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Arroyo impeachment bid fails

P. S. Suryanarayana

Opposition vows to take up the issue to apex court

SINGAPORE: The Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Tuesday survived an impeachment move by a huge margin and debunked the politics of "people power" which had brought her to office in the first place.

The Opposition vowed to fight back by taking Ms. Arroyo's alleged "electoral fraud" to the apex court and by mobilising public opinion more vigorously.

She acknowledged that "the Opposition put up a good fight" and that she would now offer her "hand of reconciliation, for the national interest."

Even as the former President, Corazon Aquino, led the Opposition protesters outside the House of Representatives in Manila, the chamber dismissed the impeachment complaint by 158-51 votes. Six members abstained.

With the Opposition failing to reach the threshold of 79 votes required to send the issue to the Senate for trial proceedings, Ms. Arroyo declared victory and called it "a glorious day in history" for the Filipino people.

The impeachment move's focus was that Ms. Arroyo had "cheated" and won the last presidential election in 2004 by "fraudulently" influencing poll officials.

As the Vice-President in 2001, she first assumed the highest office by succeeding the then President, Joseph Estrada, who was forced by "people power" to step aside. Charges of nepotism and related corruption were also made.

Ms. Arroyo said in a celebratory statement that the people had now displayed "grand political maturity" by choosing to keep a President in office through a vote in "the halls of constitutional democracy."

She commended them for not "forcing a President out of office through people power."

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