Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye, also presidential spokesman, said President Arroyo has remained focused on "pulling up" the country amid the protracted political turmoil hounding her administration.

"We note of the opinion of the US Ambassador Kenney and we take this as a challenge to work overtime on our goals sans the political noise that is pulling us down," he said in an official press statement.

"President Arroyo is determined to pull the nation up and has succeeded to a good extent in building up the Philippines as a strong player in the region," he added.

Barely warming up her seat, Kenney has told American businessmen that the Philippines has been lagging behind its neighboring countries in Asia, mainly due to its failure to curb corruption and intellectual property rights violations.

A career diplomat and the first female ambassador ever assigned to Manila, Kenney noted that the current political turmoil facing the Arroyo administration has been hampering the country’s economic growth and progress.

"We are making solid progress in our reforms and the returns are coming in through better confidence, investments and jobs," Bunye retorted.

"Add to that the fact that higher revenues are enabling us to pour more resources into direct social amelioration programs, we are a bit more optimistic and we see the silver lining rather than any dark clouds in the horizon," he added.

Recently, the New York Times had issued an editorial where it lashed out at Mrs. Arroyo for her "authoritarian tendencies" that put in great peril the country’s democracy by resurrecting the "electoral chicanery and governmental intimidation" of the Marcos era.

The editorial also charged Mrs. Arroyo with alleged vote-padding in the May 2004 presidential election, her alleged failure to curb the killings of journalists and unabated corruption in government.