Friday - April 07, 2006
This is the NY Times editorial the government is now protesting.
EDITORIAL
Dark Days for Philippine
Democracy
Published: April 5,
2006
Filipinos thought they had put an end to electoral
chicanery and governmental intimidation when they overthrew the Marcos
dictatorship two decades ago. Unfortunately, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
has completely lost touch with the ideals that inspired that 1986 "people power"
movement.
Mrs. Arroyo is no Ferdinand Marcos, at least not yet.
But this onetime reformer is reviving bad memories of crony corruption,
presidential vote-rigging and intimidation of critical journalists. Unless the
Philippine Congress and courts find ways to rein in her increasingly
authoritarian tendencies, democracy itself may be in danger.
This was not the outcome people expected five years
ago when Mrs. Arroyo, then the vice president, was swept into power on a wave of
popular discontent with her discredited predecessor, Joseph Estrada. In those
days, Mrs. Arroyo, a professional economist, was seen as an earnest reformer.
She won further credit by pledging not to run for a new six-year term in
2004.
But then she changed her mind, and her style of
government as well. Her narrow re-election victory became tainted after a tape
revealed her discussing her vote totals with an election commissioner while
ballots were still being counted. She survived an impeachment attempt over that
incident. But she was forced to send her husband into exile over charges that he
took bribes from gambling syndicates.
Earlier this year she briefly declared a state of
emergency in response to allegations of a coup threat that others disputed.
Since then she has been intensifying pressure on a wide range of political
critics and especially on the press. Government officials have warned news
outlets that they will be held to restrictive new guidelines, the justice
secretary talks darkly about a journalistic watch list, and the staff members of
a well-known center for investigative journalism have been threatened with
sedition charges. No Philippine government has made such efforts to muzzle the
press since the Marcos era.
President Bush has repeatedly hailed Mrs. Arroyo as an
important ally against international terrorism. He now needs to warn her that by
undermining a hard-won democracy, she is making her country far more vulnerable
to terrorist pressures.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/05/opinion/05wed4.html