The February 12 statement, signed by the council's general secretary, the Rev. Rex Reyes, and its chairperson Bishop Nathanael Lazaro, adds to a renewed public uproar over the government's recent attempt to silence a key witness in an aborted US$329 million national Internet broadband deal with a Chinese company.

After the former president of the State-run Philippine Forest Corporation, Rodolfo Lozada Jr., had testified in the country's Senate on February 7 that a former election commissioner took US$130 million in kickbacks from the broadband deal, the National Council of Churches as well as the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines renewed a campaign they have been waging against corruption.

The national church council urged "fervent prayers for deliverance and for truth to prevail" in referring to the probe on the irregular deal. The Catholic bishops called for "communal action," in the form of prayers, holding discussion forums, or helping raise funds for the protection of witnesses such as Lozada against those seeking to maintain corruption.

In a growing crescendo of criticism against the Arroyo administration, former Philippines President Fidel Ramos on February 22 bewailed how gains from the 1986 and 2001 "people power" revolts were lost due to "greed, corruption, and apathy", the Manila Times newspaper reported.

"Filipinos have always found it easier to die for our country...than to live for it. [In] times of peace and social stability, we seem to fritter away in bickering, in quarrelling like crabs caught in a bamboo trap...with each one pursuing his or her self-interest," Ramos said.