‘Plunder of people’s will’

Police Senior Superintendent Rafael Santiago has publicly admitted that he and his group stole, on different occasions, original election returns then kept at the Batasang Pambansa and replaced them with fake ones to ensure that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would emerge as winner in the 2004 presidential election in case of a recount.

It is clear from these revelations that GMA sat as president from 2004 until 2010 as an interloper: a fraud, fink and phony. This is not to say that her earlier stint in that office from January 2001 to June 2004 was legitimate. The Constitution, the statutes and the attendant circumstances weigh heavily in favor of the observation that Joseph Ejercito Estrada was removed from the presidency on a ground not provided for by the Constitution. The issue on the illegitimacy of GMA’s presidency covers all of nine years.

Santiago’s revelations all the more make out the most serious and heaviest case of plunder committed by GMA. She has plundered the people’s electoral will. She has suppressed and stifled the collective will of the people. And by this electoral fraud she had inflicted on the people, she has stolen the soul of the nation and emaciated the people’s sovereign will. And all those who never questioned the legitimacy of her mandate, but instead propped her up by serving her illegitimate government, bear the stigma of conspirators. The observation goes as well for all those who have somehow wiggled themselves back into the present administration.

This is the legacy GMA will be remembered for: plunder of the people’s will.

—FRANCISCO I. CHAVEZ,

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