Gonzalez defends PGMA on quit calls
Malacañang’s chief counsel defended President Arroyo yesterday from calls that she should quit if she decides to run to a lower position in 2010.
“I don’t think that is fair to the President,” Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Raul Gonzalez said yesterday, stressing that there is no legal impediment barring Mrs. Arroyo from seeking public office other than the presidency in next year’s elections. The Chief Executive, he added, “can always have her own timeframe for whatever decision she will make.”
Critics of Mrs. Arroyo, to include former President and administration party stalwart Fidel Ramos, have called on her to make known if she will run for Congress next year, and to resign so as not to use her position to advance her political interest.
Gonzalez also said that Commissioner Rene Sarmiento is wrong in saying that Arroyo will have to resign her position if she intends to run next year.
“It seems that Commissioner Sarmiento has forgotten the Election Code,” he remarked.
“The President does not have to resign because all elective officials need not resign to register as a candidate. Only the appointive officials must resign,” Gonzalez explained.
Earlier, Sarmiento said that President Arroyo is deemed resigned once she files her candidacy as a congressional candidate in Pampanga in the 2010 elections.
The Commissioner said that if the President decides to run for the Lower House, and files her certificate of candidacy, she must resign or be disqualified from the congressional race.
But he admitted that Arroyo is not compelled under the law to resign if she clings to her post because there are gray areas in the constitutional provision.
At the same time, Gonzalez hit back at those calling on the President to quit her post.
“Why is it that they always just single out the President? What about those other people who are salivating to run?” he said.