GMA back in Manila tonight, meets with US Embassy officials

Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will meet with US Embassy officials tonight upon her arrival from a 10-day official visit to South Africa, Turkey and Italy.

American officials are expected to discuss with Arroyo her plans as Vice President and opposition leader following her resignation from the Cabinet last week.

The US Embassy was said to have initiated the talks with Arroyo amid calls from some sectors for President Estrada to step down following allegations that he had received money from gambling operators.

Arroyo is expected to rally various sectors to unite and set aside personal ambitions to work for the upliftment of the nation’s interest.

But leaders of civic organizations and cause-oriented groups are expecting Arroyo to back their call for the immediate resignation of President Estrada.

Sources said if Arroyo does not "respond" to the "people’s will" to oust President Estrada, people identified with former presidents Fidel Ramos and Corazon Aquino, former rebel soldiers, and leaders of militant groups and the Communist Party of the Philippines–National Democratic Front will instigate the people to overthrow the government.

Reports said that anti-Estrada groups have been meeting secretly to map out a so-called "Oust-Erap" plot through a nationwide signature campaign.

Now said to be on the drawing board is the plot’s phase 2 or "What happens next after the ouster."

Reports said members of these groups intend to wear black wristbands with the words "Oust the Erap Regime Now!" in bold red letters.

Reports said they also plan to wage a tax boycott, work stoppage, withdraw bank deposits; and dump garbage on the steps of Congress, and in front of the houses of high government officials.

Meanwhile, Isabela Rep. Heherson Alvarez appealed to the country’s leaders yesterday to abandon partisanship and try to resolve the "moral bankruptcy that has thrown our country in turmoil."

Alvarez, who is Lakas-NUCD secretary general, said the situation calls for people’s participation "to address the national malady of unprecedented proportion that grips the nation today," and to work together "within the parameters of the Constitution" in solving the problem.

Alvarez said the public must allow the "cleansing principle of impeachment to operate fully and peacefully in the most bipartisan and unadulterated manner to serve the interest of the people with the least calculation for power and ambition."

Alvarez said he favors the filing of an impeachment case against President Estrada rather than the holding of snap elections as demanded by Sen. Raul Roco.

"I hope that when the impeachment case against President Estrada is filed, the gravity of the national constitutional cleansing process will come to a singular moment of goodwill and patriotism among our leaders that we can work together for the best interest of the nation," he said. –Liberty Dones