FINAL REPORT - Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

Comelec/military waged against the 1 st Marine Brigade just to allow cheating in favor
of President Arroyo. This, to us, is an illustration yet again of the nature and level of
morality and ethics, the real political code and culture, in the administration of
President Arroyo. What this facet of the Mayuga Report shows is a government
culture and ethic that considers and treats a whistle-blower – who tells his
countrymen the truth about constitutional and criminal violations – as an enemy.
And the worst part is that it illustrates how, in this country today, the arrogance of
power has zoomed to such an extent that human notions of decency and of right and
wrong are degraded to their basest by power-wielders even to one’s face.
Likewise, instead of causing the filing of charges against Undersecretary
Jocelyn Bolante and all other executive officials involved in the Ginintuang
Masaganang Ani plunder, it is on record that President Arroyo, her Justice Secretary,
her Department of Agriculture Secretary, nay, the entire executive department, and in
fact the Ombudsman herself, have chosen not to lift a finger.
Finally, the complaints, protests and objections of human rights victims and
organizations against him notwithstanding, President Arroyo has pointedly
encouraged former Col. Jovito Palparan by promoting him to Major General on
December 15, 2005, and then issuing to him the Distinguished Star Award on March
20, 2006.
But ultimately the most dangerous cover-up device that President Arroyo is
resorting to is that political exercise known as Cha-Cha.
Charter Change as the ultimate cover-up to
permanently avoid accountability to the people
It was as early as in July 25, 2005, during her State of the Nation address, that
she proclaimed her discovery of charter change as the cure-all for this country’s
problems that she will therefore single-mindedly pursue. On this occasion she dwelt
on the need to revise the 1987 Constitution of the Republic, and completely ignored
the single question in the minds and hearts of her people: what about the truth
behind the Garci Tapes?
Her Interior and Local Governments Secretary consistently denies that she has
prevailed upon the resources of the entire executive branch of government, and in fact
the Comelec, in a scramble to revise the Constitution of the Republic by way of a
people’s initiative. However, when we consider how organized, well-financed groups
and forces have most suddenly emerged, from simply out of the blue, to jump-start
and then fast-track the current signature drive, no matter that this process
contravenes the Constitution itself and jurisprudence 79 , and no matter how the
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In an apparent response to the swirling confusion generated by the signature campaign, the Supreme Court
confirmed on March 29, 2006 that there is at present no enabling law on the basis of which the Constitution may be
validly revised by way of a people’s initiative, the previous law (Republic Act No. 6735) having already been declared
invalid by it in the 1997 case of Santiago v. Comelec. (In the latter case, the Supreme Court had likewise ruled that
Resolution No. 2300 of the Comelec, promulgating rules and regulations to carry out the purposes of the law, is by
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