Walden Bello Scores Gloria Arroyo

The once mighty Gloria Arroyo, now a representative of Pampanga was reproached without mercy and respect by Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello. It’s good that the controversial former president was not present when Bello was speaking otherwise if she were not in the pink of health, she might have been put into a stretcher bound for a medical help.

Piecing together the salient points of Bello’s speech, he said that:

“[H]e shared the public’s disgust with the Arroyo administration’s orgiastic compensation, brazen manipulation of government agencies and funds for political purposes, and massive waste of the people’s money. . . If the subordinates of the GMA administration behaved like pigs, if the people there behaved like crocodiles, this is because they had a good example of corruption on top . . . They had a good model at the top, and this was a model not only in corruption and plunder but a model on how to behave with impunity and subvert democratic institutions.”

The honest words from Bello’s mouth are so biting that a pig cooling off in the mud or rubbished dog cannot eat. If Filipinos are given a chance to vent their views like Bello on the kind of president Arroyo was, some are even more lethal and down to earth than Bello’s.

Widespread agreement among local and foreign political observers says that Arroyo is the most unpopular president since Marcos. Comparing the former dictator with then Pres. Arroyo, former Sen. Jovito Salonga, one of the few respected politicians said that he saw Marcos in her. As on what grounds, Salonga could have mean the face of graft and corruption, patronage politics, political manipulation, disrespect of human rights, misgovernment and abuse of power. Senate president Juan Ponce Enrile sees differently. He believes that the scandals blighting the Arroyo government were rooted from wrong or miscalculated advice the president received.

Once the most powerful person in the country, it is very sad that she is now treated like a scum bag even inside the sacred halls of Congress. If she does not deserve such treatment, his colleagues would not be that short-tempered at her. On the other end, Arroyo may self-appease in believing that she only did her best to serve.

Reality is not on her side.

Hopefully, Arroyo is the last president to be ridiculed, jeered and sneered. She should  be the last head of state who took for granted her constituents, the dignity of the presidency and the rule of law. Her refusal to be interviewed by the press should be a sign of regret on what were done while in office but silence can also be a sign of defiance. Whatever the real case may be, Mrs. Arroyo is a defeated person down on her knees for her recklessness and arrogance while in power. Should she want to be free from the torments of remorse if she reaches that point, she must find courage to tell the truth when asked. Truth will set her free.

While Bello is eager to wait for that day “so that she can be transported from (the) august chamber (Congress) to the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa, where she belongs,” Mrs. Arroyo must acknowledge that power and prestige come and go.

Her turn is up. -30-