Word: arroyo
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...happened. Manuel Villar, a rags-to-riches real estate developer born in Manila's Tondo port area, is placing second. Behind him is ousted former president Joseph "Erap" Estrada. He was convicted on corruption charges in 2007, sentenced to life imprisonment and then pardoned by current President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The 72-year-old actor - who is back on the big screen now in a comedy playing a bus driver - still counts the masses as his support base. But it is unlikely that they will vote for him in quite the same numbers...
...prime suspect behind the massacre, who was taken into custody on Thursday, is a member of one of Mindanao's leading Muslim political clans: the Ampatuans. They are close allies of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's administration in Manila and rule Maguindanao, a hardscrabble province in an autonomous area for Muslims. Andal Ampatuan Jr., a Maguindanao mayor in his 40s, was expected to be charged with murder, according to local reports, quoting justice authorities. Ampatuan denies involvement: "The reason I came out is to prove that I am not hiding and that I am not guilty," he told local reporters...
...President Arroyo condemned the atrocity as a "supreme act of inhumanity that is a blight on our nation," and pledged to bring the murderers to justice. Amid rising public outrage at home and international condemnation, she is under pressure to deliver. The authorities have already come under fire for failing to quickly bring in members of the Ampatuan clan for questioning, inevitably raising suspicions that the administration was treating them with kid gloves. The question is whether - as one local columnist put it - Arroyo is ready to "throw the kitchen sink at a loyal ally." She is widely believed...
...authorities are now desperately trying to prevent a revenge-driven clan war - or "rido" as it is called in Mindanao - between the two families. A day after the killings, Arroyo put two southern provinces and a city under a state of emergency and deployed more troops to the area. All permits to carry firearms there have been canceled. "Retaliatory violence can be expected although a small chink of hope remains that Mangudadatu may rise above rido and avert further bloodshed," says Ian Bryson, a regional analyst at Singapore-based Control Risks...
...wealthy family long rooted in the politics of the region. But he is almost sure to run again in the 2010 national elections, though not in the same district. (Pacquiao has his own political organization - the People's Champ Movement - but has been aligning himself with President Gloria Arroyo, who needs his popularity.) Most people say they'd rather he stay a boxer and win more accolades for the nation, that his need to help lift people up can be better served elsewhere. But politics as his second act may be a strategy born of a deeper survival instinct - from...