Opposition parties to unite for Estrada's impeachment

The fragmented opposition aims to close ranks in a move to capture the congressional majority in next year's elections and vigorously push their impeachment bid against President Estrada.

Meanwhile, the opposition Lakas-NUCD party will let Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo decide whether to stay in President Estrada's Cabinet or quit.

Lakas-NUCD leaders headed by former President Fidel Ramos met yesterday to consolidate its forces for the 2001 local and congressional polls.

The caucus came on the heels of a demand by Senate Minority Leader Teofisto Guingona Jr. for the President to step down and call for snap presidential election.

"Let us win it big in the 2001 elections. If we are the majority, then we have an impeachment mechanism," Ramos told his partymates.

A Lakas leader who requested anonymity said Ramos was against the formation of a third force because it would only ensure Mr. Estrada's continued stay in the presidency.

The source also said during the meeting, Guingona complained he felt abandoned and alone in his call for Mr. Estrada's resignation, but brightened up when partymates signed a resolution committing their continued trust and confidence in him as Lakas-NUCD president.

Lakas-NUCD spokesman Hernando Perez has said they were negotiating with other opposition leaders such as former presidential candidates Renato de Villa and Lito Osmeña for a strategic alliance of forces.

De Villa, who failed to get Ramos' annointment to his presidenial bid in May 1998, left Lakas and formed his own Reporma Party.

The source said Ramos himself was talking to Osmeña, another loser in the 1998 polls against Mr. Estrada to join the united opposition. Osmeña under his own Probinsiya Muna Development Initiative (Promdi) party.

Perez added that they were also inviting Sen. Raul Roco, head of the Aksyon Demokratiko, to join the alliance.

However, Perez ruled out the possibility of a multi-party merger, saying it might create "too many superstars."

"We have agreed to let her resolve for herself this crucial issue," House Deputy Minority Leader Sergio Apostol (Lakas, Leyte) told reporters yesterday after the meeting of the Lakas executive committee which he attended.

He said the meeting focused on the issue of whether the Vice President, who is titular head of Lakas, should quit the Cabinet and lead the opposition or stay in the President's official family.

"We won't influence her one way or the other," Apostol said.

But Ramos told his colleagues at the meeting that they cannot impose on the Vice President but they can help her make the right decision.

"When GMA decides, let's help her choose that precise point (cross over point)," a source who attended the meeting quoted Ramos as saying.

Besides being Lakas' titular head, Arroyo also chairs its executive committee. She did not preside over yesterday's meeting because she is still abroad.

In her absence, it was party president and Senate Minority Leader Teofisto Guingona Jr. who led the discussion on whether she should quit or stay in the Cabinet.

Besides Guingona, Apostol and Ramos, those who attended the meeting were Senators Rene Cayetano, Robert Barbers and Loren Legarda, and Representatives Heherson Alvarez of Isabela, the party's secretary general, Juan Miguel Zubiri of Bukidnon, Prospero Pichay Jr. of Surigao del Sur, Hernani Braganza of Pangasinan, and Ignacio Bunye of Muntinlupa.

Arroyo has come under pressure from administration officials to give up her social welfare post after Guingona and Perez, a former Batangas congressman, asked the President to resign and call a snap election.

These officials suspect that Arroyo had a hand in such proposal since she would be the beneficiary of the proposed resignation of the President.

They said if Mr. Estrada resigns, it would be the Vice President who will succeed him.

She has to decide if she's in or out, Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora has said.

In an interview, Perez said Arroyo told him that her stay in the Cabinet depends entirely on the President. But, if ever she is made to choose, she will choose to stay with Lakas.

"She wants to concentrate on her job in the Cabinet. She will remain there unless the President tells her otherwise," he said.

"If she is asked to choose, then she will choose Lakas," Perez added, at the same time expressing confidence that Arroyo will not abandon the group in favor of President Estrada's LAMP party.

Young congressmen belonging to Lakas have been telling reporters privately that they would prefer that Arroyo quit the Cabinet and lead the opposition.

"She cannot be our leader while serving as member of Mr. Estrada's Cabinet. She cannot continue straddling between the opposition and the administration," one Lakas lawmaker, who did not want to be identified, said.

He said the opposition was being called a headless chicken principally because its titular head was part of the President's official family.

However, the merger of Arroyo's Kampi and Lakas never officially pushed through.

Zubiri said they would not relent on their mandate as fiscalizer of the Estrada government. "The administration can't expect us to be silent," he said.

In another development, a 59-year-old woman claiming to be the president of a cause-oriented group called People Power II Movement, filed an impeachment plea against Mr. Estrada before the House of Representatives.

In a talk with some congressmen and reporters, Corazon Pecho-Valenzuela also cited a litany of alleged sins of the Estrada administration.

She also handed out copies of her resolution.

Valenzuela, in a letter to Speaker Manuel Villar Jr., claimed Mr. Estrada should be ousted because his administration was not for the welfare of the Filipino people."

She listed as among the President's alleged faults as: failure to implement properly the Agrarian Reform Law, the Fort Bonifacio land sale, the Amari land deal, Best World stock scandal, fund mess at the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, former Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno's involvement in an anomalous transaction, anomalous purchase of fire trucks and pardon of priest killer Eduardo Manero Jr.