Arroyo party becoming a sinking ship, critics saySOPHIA M. DEDACE, GMANews.TV
08/18/2009 | 06:38 PM
Amid President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's record-low popularity ratings, partymates and allies are leaving what is "already a sinking ship."
"If President Arroyo would ask me now, I would tell her... the rats will abandon your sinking ship," political analyst Joel Rocamora, executive director of the Institute for Popular Democracy, told GMANews.TV on Tuesday.
At least five Palace officials and Arroyo partymates have severed their ties with the administration coalition Lakas-Kampi-CMD over the last few weeks.
On August 11, Ralph Recto resigned as socio-economic planning secretary and director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority. He hinted he would seek to regain his Senate post, which he lost in the 2007 polls under Arroyo’s Team Unity (TU).
On August 12, Anthony Golez, Jr. and actor Cesar Montano took their oath as members of the Nationalist People’s Coalition. Golez is Arroyo’s deputy spokesperson. Montano lost in his senatorial bid in 2007 under TU.
On August 16, national security adviser Norberto Gonzales announced that his party, Partido Demokratiko Sosyalista ng Pilipinas, was breaking away from the administration coalition.
A day later, former President Fidel Ramos refused to become Lakas-Kampi-CMD’s chairman emeritus. He chose to hold the same post only under Lakas-CMD. He claimed that the merging of Lakas and the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino was done in haste.
Kampi president and Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte was the first Arroyo ally who defected from the coalition. Last May, Villafuerte left Kampi after voicing his opposition to the merger.
Rocamora said the departure had nothing to do with the credibility of the merger, but with Mrs. Arroyo’s declining influence.
“I think this is about (Arroyo) becoming a lame duck," said Rocamora, adding that the loss of her partymates would cripple her moves to perpetuate herself in power after 2010.
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