Friday, April 29, 2011

MERCI: MY LOYALTY HAS BEEN TO FILIPINO PEOPLE, NOT ARROYO

UPDATED 3:30 p.m. - As she announced her resignation on Friday afternoon, Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez said her loyalty has always been to the Filipino people and not to former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who appointed her to office five years ago.

At a press conference, Gutierrez said she submitted to President Benigno Simeon Aquino III on Friday her resignation effective on May 6, or three days before the Senate impeachment trial against her was set to begin on May 9.

Gutierrez said while she was grateful to Arroyo for having appointed her to office, her "undivided loyalty" was to the Filipino people, and not to the former President.

She said she wanted to erase the "misconception" that she is an Arroyo lackey, having been a batch mate of Mrs. Arroyo's husband former First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo at the Ateneo Law School.

"As I leave the Office of the Ombudsman, however, it is my fervent hope that the misconception bred that having been appointed to public office by former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, I owed my allegiance to her and am accountable only to her, and not to the Filipino people and the Constitution be discarded and laid to rest," she said.


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