UP ex-president wants Arroyo out, revolutionary govt in

Dr. Francisco Nemenzo, former president of the University of the Philippines (UP), slammed the administration of President Gloria Arroyo and urged the formation of a revolutionary transitional government. In a recent interview with US-based literary intellectual Epifanio San Juan Jr., Nemenzo said the Arroyo administration is in shambles, encumbered by legitimacy questions, corruption, political killings, and issues on poverty and joblessness. "As doubts of her legitimacy [as president] mount, President Arroyo and her minions are now resorting to systematic intimidation," the world-renowned educator said. According to Karapatan, a group that monitors human rights violations, as of May 15, the Arroyo administration has chalked up 863 extra-judicial executions (including 51 journalists), 196 abductions, and countless instances of brutality by its police and military agents. Nemenzo observed that extrajudicial "murders" and abductions seem to provoke more outrage abroad than in the Philippines. "They [extrajudicial killings] are being condemned by media and all leftist groups, but the public outrage is far from what the murder of Ninoy Aquino [husband of ex-president Corazon Aquino] provoked, Nemenzo said. "Even the abduction of two UP students failed to arouse the campus. Not like during the First Quarter Storm," he said. The First Quarter Storm was a tumultuous period in 1970 when students held massive protests against the Marcos administration. Because of the political, economic and leadership problems of the present administration, Nemenzo called for reforms in government itself. Quoting from a statement of Laban ng Masa, a coalition of mass organizations that Nemenzo heads, San Juan said: "We call for the creation of a revolutionary government that is unencumbered by the legal and institutional constraints that maintain elite domination. Our country needs a government with the strength and political will to enforce fundamental social reforms. Such a government is alone in any position to effect a transition from elite rule to genuine democracy." The statement also slammed liberalization, deregulation, and privatization as basic principles of "the new world economic order," or globalization adopted by the Arroyo administration, that has caused so much poverty to Filipinos. The coalition also called for genuine agrarian reform and public control over water even as it asserts the repudiation of "illegitimate debts" of past and present administrations and end to contractualization of labor, among others. Nemenzo's group also cited how the present administration made a mockery of the May 2007 elections. Kontra Daya, a network of various people's organizations that monitored the midterm polls, confirmed a report of the International Organization for Migration in its May 21 press statement that said the election "was a picture of chaos and confusions and that Filipinos could not freely and properly exercise their right to suffrage." When asked by San Juan on his assessment of overwhelming victory of the opposition senatorial bets, Nemenzo said that the result of the Senate race was clearly a repudiation of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (PGMA). But the result of the local elections cannot be used to gauge the people's political sentiments. "In mid-term elections, when the presidency is not at stake, people express their support or repudiation of the national leadership in the senatorial elections. By contrast, local elections are fought on purely local issues," Nemenzo said. Nemenzo does not think that an impeachment resolution against the President would prosper on the first year of the 14th Congress. "These scoundrels [representatives] must first recover what they spent in the last elections. In the second or third year, however, they shall have recovered their investments through graft and corruption; and they will start thinking about the next elections," he said. Because of the overwhelming vote for the opposition in the last senatorial contest, the next president, assuming there will be no Charter change, will come from the opposition. So, so they [administration lawmakers] will shift party allegiance," he added. Asked whether the party-list system could lead to political reforms, Nemenzo said" "The party list system is supposed to be a variant of proportional representation, but Congress subverted the essence of proportional representation in the implementing guidelines Paty-list Law." The so-called Panganiban formula of the Supreme Court "has forced progressive parties break up into smaller groups since no party can have more than three seats in Congress," he added. Without fundamental reforms that would change the elite-dominated politics and a change that empowers the masses, "elections will continue to provide a democratic façade for an essentially oligarchic system," Nemenzo said. He suggested that in the event that a revolutionary transition government would be established, elections should be suspended and traditional politicians should be consigned to the sideline as the new government implements its reform agenda. Luis Gorgonio, GMANews.TV