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Philippines leader
should toe the mark
amid political crisis

THE ISSUE Charges of election-rigging and corruption threaten Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's presidency.

WHAT began as buzz on the Philippines' coconut wireless has escalated into a full-blown political crisis for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Arroyo received a lift last weekend when as many as 120,000 people assembled in a Manila park in her support, but her difficulties have not come to an end. She must address allegations of corruption aggressively to continue in office.

Arroyo, a U.S.-educated economist, was elected in May 2004 over popular movie star Fernando Poe Jr., a high school dropout with no political experience beyond his friendship with fellow actor Joseph Estrada, who was forced from the presidency in 2001. Arroyo, who had been elected vice-president independently of Estrada, filled out the remainder of his term and was elected last year to her first full and only six-year term allowed under Philippine law.

It took until two months ago for the surfacing of a rumor construing a taped phone conversation between an elections official and Arroyo leading up to the balloting as a plot to manipulate votes. Arroyo has apologized for her "lapse of judgment" but insists she wanted only to protect her votes, not rig the election.

Joseph Mussomeli, charge d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Manila, says he supports "the rule of law," and that is a strategy that could benefit Arroyo. The taped conversation may be barred from consideration in impeachment proceedings because it was wiretapped illegally by an opposition lawyer who has been suspended by the Supreme Court.

Arroyo has said she will investigate the wiretapping. She also went less than a full a step further, ordering a "full and transparent investigation" into allegations that her son and brother-in-law received payoffs in a popular and illegal numbers game called jueteng, from which Estrada allegedly received bribes. No mention was made of her husband, who also has been accused of taking jueteng bribes; Arroyo has said her husband "voluntarily" has gone to the United States to escape the controversy.

Eleven members of Arroyo's cabinet have resigned since the scandal arose. Corazon Aquino, elected president in 1986 after being a key figure in the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos and who led the opposition to Estrada, has called for Arroyo's resignation. The influential Catholic Bishops Conference did not demand that she step down but called this month for a "truth commission" and "an impeachment case."

To complicate things further, Fernando Poe Jr. died of a stroke seven months after the election, and the vice president, former television anchor Noli de Castro, is probably not up to the task of filling the top job. No smooth transition appears likely, leaving open the terrible possibility of a military coup.

Fidel Ramos, a popular former president, has suggested a constitutional change to a parliamentary system, with Arroyo serving as a caretaker president in the meantime. That might be preferable to her facing five long years as a lame duck or, more likely, being overthrown by force.

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