Minority Floor Leader Francis Escudero, who admits the opposition's bid to impeach President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is an uphill battle, said Saturday that she should issue an official statement about the true state of her health to end all the rumors that she is ailing.

The president and the officials under her have to directly address rumors about her ailment, said Escudero, who was in Bacolod to speak before the Rotary Club of Bacolod led by Elcid Familiaran.

The president was confined at the St. Luke's Medical Center in Quezon City twice -- on June 22 for stomach pains and severe diarrhea and on July 27 for flu, her doctors said. Her chief of staff, Michael Defensor, said Friday that speculations floated by the opposition on the state of the president's health is part of its efforts to "destabilize" her administration.

Bacolod Rep. Monico Puentevella and the president's brother-in-law, Rep. Ignacio Arroyo Ignacio, Jr. (Negros Occ., 5th District), yesterday said, that, contrary to the claims of the opposition, the president is in good health.

The opposition is perpetually looking for issues to catapult them, Puentevella said, pointing out that Escudero himself admitted while in Bacolod that he is eyeing a seat in the Senate.

They should find more relevant issues for the good of the country, than making a mountain out of a molehill, Puentevella said.

Rep. Arroyo said the President is in fine health. She was just over-fatigued from working too much, he added.

She just had the flu and a stomachache as her doctors said, but the opposition wish it was more, he said.

But Escudero, on Saturday, said "We don't know, and nobody really knows" what the real state the president's health is.

"It's extraordinary that she went to the hospital twice for supposedly minor ailments such as a bad stomach and flu," he said.

Malacañang's hospital can accommodate even worse diseases and could have easily taken care of stomachache and flu, he said.

Escudero said Article 7 Section 12 of the Constitution states that the president should at all times declare the true state of his or her health.

This was required under the Constitution because, when Ferdinand Marcos got ill during his presidency it created problems for the country, he said.

A statement on Arroyo's health simply through a doctor who has no accountability to the public is not enough, the declaration must be official and made by an accountable officer, Escudero said.

Asked if the new bid to impeach the president will succeed, Escudero admitted that it is an uphill climb because the opposition does not have the numbers and he does not know if they will get them.

Hearings on the impeachment bid are expected to start tomorrow, said Escudero, who also paid a courtesy call on Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra Saturday.

Navarra informed Escudero of the campaign of the Diocese of Bacolod against charter change now.

Escudero said that even if the opposition does not get the numbers for an impeachment, "We need to do this because under the Constitution this is the only legal, peaceful and constitutional means to make a president accountable for what she did or did not do."

"What do they want us to do? Resort to extra constitutional mean like a coup?" he asked. "The point is not in winning, we are fighting for it because we believe in it. Last year we said it is wrong to lie, cheat and it's illegal to steal - this has not changed," he said.

Escudero said "It is the president's loss that she does not answer the impeachment charges because history will be a more cruel judge and it will no longer hear her side."

As to whether elections will be held next year, Escudero said, "We will know by October." If efforts by the administration to change the Constitution by October don't fly, then they are "forced to good" to accept that it cannot be changed before the 2007 elections, he said.

"All we can say is they should follow the process and make sure they push a people's initiative and not a DILG initiative," Escudero said.

In Makati City it was found that out of the 37,000 signatures in the people's initiative for charter change submitted for verification by the Commission on Elections, only 700 were genuine, while the rest were those of people who had died, were not from Makati, or were not registered to vote in Makati, he said.

Escudero said that, for him, the best way to change the Constitution is through a Constitutional Convention.

"Anything you rush will not have good results," he said.*CPG

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