CHIZ SAYS CBCP POSITION A BIG LETDOWN

"It's a downer" was how opposition senator Chiz Escudero described the Catholic Bishop Conference of the Philippine's (CBCP) position on the on-going political crisis brought about by the ZTE scandal.

Escudero expressed this disappointment after the CBCP issued a statement but for the resignation of the embattled President Arroyo.

The senator said he finds it ironic that the CBCP issued a bland statement about the on-going scandals in the government when during the EDSA 1 and EDSA 2 revolts which had massive election cheating and corruption issues at hand respectively, it strongly condemned the government then.

"It is with deep regret that after a hastily called closed door meeting, this is only what the CBCP had to say. The issues hounding the administration today are the same issues of the past two governments which the Church had helped fought against. With massive poll cheating and high-level corruption in the Arroyo administration being hung out dry in the open, I don't know anymore how far it would take for the CBCP to take a stronger and clearer stand against all these" Escudero said.

He went on to say that if people would go by a litany of trespasses against the people and the country by the past presidents who have been removed from office, like Marcos and Estrada, PGMA's presidency would surely come out as the run-away winner among them.

"PGMA's trespasses against the Filipino people are the amalgamation of EDSA1 and 2's abuses. Corruption, poll cheating and human rights record which even surpassed the human rights abuses 22 years before. You name it, this administration has it".

Escudero said people had listened to the Church when it called for support for the past two people's revolutions and now, he says, is the time for the church to listen in turn to the people and heed their call for PGMA to step down".