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THE
Pulse Asia survey on corruption was commissioned by
antiadministration personalities as a means of throwing
“body punches” at President Arroyo after failed attempts
to unseat her, Malacañang said on Wednesday.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said in his weekly
news conference that the commissioning of such surveys,
which showed the President as perceived to be the most
corrupt Chief Executive since the Marcos regime, could
be part of efforts to destabilize the administration.
Asked
whether the Pulse Asia survey was commissioned to
destabilize the government, Ermita said: “I think so. In
boxing, we call this body punching. It’s a good thing
that our contender has a strong constitution. That which
they cannot do through straight punching, they try to do
by body punching.”
In the
Senate, senators are not ready to give up on President
Arroyo, saying she still has time to expunge prevailing
public perception that hers is the “most corrupt”
administration.
Opposition Sen. Loren Legarda suggested that Mrs. Arroyo
devote the rest of her term to “erase the ignominious
tag as the Philippines’ ‘most corrupt’ President.”
She
acknowledged that President Arroyo is blamed for all the
corruption happening under her administration because
the buck stops at her doorstep.
“The
only way for her to remove this stigma is by really
going all out against corruption, no matter if [the]
people close to her are prosecuted for graft and other
corrupt practices.”
Legarda
said “inaction” on the part of the President on the
reported corrupt activities of people known to be close
to her may have triggered the adverse perception.
Sen. Mar
Roxas advised Mrs. Arroyo not to shrug off the findings
of the Pulse Asia survey. Instead, he added, the
President must work toward reversing how the people
perceive the government’s sincerity in this key
governance issue.
For a
start, he said, the Arroyo administration can walk the
talk and show firm resolve against corruption by
releasing Neda-ICC documents requested by Senate probers
on the national broadband network project, so the public
could see how their government approved this major
project.
Roxas
suggested that Malacañang bring home fugitive former
Agriculture undersecretary Joc-Joc Bolante to face graft
charges in connection with the P700 million fertilizer
fund scam.
Mrs.
Arroyo, he said, could also cancel all foreign loans
associated with questionable big-ticket projects,
including those for the equally controversial
P25-billion cyber-education project to be funded by
another China loan deal.
For Sen.
Panfilo Lacson, the response of Malacañang to the
corruption survey could be made “only in the
Philippines.”
“In
other societies, such widespread indictment would be
enough to make a leader resign. In Mrs. Arroyo’s case,
it further fuels her motivation to work for the
extension of her term via Charter change. Only in the
Philippines,” Lacson said.
Lacson
said it is high time the Palace stopped skirting the
issue by casting aspersions on the survey, noting
“survey after survey after survey” had shown Mrs. Arroyo
and her administration to be mired in corruption.
But
administration Sen. Miriam Santiago said she intends to
file a resolution seeking an inquiry not just into the
latest Pulse Asia survey “but also on all other major
survey firms that have their results published in the
media.”
“I would
like to know who pays for these surveys. I am not buying
the claim that these surveys are not commissioned. Who
is funding them? You cannot just conduct a professional
scientific survey without funding. So how come these
survey firms claim that they are not commissioned? Do
you really mean to tell me that a private commercial
company, meaning to say a profit company, will take the
bother and expense of taking a survey and losing money
for the effort just to gain a headline? That does not
make business sense,” Santiago told reporters.
Press
Secretary Ignacio Bunye joined the chorus in defending
the President, saying the administration has stepped up
its fight against corruption, leading to convictions.
“This
proves that this is something we’re not sweeping under
the rug....We would like to state bluntly that the
President is taking concrete steps against corruption,”
Bunye said.
Referring to the Pulse survey, Bunye said the 1,200
respondents interviewed for the poll could not represent
the country’s 84-million population.
“Out of
84 million Filipinos, only 1,200 were in the survey.
That is a very small percentage to dictate what is
really happening in our country,” Bunye said.
Ermita,
once an amateur boxer, said that antiadministration
groups tried to engage the President in “real boxing”
when they tried to topple her administration in 2003, in
2006 and last month in the Manila Peninsula Hotel siege.
“If they
cannot do what they would like to do through direct
intervention in that manner as they know that they have
no support, they are doing it through this [survey] to
weaken the resolve of the leadership,” he said. |
