Philippine President Gloria Arroyo, facing a political crisis over allegations of vote fraud, said yesterday she has asked her cabinet members to step down but will not herself resign.

"I will not resign," Arroyo said in a nationwide address, 10 days after she apologized to the nation for improperly calling an election official during the May 2004 presidential vote.

"I am asking my entire cabinet to tender their resignations in order to give the executive a free hand to reorganize itself," Arroyo said.

The new cabinet, she said, will be "given a free hand on governance, while I focus on the fundamental changes that we need to put in place."

Arroyo, 56, is fighting for her political life amid allegations she rigged last year's vote, a controversy that has triggered daily street protests, battered financial markets and fuelled talk of a military takeover.

The scandal sprang from taped conversations in which Arroyo and a senior elections commissioner, Virgilio Garcillano, can purportedly be heard to conspire to manipulate votes.

Arroyo has denied the allegation but last week publicly apologized for impropriety for calling a poll official during the vote count. She later also said her husband would go into exile over separate corruption claims.

Arroyo said the political system "has degenerated to the point that it needs fundamental change" and it remains difficult to live within the political system "with hands totally untainted."

"First of all, I am not resigning my office," Arroyo said, adding the country would suffer further if people took to the streets in yet another popular revolt.

Arroyo was vice-president when a so-called "people power" revolt brought down President Joseph Estrada and propelled her into office in 2001.

Arroyo sought election last year after serving out Estrada's term and beat movie icon Fernando Poe by more than a million votes.

She accused the opposition of peddling lies, adding that she did call an election official - but only after it was clear that certificates of canvass had already been counted and showed she had won.

Those certificates of canvass showed "that I won by around a million votes. That is the truth," Arroyo said.

"I will restructure and strengthen the cabinet, giving it a free hand to meanwhile reform and manage our day-to-day governance with as little political interference as possible, even from me," Arroyo said.

The president said she would ask various sectors to submit names to replace her ministers.

Surveys released this week said a majority of Filipinos want Arroyo to step down.

But Arroyo said she will "reach out to the civil and political sectors" that espouse various advocacies attuned to her own.

(Chinadaily.com via agencies July 8, 2005)