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Lest I forget, I included my name in the Cadapan-Empeño impeachment complaint against President Arroyo filed on on July 26 before House secretary-general Roberto Nazareno.

Cadapan and Empeño are the surnames of the two missing students of the University of the Philippines allegedly abducted by elements of the Philippine Army under the command of the cowardly butcher Jovito Palparan.

I signed the complaint along with 200 others. I did so as a a response to what is happening to the country under an illegitimate, immoral, corrupt and repressive presidency. The impeachment process remains the only constitutional way to confront Mrs. Arroyo with the serious and festering allegations that she cheated in 2004 and that she covered up this crime up until today. It would be a strategic blunder for this rotten system to kill the impeachment complaints through the convenient use of parliamentary majority in the House.

I also signed as a convenor of TXTPower. We do not want a president to use her immense powers to curtail the people's right to free expression especially when such illegal acts are done to cover-up her crimes. It was disgusting that Mrs. Arroyo's justice secretary vainly terrorized us and many others from spreading the Hello Garci conversations and the Hello Garci ringtones.

Mrs. Arroyo and her cabal have long wanted a legal, constitutional venue to defeat their foes. The impeachment process provides them this venue. The only thing we request is that the complainants be allowed to present evidence backing the complaint, so that the Members of Congress and the nation would know that the complaint is sufficient in form and in substance, and should be enough basis for Mrs. Arroyo's fair, transparent and fair trial before the Senate.

I cannot in conscience just accept Mrs. Arroyo to stay until 2010 (and under Chacha, rather indefinitely) without resolving the many serious issues enveloping her presidency. I don't care if she's bright or competent. The nation does not deserve to be ruled by an illegitimate leader who has no undisputed claim to the presidency. We will be teaching the children and young people a very bad lesson in civics and morals if we would allow her to last until 2010 kahit pa isa siyang pekeng pangulo at pasista pa.

Mrs. Arroyo's refusal to resign or to tell the whole truth is the real fetter to our nation from moving forward.

Ernesto Ladeca, member of Bayan Muna in Misamis Oriental, was shot dead the other day in front of his home by motorcycle-riding assassins suspected to be elements of the Philippine Army.

The killing no longer surprised the public, no small thanks to President Arroyo's public display of admiration for General Jovito Palparan who started such modus operandi in neutralizing activists.

On the same day, the Counsels for Defense of Liberties released the final report of the recently-concluded International Fact-Finding Mission on Attacks Against Filipino Lawyers. The report is an indictment of President Arroyo for not stopping and even encouraging the killings. For the European lawyers and judges who undertook the mission, the Arroyo government is only democratic in form, but falls terribly short of genuine democracy and grossly disrespects the rights of Filipinos. The full report may be downloaded at Indymedia QC Pilipinas.

Right here in Southeast Asia, the Asian Human Rights Commission based in Hong Kong likewise assailed the Arroyo government for the continuing murders of activists and the unresolved status of past murders.

For the second time, Amnesty International also challenged the government to put a stop to the killings.

For my dear friends, I am sure that this is no longer news. The Philippine state has brainwashed many into accepting the killings of leftists as acceptable. In its warped sense of democracy, the Arroyo government views unarmed and civilian activists as enemies of the state that are targets for liquidation and offers no differentiation with armed revolutionaries of the New People's Army.

The bloodshed is intended to terrorize activists and would-be activists. But the terror may only affect the new ones and only for a short period of time. Citizens who are criminalized for merely exercising their rights to assembly, association and expression would expectedly realize that the terrorism wrought against them must be matched be counter-terrorist and revolutionary resistance. Ferdinand Marcos was said to have used martial law and total war against all his enemies, but instead of killing the communist movement, more people joined the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People's Army.

Meanwhile, as more Filipinos get killed by the death squads, all that Palace officials are seen doing are: 1) clapping, laughing and rapping away with a visiting Fil-Am artist; 2) quarreling among themselves over funds supposedly intended to save Filipinos caught in the Israeli terrorist war on Lebanon.