Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
Maria Gloria Macaraeg Macapagal-Arroyo, often referred to as PGMA or GMA, is a Filipino academic and politician who served as the 14th president of the Philippines from 2001 to 2010. She is the longest-serving president since Ferdinand Marcos. Before her presidency, she was the 10th vice president of the Philippines from 1998 to 2001 under President Joseph Estrada, becoming the first female vice president. She was also a senator from 1992 to 1998. After her presidency, she was elected as the representative of Pampanga's 2nd district in 2010 and continues to serve in this role. She also served as the speaker of the House from 2018 to 2019, and as deputy speaker from 2016 to 2017 and 2022 to 2023. Alongside former president Sergio Osmeña, she is one of only two Filipinos to hold at least three of the four highest offices: vice president, president, and house speaker.
Arroyo is the first president to succeed the presidency as the child of a previous president; her father was Diosdado Macapagal, the country's ninth president from 1961 to 1965. She studied economics at Georgetown University in the United States, where she became friends with her classmate and future U.S. president Bill Clinton. She then became a professor of economics at the Ateneo de Manila University, where her eventual successor, President Benigno Aquino III, was one of her students. She entered government in 1987 as assistant secretary and undersecretary of the Department of Trade and Industry under President Corazon Aquino, Benigno's mother.
After Estrada was accused of corruption, Arroyo resigned from her cabinet position as secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development and joined the opposition against the president. Estrada was ousted by the Second EDSA Revolution in 2001, and Arroyo was sworn in as president by Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. on January 20. The Oakwood mutiny occurred in 2003 during her administration. She was elected to a full six-year term in the controversial 2004 presidential election and was sworn in on June 30, 2004. A long-time opponent of the death penalty, she abolished capital punishment in 2006 after commuting the death sentences of over 1,200 prisoners.
On November 18, 2011, Arroyo was arrested and held at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City on charges of electoral sabotage but released on bail in July 2012. These charges were later dropped for lack of evidence. She was rearrested in October 2012 on charges of misuse of $8.8 million in state lottery funds. She was given a hospital arrest due to life-threatening health conditions. During the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, the Supreme Court acquitted her by a vote of 11–4. Also, the Supreme Court declared the Department of Justice's 'hold departure orders' unconstitutional. Arroyo's lawyers stated afterward that she no longer needed her medical paraphernalia.
Arroyo is a member of the Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language and supported the teaching of Spanish in the country's education system during her presidency.
Early life and education
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was born on April 5, 1947, in San Juan, Metro Manila, to lawyer Diosdado Macapagal and his wife, Evangelina de la Cruz Macaraeg. She is the sister of Diosdado "Boboy" Macapagal Jr. and has two older siblings from her father's first marriage with Purita de la Rosa, the sister of Rogelio de la Rosa, Arturo Macapagal, and Cielo Macapagal Salgado. She was raised mostly in Lubao, Pampanga, and during summer vacations, she lived with her maternal grandmother in Iligan City. Gloria remembered her grandmother's house as a "kingdom" according to the H. W. Wilson Company. After the Philippines' independence from the United States, Macapagal ran for president, promising to clean up the government. He won the election and, at 14 years old, Gloria moved with her family into Malacañang Palace in Manila.Arroyo attended Assumption Convent for her high school education, graduating valedictorian in 1964. Arroyo then studied for two years at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., studying A.B. Economics, where she was a classmate and friend of future United States president Bill Clinton. She finished another degree at the Assumption College in Manila, gaining a B.S. in Commerce. After, she enrolled at the Ateneo de Manila University, graduating in 1976 with a master's in economics. After, she enrolled in the University of the Philippines Ph.D. program in Economics from 1985 to 1986. In an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, she revealed that her father wanted her to become an entrepreneur, and she had several goals: to be a teacher, pilot, then a professional working for a government.
Early career
Arroyo began her professional career as an assistant professor at the Ateneo de Manila University from 1977 to 1987 while simultaneously being a professor at the University of the Philippines School of Economics. From 1984 to 1987, she chaired the Economic Department of the Assumption Convent College. In 1987, she entered government service, becoming the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry and the Executive Director of the Garments and Textile Export Board. She then became the Undersecretary of Trade and Industry.Senator (1992–1998)
Arroyo entered politics in the 1992 election, running for senator. At the first general election under the 1987 Constitution, the top twelve vote-getting senatorial candidates would win a six-year term, and the next twelve candidates would win a three-year term. She won a seat in the Senate. After she won, Arroyo told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that the men in her life had been supportive of her political career. In 1995, she ran again. This time, her husband was her campaign manager. In the election, she won with 16 million votesthe most votes in the election.As a legislator, Arroyo filed over 400 bills and authored or sponsored 55 laws during her tenure as senator, including the Anti-Sexual Harassment Law, the Indigenous People's Rights Law, and the Export Development Act. Arroyo was also openly against the implementation of capital punishment in the country, advocating instead for better criminal rehabilitation during her time as Senator. Manila Standard Journalist Emil P. Jurado detailed Arroyo as Senator Edgardo Angara's "worst nightmare". On September 2, 1997, Arroyo said that the next president would have to strengthen the rural health-care program to ensure the youth is "technically prepared", adding that health and education were her main concerns.
Arroyo proposed the moving of school from June to March to September to June to save students from issues during a typhoon, stating that: "I think we are going against the logic of the seasons when we insist in holding classes during the wet months." During her Senate tenure, she also hosted a television show where she travelled to rural areas to focus on farmers. She also advised political leaders in Mindanao to lead their communities in rejecting fundamentalist extremism, stating that fundamentalist extremism, whether Muslim or Christian, remains the "biggest stumbling block" in the movement to attain peace in Mindanao.
Vice presidency (1998–2001)
Arroyo considered a run for the presidency in the 1998 election with Senator Tito Sotto as her running mate, but was persuaded by Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, President Fidel V. Ramos, and leaders of the administration party Lakas–NUCD to instead seek the vice-presidency as the running mate of its presidential candidate, House Speaker Jose de Venecia, Jr. Before dropping her presidential candidacy, she was put against Joseph Estradaa former actor. She considered the presidency a race between her, a woman, and Estrada, a womanizer. Filipino Overseas Filipino Workers in Hong Kong supported the candidacy of Arroyo, stating that her win will be another one for "the OFWs, the youth, and the entire nation itself." Though de Venecia lost to Estrada, Arroyo won the vice presidency with 12.6 million votes, higher than Senator Edgardo Angara's 5.6 million, the running mate of Estrada. Her vote count was higher than Estrada's 10.9 million.Arroyo began her term as vice president on June 30, 1998, becoming the first female to hold the post. She was appointed by Estrada to a concurrent position in the cabinet as secretary of social welfare and development. As vice president, she was noted by political observers to continuously take a neutral stance on issues facing the government. During her vice presidency, she initiated an early child development program and used foreign money for welfare projects. A correspondent for The Economist opined that "when there is an earthquake, a flood, or a big fire, Mrs. Arroyo's agency will be seen leading the rescue. in 1998, a regional crisis in Asia hit the Philippines, leading the value of the Philippine peso to plummet and the unemployment rate to rise. Through economic reforms done under the International Monetary Fund, the H.W. Wilson Company reported that the Philippines "did not suffer as much" as other countries affected.
Senate President Blas Ople urged Arroyo to resign from the Cabinet on April 7, 2000, stating that her Cabinet position was a "case of conflict of interest". Other Senators told Arroyo to "clarify her position" in the cabinet. Arroyo resigned from the Cabinet in October 2000, distancing herself from Estrada, who was accused of corruption by a former political supporter, Chavit Singson, Governor of Ilocos Sur. She had initially resisted pressure from allies to speak out against Estrada, but eventually joined calls for Estrada's resignation.
Presidency (2001–2010)
First term (2001–2004)
Succession
On October 18, opposition groups filed an impeachment complaint against Joseph Estrada with the House of Representatives. The complaint was passed and transmitted to the Senate in November, resulting in the impeachment trial's start in December. On January 16, 2001, the impeachment trial "gripped the public imagination" according to Cristina Eloisa Baclig of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Private prosecutors walked out of the trial when pro-Estrada senators prevented the opening of a brown envelope that allegedly contained owned by President Joseph Estrada. From January 16 to 20, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos gathered at Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, the site of the original People Power Revolution. Officials of the administration also withdrew their support for President Estrada. On the last day, Arroyo took her oath on EDSA, declaring herself as the 14th President of the Philippines. Estrada opposed this decision but left the Malacañang Palace for "national reconciliation".File:NDS reverse 200 Philippine peso bill.jpg|thumb|left|Arroyo displayed on a New Design series two hundred-peso banknote, being sworn in as president by Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. in January 2001
Days after leaving Malacañang Palace, President Estrada's lawyers and allies questioned the legitimacy of Arroyo's presidency before the Supreme Court, with Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago among the more outspoken politicians to call for his reinstatement as president. In the last week of April 2001, the Sandiganbayan ordered the arrest of Estrada and his son, then mayor Jinggoy Estrada, for plunder charges. A few days later, Estrada supporters protested his arrest, gathered at the EDSA Shrine, and staged what they called, EDSA III. Thousands of protesters demanded the release of Estrada and called for the ouster of Arroyo and the reinstatement of the former. On May 1, 2001, they marched towards Malacañang to force Arroyo to give in to their demands. Due to fights between police and protesters, three peopletwo cops and one protesterdied. Arroyo declared a state of rebellion due to the violence. On July 27, 2003, the Oakwood mutiny occurred in the Philippines, consisting of group of over 300 soldiers led by Army Capt. Gerardo Gambala and Navy Lt. Antonio Trillanes IV. The soldiers took over the Oakwood Premier Ayala Center in Makati and, after arrangements, called for Arroyo's resignation as well as improvements for soldiers and military systems. Negotiations then happened and, due to the lack of support from the public, the mutiny ended after 20 hours. During the mutiny, Arroyo declared a state of rebellion.