GMA revokes EO 464,
draws praises, doubts
BY CARLA GOMEZ

Some Negros officials hailed the lifting of Executive Order 464 by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo yesterday as a positive move in the search for truth, while others said the sincerity of the move remains to be seen.

Calls for the president’s resignation have mounted at rallies in Bacolod City and other parts of the country amid corruption charges involving the National Broadband Network deal wherein her husband, Mike Arroyo, has been linked.

However, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines in a pastoral letter on Feb. 26 stopped short of calling for her resignation but called for the abolition of Executive Order 464 “so that those who might have knowledge of any corruption in government may be free to testify before the appropriate investigating bodies.”.

Militant groups will hold protest actions at the doorsteps of   public officials in Negros who display “shameless puppetry” to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Bayan-Negros  secretary general Felipe Levy Gelle said yesterday.

By joining the shameful “Unity Walk” with Arroyo and signing paid advertisements in her support, they become participants in the grand cover-up of corruption, Gelle alleged in a press statement.

“In the next few days, protest actions will be held in houses of the puppets of Arroyo as a contribution to the intensifying protest in Bacolod and in Negros Occidental,” he said.

The Canetown Homeowners Anti-Pollution Group in Victorias City, Negros Occidental, is seeking the help and intervention of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in addressing what it calls perennial air and water pollution, allegedly originated from the chimneys and cooling tower of the Victorias Milling Co.

The CHAP-G, in a letter-complaint furnished to the Negros Occidental Sangguniang Panlalawigan, asked Bienvenido Lipayon, DENR regional executive director, to strictly enforce RA 8749, known as the Clean Air Act of 1999, on the VMC sugar central.

CHAP-G chairperson Rodolfo Besana said the black ashes emanating from the sugar mill chimneys cause respiratory illnesses, among others, while foul odor and steam emits from the cooling tower are hazardous to health of the subdivision residents.