Arroyo richer by P12.5M since assuming power in 2001
by Avigail Olarte, PCIJ

Since she assumed the presidency in 2001, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s personal wealth has increased by 18.7 percent or P12.49 million.

In her latest Statement of Assets and Liabilities, President Arroyo’s net worth totaled P79,284,608.64, while her net worth in 2001 was at P66.78 million. In both years, bulk of the assets was cash on hand and in bank: P55. 4 million in 2005 and P54.3 million in 2001. In 2004, Arroyo had a total of P61.17 million of cash on hand and in bank.

Arroyo’s newly acquired piece of land in Coron, Palawan worth P2.05 million increased the total value of her real properties to P6.36 million, from only P3.53 million in 2001.

Through the years, the president has consistently declared a house and lot in Baguio City, a residential lot in Antipolo, Rizal, a commercial lot in Tayabas, Quezon, and agricultural lots in San Rafael, Bulacan and Nasugbu, Batangas.
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Bureaucrats Punished for Accusing the Palace of Disrespect for the Civil Service
by Yvonne T. Chua

Is The Career Service Executive Board (CESB), the government body that oversees the top tiers of the country's bureaucracy, being punished by Malacañang?

Many in the CESB think so. After all, in a March 20 resolution, the CESB did something unheard of: it accused Malacañang and the Cabinet of "transgressions" of civil-service laws, rules and regulations.
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GMA Supporters Outspent Rivals in the Battle of the Ads, But Did They Win It?
by Vernon R. Totanes

10 October 2005--SUPPORTERS of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo spent more than P22 million in advertisements in major Manila dailies in the period of just three-and-a-half months since the "Gloriagate" crisis began.
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U.P. study finds North Rail contract illegal, disadvantageous to government
Blog post by Alecks P. Pabico

02 October 2005--IN Wednesday’s Senate hearing, the U.P. Law Center presented the findings of its study on the US$503-million North Rail project that would rehabilitate the old north rail line of the Philippine National Railways from Caloocan to Malolos in Bulacan.
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Gloria's Lobbygate?
by Malou Mangahas

21 September 2005--Since it assumed office in 2001, the government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has spent at least $3.7 million or P208 million in eight multiple, loosely monitored, and largely secret consultancy contracts for eight US-based lobby and law firms.
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Despite Hard Times, GMA Hires Pricy Foreign Consultants for Charter Change
by Malou Mangahas

13 Sept 2005—ON THE same day that she delivered her State of the Nation Address and summoned the nation to start “the great debate” on charter change, President Arroyo awarded a million-dollar lobbying consultancy contract to an American law firm to “secure grants and (US) congressional earmarks” for her initiative to “reshape the form of government…into a parliamentary federal system.”
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The president’s gravy train
Blog post by Yvonne Chua

11 September 2005—HOW generous is President Arroyo to certain members of Congress?

Generous enough these days to do the unthinkable, even if it is a no-no in government: Issue postdated checks to support the pet projects of favored legislators, who have been getting millions of pesos for such things as high-school scholarship funds (even if high-school education is free) and other questionable projects.
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Not once, but twice
Blog post by Yvonne Chua

02 August 2005—PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo allegedly met Commissionon Elections (Comelec) field officials not once, but twice, at her home in La Vista, Quezon City in January of 2004. On both occasions, the president asked for the support of Comelec officials for her candidacy.

And, in the first of those meetings, it was "impossible" for the President not to have seen Lubao, Pampanga Mayor Lilia Pineda, wife of jueteng lord Bong Pineda, hand over to a Comelec official a brown envelope filled with small white envelopes, each containing P30,000-bribe money for the election officials who had been invited to the presidential home.
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Louie and Garci: The paper and cellphone trail
Blog post by Yvonne Chua

01 August 2005—MICHAELANGELO "Louie" S. Zuce, nephew of controversial former elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, presented today a paper, as well as a mobile-phone, trail that pointed to how his uncle, with the blessing of the Arroyo administration, got election officials in Mindanao to support her candidacy in May 2004.

In a sworn statement executed today, Zuce charged that payoffs were made to Comelec field personnel in Mndanao, but none of the documents annexed to his statement so far showed the election officials had actually been bribed.
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