‘RP faces seven curses’
FORMER CABINET MEMBER
SAYS, CALLING FOR VIGILANCE
BY CARLA GOMEZ

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s bid for term extension will not die, she will push for self-perpetuation at all cost and the Filipino people must remain vigilant to prevent it from happening, a former Cabinet official of her administration warned yesterday.

Teresita Quintos-Deles, former Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process and National Anti-Poverty Commission lead convenor, said Arroyo cannot afford to give up power because she needs protection from prosecution, and the perpetuation of a “financial, kleptocratic, dynastic empire”.

Deles, who spoke before students of the University of St. La Salle at the USLS coliseum yesterday morning, said her warning is not paranoia, “It is real and it is there, and we have to prepare to resist… We cannot afford to have GMA stay even one day beyond June 30, 2010.”

Former President Corazon Aquino’s struggle against cancer is symbolic of the cancer of corruption our country is struggling against, Brother Ray Suplido, University of St. La Salle president, said yesterday.

The USLS is holding a healing mass for former President Cory Aquino and for the healing of the nation at the La Salle Chapel 12:15 p.m. today.

Suplido said people are hanging yellow ribbons for Aquino, not because she is popular but because she is loved..

The en banc committee hearing of the Negros Occidental Sangguniang Panlalawigan on the controversial GMO ordinance yesterday turned emotional for some anti-GMO advocates, who walked out because of disagreement with opinions of resource speakers.

The ordinance bans the entry of genetically-modified organisms into the province.

Board Member Dr. Melvin Ibanez also felt slighted by the statements of Dr. Romy Quijano, a professor of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, UP Manila College of Medicines, and one of the invited resource speakers, that most medical doctors are ignorant about GMOs.