“Gloria Arroyo cannot evade blame for this dire state of the nation by pointing to external causes as the culprits,” he said. “What cannot be denied or hidden by contrived statistics is that the Philippine economy’s growth has been gravely stunted. It has remained basically backward, with neither a modern agricultural base nor an industrial backbone to speak of, all because the Arroyo regime, like her predecessors, has adamantly stuck to the anti-people neo-liberal globalization prescriptions of the IMF-WB-WTO (International Monetary Fund-World Bank-World Trade Organizatin) triad – liberalization, deregulation and privatization.”

Mary Grace Poe, daughter of the late actor Fernando Poe, Jr. who was Arroyo’s closest rival in the 2004 presidential elections, assailed Arroyo and her officials for failing to provide a better life for the people. “They ridiculed my father’s platform for its simplicity…but they have failed to improve the conditions of our people,” she said.

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