The Philippine Online Chronicles

This is the second in the “All in the family” series  that features three children of former presidents who aim or ran for the same position as their parents .

Such a petite woman, I thought. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA), the senator struck me as a popular politician in 1996 where I first met her of all places in Calgary, Canada for a Rotary International Convention. Rotarians swarmed around her, wanting to have a photo taken beside her. Mike Arroyo offered to take a photo of me with GMA and so with the other Rotarians.  Armed with my camera, he didn’t mind being at the background at all.  In fact I appreciated the gesture. I felt Mike was more warm than GMA at that time which I needed in freaking cold Canada. I never posed with her though. Mike managed a fleeting snapshot.

Who would have thought  her net satisfaction rating would fall to -38% as president? Her plunging popularity started with questions of her legitimacy and has been negative since.

“I did not seek the Office of the President, it was thrust upon me,”said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA)  in her speech about EDSA 1.

Right after she assumed the presidency, she focused like a “laser beam” so she could deliver results to improve the lives of ordinary Filipinos.

With an economics background, people placed so much faith on her expertise. She  knew that to reverse years of economic decline, she had to instill fiscal discipline, grow the economy and invest in human and physical infrastructure.

President Fidel Ramos said that His Excellency, President Macapagal set an exacting standard of personal integrity, intelligence and dedication to public service by which his successors have continued to be judged. One would have expected GMA  to follow the footsteps of her own father who was believed to be an honest and incorruptible politician and led a simple but dignified lifestyle.

Her father, President Diosdado Macapagal,  tried to clean up corruption in government. The Macapagal administration openly feuded with Filipino businessmen Fernando Lopez and Eugenio Lopez, brothers who had controlling interests in several large businesses. The administration alluded to the brothers as "Filipino Stonehills who build and maintain business empires through political power, including the corruption of politicians and other officials".

President Arroyo’s father, strongly opposed midnight appointments of his predecessor. But she  is doing just that. She  appointed many officials in positions with tenures well beyond June 30, 2010. Her administration is attempting to justify its intention to make what would be a patently "midnight appointment" of a successor Chief Justice of the Supreme Court within the period prohibited by the Constitution.  Even Senator Aquino has taken the position that if elected, he would not recognize a Chief Justice appointed by GMA contrary to the constitutional bans and appointments made during the final days of her presidency.

Where did GMA fail?

Was it due to questions of illegitimacy of governance that turned her to a different person ? Perhaps it has everything to do with the fact that during the May 2004 elections, GMA was still a legitimate president while after that she was not. She did everything in her powers to ensure that she stayed in power.

A hardworking president.  She worked so hard that during her first years as president, official records show her declared wealth as growing faster, and by amounts much bigger, than the combined growth in the declared wealth of three presidents before her.

Source: News Break

One thing for sure, GMA is one case where the apple fell far from the tree.

She made history as the only child of a past president who became a president herself. She made history by having assumed the presidency through people power but unlike Cory Aquino she clung on to power through questionable means. She is now widely perceived as the most hated and  “most corrupt" chief executive in the history of the Philippines since the Marcos administration.   She will leave office not with dignity and honor but under a cloud of fear and suspicion resulting from her dubious record as president for which she might face many legal cases. This is why she also took the unprecedented step of running for a lower office after she leaves Malacañang Palace. She wants to maintain her power and influence because she knows that she will face a lot of possible lawsuits.

She may have inherited her ambition and political instincts from her father but her disgrace is all her own.

Her dad's advice and motto "Do what is right, do your best and let God take care of the rest" are supposedly the words she lives by.

The question is did she really do what is right for the country?

Image taken from papalbusters.blogspot.com. If you are the original owner of this image, please reach us so you can be given due credit.

You  might also want to read:

All in the family: Bongbong Marcos

Photo by author. Some Rights Reserved.

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