fixed – six years.
They cannot be removed from office except by impeachment.
Impeachment is problematic as Erap’s showed.
The most expedient – and constitutional way - for the President
to get out of the mess she has put herself and the country into is
to resign. Unfortunately, the Vice President may also have to resign.
They were both elected under questionable circumstances.
Once they resign, the Senate President becomes acting president.
And his duty is to call for elections to fill up the vacancies in
the offices of the President and Vice President.
I favor the holding of new elections for the Presidency and Vice
Presidency as the most feasible thing to be done under the circumstances.
The country cannot go leaderless even for a week, much less for the
next five years.
I suggest that there is no honorable course of action left for the
President and the Vice President to take than to resign now to clear
the way for the holding of new elections for the presidency where
the incumbent vice president has every right to contend with others
for the office.
