Pia: Mrs. Arroyo's Cha-cha agenda is "self-serving"

Opposition Senator Pia S. Cayetano today slammed Malacañang's admission that Charter change will be on top of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's agenda once she wins as 2nd District Representative of Pampanga next year.

"Our suspicions have been confirmed. Malacañang's admission that the future ex-President will actually push for Cha-cha as a member of the House betrays Mrs. Arroyo's earlier statement that she supposedly wants to continue serving her province mates in deciding to run for Congress," said Cayetano, Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Social Justice.

"Mrs. Arroyo's Cha-cha agenda is self-serving more than anything else, because she stands to primarily benefit from it should her allies in Congress succeed to revise the Constitution and anoint her prime minister."

"If this is really the underlying reason for Mrs. Arroyo's congressional bid, then why the need to run for Congress? She could just lobby the House and Senate as a private citizen, and not be accused of conflict of interest," she added, noting that former Presidents Corazon Aquino and Fidel Ramos were able to continue serving the country as senior advisers to government and civil society in their private capacity.

She stressed that Mrs. Arroyo's congressional run is immoral, unethical and constitutes an abuse of her position as chief executive and commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Cayetano added that Mrs. Arroyo was merely "paying lip service" in insisting that she only wanted to continue serving the people of Pampanga.

Citing 2007 data, she said the maternal mortality rate recorded in Pampanga is 237 deaths for every 100,000 livebirths in 2007. This is higher than the national average of 162 maternal deaths per 100,000 livebirths in 2006.

She added that Pampanga is not exactly a model in education, noting that the National Achievement Test (NAT) of public school students in the province was posted at a dismal 67 percent in 2009, which is below the passing mark of 75 percent.

"Reducing maternal mortality and improving basic education are two Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) where the Philippines has scored poorly. If Mrs. Arroyo failed to advance these MDGs in her capacity as president in the last nine years, how else can we expect her to succeed in pushing for these in her province as their representative?"