Word: estradas
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Added to that are political concerns. The Philippines has a new President, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and she announced from the start that she had no intention of suffering the humiliation dealt predecessor Joseph Estrada last year. Estrada succumbed to Malaysian and European pleas to hold the troops back and allowed Libya to broker a ransom deal. As a result, the ragtag band of one year ago has grown into a kidnapping army that can only get more audacious with every success. With Washington's backing, Arroyo refused all negotiation and ordered 5,000 troops into the scattered Sulu archipelago...
...Faced with a group of career bandits, Arroyo had little choice but to come down with her promised "hail of bullets." She is desperate to prove to the financial markets that her government suffers from none of the impotence of the Estrada administration, which proved so damaging to foreign capital and share prices during the final year of his curtailed presidency. "We must address this decisively to show the world that we can protect our citizens, our visitors and our investors," she said. Hailing the importance of the $2.5 billion tourism industry, she reassured the business community this was just...
...Technology is energizing grassroots politics of all stripes: call it powering up. In the Philippines, protesters using cell-phone text messaging mobilized hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in January to help oust President Joseph Estrada. Miguel Arroyo, husband of new President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, says her supporters kept urging everyone to head to the edsa shrine, the main focus of the People Power II movement. "We texted everybody to go running there: 'edsa. edsa: everybody converge on edsa!'" In China, tens of thousands of followers of the spiritual group Falun Gong continue to exist - despite a harsh crackdown...
...Arroyo seems pleased by her show of toughness. "I hope they now realize that this 'wisp of a lady' has an iron fist and an iron will," she crows. Others think she overreacted, considering the demographic profile of the poor, angry protesters and their fury over her treatment of Estrada. (To arrest the former President, she deployed over 5,000 security forces, backed by helicopters and rooftop snipers after Estrada had volunteered to turn himself in.) Says Uderic Auduan, a print shop owner who supported Estrada on the streets: "Estrada was someone who can help us?and they treated...
...Arroyo tried making amends by visiting Estrada last Thursday in his new, two-room jail cell. She beamed when Estrada shook her hand for the cameras and, ever the gallant actor, called her "our President." She still faces a more difficult p.r. job: to persuade poor Filipinos that despite her haughtiness and her ties to the oligarchy, she genuinely wants to help them with jobs, schools and public medical care, none of which she has done in her first 100 days. Judgment may come during May 14th senatorial elections, when her handling of Estrada and the arrests of her foes...