GMA to allies in Congress: Help me protect presidency

With the opposition stepping up its campaign to gather more signatures to impeach her, President Arroyo asked several pro-administration lawmakers yesterday to help her protect the presidency.

Over palabok and other snacks, the President met with several administration lawmakers in batches — including 12 congressmen from Bicol, Davao and Metro Manila — for about three hours from 1 p.m. during which she gently broached the issue of the ongoing impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives while discussing other matters with them.

Other administration lawmakers from Pampanga, Negros Oriental and Pangasinan also came to Malacañang. The meetings were apparently so important to Mrs. Arroyo that she canceled at the last minute a scheduled public engagement in Malabon City with local officials yesterday morning.

Cabinet Officer for Public Engagements Secretary Conrado Limcaoco said the President canceled her Malabon activity to "attend to pressing matters."

"That’s something we should not speculate on," Limcaoco said.

Sorsogon Rep. Jose Solis, the latest to signify his intention to add his signature to the opposition’s impeachment complaint, was among those present in the meeting.

"She (Mrs. Arroyo) casually asked how the impeachment proceedings were going, and she told us there were some slight problems after some of ‘our friends’ (in the House majority bloc) signed (the impeachment complaint)," Solis told reporters after the meeting.

While Mrs. Arroyo did not directly ask them to resist pressure from the opposition to sign the impeachment complaint, the implied message was not lost on them, he said.

Solis said the President had already called him up in the morning and asked him whether the news reports that he was planning to sign the complaint were true.

"I was asked (over the telephone): ‘How true is this?’ And I said the voting is still far off and they (the opposition) are pestering me," said Solis, a member of Mrs. Arroyo’s Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (KAMPI) party.

He said he thought the President might ask him to stay with the administration in exchange for something, but she did not. If Mrs. Arroyo was worried about the developments in the impeachment proceedings, she did not show it, Solis said.

Solis said Antipolo Rep. Ronaldo Puno, KAMPI president, invited him to the Palace for the meeting along with other lawmakers.

Among those present, he said, were Reps. Luis Villafuerte of Camarines Sur and Rodolfo Bacani of Manila. Earlier in the day, Reps. Corazon Malanyaon of Davao Oriental, Consuelo Dy of Pasay City, Arrel Olaño of Davao del Norte and Manuel Zamora of Compostela Valley also reportedly met with the President.

A ranking administration lawmaker told The STAR that the meetings were meant to shore up the majority bloc’s support for Mrs. Arroyo.

"The impeachment was, of course, discussed but this was really more for reinforcement," the House leader said. He admitted, though, that some of those present shared their gripes with the President over the slow release of infrastructure funds.

"Some of their public works allocations for 2004 have not yet been released," he noted.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Arroyo’s spokesman for the impeachment process said her lawyers are not worried over reports the opposition is successfully persuading more congressmen to add their signatures to the impeachment complaint.

Lawyer Romulo Macalintal said the additional signatures have "no effect" because the complaint has not reached the required 79 signatures for an immediate impeachment and trial at the Senate.

"Politics is really like that, sometimes you add, sometimes you subtract," Macalintal told The STAR. "You should admit reality in politics."

He said there is nothing wrong with either side exerting efforts to secure more signatures or blocking moves to do so.

"We will match their efforts," Macalintal said.

Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye belied reports that Mrs. Arroyo was rushing to kill the impeachment complaint in the House committee on justice before she leaves for a state visit to Saudi Arabia and an official visit to the United States. — Paolo Romero