As the week of emergency rule appears to have done little to improve the fractious political system in the Philippines, it also generated opposing reactions from Filipinos in British Columbia.

Businessman Mike Moreno said that President Arroyo’s move placing the Philippines under a state of national emergency was another proof that what ails the country comes from the very top.

"My friends in the government in Manila told me that the basis for the declaration is a sham," Moreno says.

From his consulting office in Richmond, Filipino-Canadian businessman Mike Moreno helped start the movement "Run GMA Run" to urge President Arroyo to seek a six-year mandate in the 2004 elections.

"I thought she could lead the country forward," recalls Moreno, chairperson of an alliance of Filipino-Americans and Filipino-Canadians across North America.

Moreno has since become one of Mrs. Arroyo’s staunchest foreign-based critics.

"There were just too many issues we can’t ignore. Cheating and lying in the 2004 elections, graft and corruption, the looting of the Marcos wealth for partisan political purposes," Moreno tells The Asian Pacific Post.

Ed Tapia

 

Ed Tapia, president of a BC manufacturing company, shares the general outlook of Filipino businessmen in the Philippines about the national emergency declaration.

 

"If I were an investor looking at the Philippines, I’d like a stable and business-friendly situation. I don’t want to let go of my money and see it disappear because suddenly a rebellion breaks out," Tapia says.

Tapia says that President Arroyo should even be admired because "she has managed to hang tough despite destabilization campaigns against her and lead the country’s economic growth."

"She did the right thing. If the threat of a coup pushed through, what would have happened to the Philippines? It’s the country that would have suffered," he says.

Tapia says that power plays among politicians are acceptable until they get to the point of stopping the entire country on its tracks.