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Press Secretary gov ph
Philippine President Arroyo shows political instincts in bid for new term
Sat Oct 4,11:17 AM ET Add World - AFP to My
Yahoo!
MANILA (AFP) - Philippine President Gloria Arroyo bared the political instincts lying behind her college
professor-facade as she announced that she would run for another term in 2004.
AFP Photo
She
had vowed in December that she would not seek another term so she could rise above politics and concentrate on reforms but
in a speech to 50,000 supporters in her home province of Pampanga, Arroyo described her reversal as a painful sacrifice for
the country.
"It would have been easier to take the road to retirement. Taking up the call laid before me
exacts more courage, more sacrifice, more obedience to God and our people," the diminutive 56-year-old economist said.
Winning the May, 2004 elections would be unprecedented for Arroyo: she was never elected president but was merely
installed by a military-backed, popular uprising that toppled her predecessor, Joseph Estrada (news - web sites), over a corruption
scandal.
The daughter of late president Diosdado Macapagal, Arroyo is steeped in politics, getting elected first
as senator and then later as vice-president to Estrada even though they come from different parties.
By law, the
president can only serve one six-year term and cannot run again but since Arroyo was not elected, she is not covered by this.
However, being installed by the military over a corruption scandal has its own drawbacks as Arroyo has learned.
In July 27, some 300 soldiers staged a short-lived mutiny against her administration, arguing that since soldiers
helped put her in power, they could also remove her.
In recent months, the opposition, led by former Estrada aide
Senator Panfilo Lacson, have raised their own corruption charges, accusing the president's husband, businessman Miguel Arroyo,
of money-laundering.
Arroyo said the attacks on her family would likely increase now that she has declared her
candidacy. She accused Lacson of "scraping the bottom of the barrel," by making accusations without proof.
A
deeply religious Catholic, Arroyo repeatedly invokes God in her speeches and just returned from a meeting with Pope John Paul
(news - web sites) in the Vatican (news - web sites).
During that meeting she emphasized that she toed the church
line on almost all issues, including on the sensitive non-restrictive population policy, which had been blamed for much of
the country's economic ills.
A mother of three grown-up children, Arroyo holds a bachelor of science degree in
commerce and another basic degree in foreign service, obtained from Georgetown University in Washington DC.
She
also received a doctorate in economics at the University of the Philippines.
If elected, she promises more dramatic
reforms that will enable the Philippine economy to catch up with the rest of the region.
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