Philippine Power Putsch?

More rumor-mongering in the Philippines. Some of Arroyo's critics, including Liberal Party senatorial candidate Franklin Drilon, allege that the Court's ruling might be “part of President Arroyo’s grand plan to remain in power.”

The Philippine Star article also quotes Liberal Party senatorial candidate Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim saying:

Mrs. Arroyo is inviting a new military uprising... Lest we forget, the possibility of a military uprising becomes real when democratic institutions are weakened to the point where the check and balance mechanisms are severely skewered, and when civilian authorities blatantly contravene the rule of law and the Constitution... Can we blame the ordinary soldiers? When the judiciary is anything but luminous, when the legislature is the plaything of Malacañang and when our poll body is widely perceived as a cheating apparatus, can we fault the ordinary soldier if he decided to heed his conscience and rise up?

The article conveniently forgot to mention that General Lim is in prison now for an attempted putsch in the Manila Peninsula Hotel in 2007.