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The world may lie but not our President. Just an hour ago President Arroyo broke her silence by admitting it was she talking with former COMELEC commissioner (Garcillano) in that controversial tapes, which the opposition camp alleged contained how she managed to manipulate votes during the last election.

Almost teary-eyed the President on national TV asked the people's forgiveness for "taking so long to speak before you on this matter of which allegedly contained plots." We were waiting for that moment.

And when she finally said "I'm sorry" everyone in the newsroom still could not believe she admitted it, and even apologized. That was brave of her. I am not a fan of the president but i believe she is the "last best hope" of this country (well, as of this time).

She apologized not for cheating in the election but for keeping her silence. But even if she cheated it would not have mattered to me a bit. I might have thanked her for doing it, for not allowing a famous action star (may God bless his soul) to take that presidential seat (and embarrass the Filipinos AGAIN).

In that few-minute (sorry i was not counting) live telecast I was praying she would not break down (and cry). And thank God she remained composed and even managed to smile. But the fear was there (i'm a psychic BTW), and here too.

So far the Filipinos have organized two people powers which toppled down two presidents. The third one (the questionable Edsa 3) was just a revolt of the hopeless.

But this admission has nevertheless left the country vulnerable. Yeah we are fond of rallying on the streets for no reason. We’ve also had a number of political unrests, civil disturbances, and destabilizations.

It is also nice to note that this country was under Martial Law for several years. And it survived.

(the transcript of the conversation is here: www.pcij.org/blog)