LETTER TO THE EDITOR
20 February 2008

Last February 15, women from urban poor communities under GABRIELA stormed the
office of First (Un)Gentleman Mike Arroyo to show our outrage at his involvement
in extracting kickbacks from projects such as the South Rail development project.
Urban poor women lamented that their families suffer from demolition operations
because of these so-called development projects while these projects serve as
milking cows for the First Family.

It was ZTE NBN Deal star witness Jun Lozada who mentioned, in his testimony at
the Senate hearing, the South Rail project as among the heavily-overpriced
government projects that benefited the First Family.

Urban poor women were indignant that their families are rendered homeless and
their impoverished children go hungry while Mike Arroyo rakes in millions of
dollars of kick-back. This indignation spurred us to protest in front of his
office, which is shamelessly called “Opisina ng Kabiyak.”

Mike Arroyo thru his lackeys, however, tried to barge in our peaceful protest.
His chief of staff came out of the LTA building and attempted to disrupt the
program by bringing an old woman in cane. Much to our revulsion, we saw her
prodding the old woman to snatch the megaphone from one of our speakers to
narrate the so-called good deeds of Mike Arroyo.

This action, indeed, speaks both of an obvious disregard of the issues being
raised by the protesters and a cruel attempt to exploit the old woman’s poverty
to try to buttress Mike Arroyo’s credibility. Worse, when Nerissa Guerrero,
chairperson of Samahan ng Maralitang Kababaihang Nagkakaisa, tried to explain the
problem of unemployment among women, one of their male lackeys offered Nanay Neri
a job as a laundrywoman with the clear intent of insulting and demeaning her.

Mike Arroyo has gone beyond ungentleman. His callous involvement in the ZTE-NBN
deal and other anomalous deals make him the most vulgar of thieves and together
with his wife, the scourge of Filipino women.

(Sgd) LANA LINABAN
Deputy Secretary General
GABRIELA