30 Reasons Why Erap Should Go

(And still Counting...)

It’s been two years. And it is more than enough.

The country has fallen into untold disaster and despair. No super typhoon, volcanic eruption, earthquake nor garvalanche can rival the man-made calamities brought by Mr. Joseph Estrada.

He has risen to become Public Enemy No. 1 because he has shown his true colors – anti-poor, pro-foreign, corrupt, macho, tyrant - in such a short time. He has even beaten the record of the late Ferdinand Marcos. It took more than 20 years, Martial Law and Imelda’s shoes for the Filipino people to despise and oust the dictator. Now, it seems that the people only need two years of Eraptions.

Why do the Filipino people now hate Erap? Let us count the ways:

1. He loves oil companies more than the Filipino people. He has permitted them to increase oil prices for 13 times in 15 months.
2. Math is his favorite subject. He thinks that P45 to a dollar means more money for the Filipino people.
3. "Taxes" is his middle name. He has reinvented income generation of the government and proudly called it Road Users Tax and 20% increase in charges for all government services.
4. He is a good tax collector and a better salesman. He is selling the Philippine National Bank, the MWSS, Philippine Airlines, PETRON and NAPOCOR, postal services, Philippine General Hospital and others to private corporations and his close business allies.
5. For OCWs, he has the OWWA Resolution 99-016, an annual US$25 collection, and the P1,000 penalty for non-tax-filers even though we are tax exempted. Because for him, taxes have no boundaries. It should embrace Filipinos all over the world.
6. "To collect is glorious" is his motto. Not contented with the US$8 billion remittances from overseas Filipinos, his agencies charge excessive and unjust fees from OCWs. Passports, contract authentication, notaries, Medicare, SSS, NBI clearance, Pag-Ibig Fund - name it and they will collect it.
7. And even if the money is rightfully ours, his government would delay and withhold compensation so that the money can earn interest in the banks. Such is the sad story of Gulf War victims still waiting for their full compensation.
8. If "taxes" is Erap's middle name, "tax evasion" is Lucio Tan's favorite game. Erap provides him "friendly" favors to play his game.
9. On top of that, he has given Lucio Tan's PNB the monopoly for Pre-Departure Orientation Seminars (PDOS). Erap's friend has already escaped from paying billions, and now he is even given a multi-million bonus.
10. He is the first president to openly declare an all-out war against our Moslem brothers and sisters. He spends P100M of the people's money a day to destroy lives and properties in Mindanao.
11. As if his powers are not enough, he wishes more. He proposes to be given "emergency powers" and thereby allow mining companies of his Ateneo classmates to capture Mindanao.
12. For him, to act on an "emergency" meant the deployment of heavily-armed Marines in malls, schools and other public places in Metro Manila and other urban centers after the series of alleged MILF bombings. And to justify this, he even staged the arrest of 26 Moslems who don't even know how to reach the malls.
13. He really likes war games. For him, "national defense" means asking American troops into Philippine soil through the Visiting Forces Agreement.
14. For him, ending the peace negotiations with the NDF and MILF, is a step towards peace and development.
15. For him, starting the "Oplan Makabayan", his newest counter-insurgency program, will make the country sides peaceful by wiping out whole peasant communities because they are "terrorists".
16. He demands silence when he delivers his State of the nation address in the halls of Congress. He is willing to allow his generals to beat up and arrest rallyists. This self-confessed believer of God even permitted his hound dogs to go after protesting nuns, priests and church people because they were "impostors."
17. He likes media publicity but not bad publicity. Look at what happened with the Manila Times and the Inquirer. For him, press freedom is limited to his press releases.
18. For him, laborers are "spoiled brats". He is the first president who did not grant a minimum wage increase during Labor Day.
19. PAL, Manila Hotel, Nestle, Shoemart, and LRT workers, being "spoiled brats", needed spanking, Erap-style. On top of violent dispersals in picket lines, he would even give orders to punish striking workers and file criminal charges against them.
20. He hates garbage. That's why he allows Chuck Mathay to earn P50,000 a day to dump them in supposed urban poor resettlement areas like Payatas.
21. He wants others to be like him - a school drop-out. Thus, increasing tuition fees will force youth out of school.
22. His administration is "scam-dalous". His relatives have no shame either to use Sweepstakes money for political ends or be caught bribing inside the premises of Malacanang for their textbook business.
23. He is like Marcos. He wanted to extend his term through amending the Constitution.
24. He is like Marcos. He has a lot of "friends" like Lucio Tan, Danding Cojuangco, Dante Tan, Atong Ang, Regis Romero, etc. During their "midnight cabinet sessions", he would promise and deliver them business favors, coco levy funds, gambling monopolies, the resignation of SEC commissioner Yasay, 10 year strike moratorium at PAL, and the Manila Times for starters.
25. He is like Marcos. He and his family are getting richer. The Estrada clan (including his numerous mistresses and siblings) have undeclared assets amounting to more than P800 million.
26. He loves Marcos so much that in the beginning of his term, he wanted Marcos to be buried as a hero.
27. He thinks that the solution to poverty is online bingo, lotto, jai-alai, jueteng, floating casinos and maybe in the near future, tong-its.
28. He is not a denial king. He is the first president to admit having sired many children from different women and is proud of it. Lalaking-lalaki. Macho.
29. Erap is a big joke. He thinks that running the presidency is as easy as being Asiong Salonga or as simple as his Eraptions.
30. And lastly, because nos. 1-29 are enough!

The list is getting longer each minute that Erap stays in power. A growing number of people, including overseas Filipinos, are already disgusted with his performance. Nothing, not even his State of the Nation Address, can turn them away from demanding his ouster.

Erap must go!

30 July 2000

United Filipinos in Hong Kong (UNIFIL-HK)

2/F., New Hall, St. John’s Cathedral,

4 Garden Road, Central, Hong Kong SAR

Tel no.: 28104379 Fax no.: 2526-2894

E-mail: execom@unifil.org.hk