This why they rejoiced upon reading the Presidential Electoral Tribunal’s dismissal of Loren Legarda’s vice presidential protest against Noli de Castro in 2004. They claimed, falsely, that the legitimacy issue against Gloria Arroyo’s presidency has been put to rest, too, with the PET’s ruling on De Castro’s vice-presidency.

Naturally, now incumbent Vice President de Castro jumped with joy, and even proclaimed that this was a "triumph of truth."

No, Noli, that’s false, too! Rather, it was a triumph of lies! As now Senator Legarda put it quite well, "that’s part of their lies. It’s not enough that they cheated and degraded the Filipino people … The ghosts of 2004 electoral frauds will continue to haunt Noli until 2010."

Indeed, how in the name of Moses can Gloria’s legal charlatans and mouthpieces claim that the PET’s ruling on the Legarda vs. De Castro case was also "a clear affirmation" of Gloria’s presidency? What false legal reasoning!

It was obvious even in the eyes of non-lawyers that the decision did not rule on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of Noli’s vice presidency, much less of Gloria’s presidency. It merely dismissed Loren’s protest for supposed "lack of evidence," a finding Legarda said, correctly, was a failure to recognize the traces of fraud and irregularity in the tainted 2004 election that she submitted as evidence, and something that millions of Filipino voters knew to have been marred by rampant violations of the laws.

If anything at all, it was a confirmation of the fact that she in effect abandoned her protest when she ran, and won by the largest majority of votes, as senator in last year’s mid-term elections. And this was affirmed by no less than associate justice of the Supreme Court, a member of PET who concurred with the ruling on grounds of abandonment.

Thus, it is coming to light that Gloria Arroyo has indeed infected her Palace subalterns with her malady of telling lies and resorting to despicable deception! And it seems that Noli de Castro has not been spared by it!

Of course it all goes back to 2001, over seven long years ago, when as vice president she lied her way to the presidency. That was when she surreptitiously ascended the steps of Malacañang Palace by conspiring in the ouster of the legitimately elected Joseph Estrada. She did it again in 2004 by lying, cheating and stealing the presidency from movie icon Fernando Poe, Jr.

Since then, as the world knows now, she has emerged as the most unpopular president ever, and, with the public exposure of one corruption mess after corruption mess, the wheeling and dealing, the cover-up of other criminal acts in her government, she has been branded as the "most corrupt" of Philippine presidents.

No wonder millions of concerned Filipinos, from the poor masses to lawyers, businessmen, church leaders, to defenders of human rights and the unfettered print and broadcast media, are disgruntled with Gloria Arroyo’s dishonesty, deceit

lies, and the mangling of the Constitution and the rule of law.