Now she truly is. Becoming president has been part of Arroyo’s ambitions from the time she lived in Malacanang Palace. “Ever since she was a girl, Gloria has been obsessed with carrying on her father’s legacy,” says Larry Henares, a family friend who served as a cabinet member in her father’s administration. Unlike Corazon Aquino, who was thrust into politics by the assassination of her husband, Benigno, in 1983, Arroyo has prepared herself for this moment all her life. It is no accident that, even with her association with Joseph Estrada, she has been able to become the most popular politician in the Philippines. Her father, the son of a poor laundrywoman, was regarded as an honest but calculating politician. Arroyo, too, is not an idealist or a moral beacon, but a pragmatist who carefully gets things done. “She is very deliberate,” says Rene Velasco, one of her top advisers. “She’s never impulsive.”
It’s hard to imagine anyone more different from Estrada than Arroyo. A highly educated member of the ruling elite–she got her Ph.D. in macroeconomics–Arroyo is considered a disciplined, hard-working perfectionist. Back in November, when she decided to quit her cabinet post to lead the anti-Estrada forces, Vice President Arroyo began assembling a transition team to line up ministers and develop a 100-day plan for her eventual administration. She tried to include a broad coalition of opposition groups to ensure the plan’s success. Still, it will be a challenge to balance the Philippines’ political forces, even as she tries to jump-start the sluggish economy. “Nobody’s ever really prepared to be president,” says Henares.
Like her ambitious classmate, Bill Clinton, Arroyo has always been drawn to power. As a teenager, she developed a small following by writing a column in the local newspaper. Even in graduate school, when she became enamored with Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Arroyo kept her elitist ambition. At a colleague’s wedding, she insisted on being seated next to an influential university president so that “it would be a distinction for her.” In her short but successful political career–she was the top vote-getter in each of the last two elections (once as senator, once as vice president)–she changed parties three times, always shifting to get closer to power.
The stigma of elitism could hurt Arroyo. She grew up in the lap of luxury and celebrity, and then married into one of the Philippines’ richest families. (Her husband, who manages properties, is considered in social circles “the next Imelda Marcos.”) But when Arroyo became vice president, Estrada gave her a portfolio that could only enhance her popularity: the Department of Social Welfare and Development. “It’s not a big job, but it’s very useful,” says Dante Canlas, Arroyo’s thesis adviser at the University of the Philippines. “She was able to show her concern for the poor” by traveling to every province, delivering food and relief supplies to the poor.
What may have been Arroyo’s hardest decision came early last year, when the opposition started pressuring her to abandon Estrada. Her silence was damaging her credibility, but–like a long-distance runner drafting on another–she didn’t think it was time to break away. She finally resigned last October as Estrada was hammered by corruption allegations. Her timing, as usual, was exquisite. She was immediately embraced as the opposition savior, though critics still say it was a decision based less on loyalty or ethics than on power and popularity. They find it hard to understand what Arroyo means when she promises “new politics.” Didn’t she use old-style tactics to get to the top? Sure, says her younger brother, Diosdado Macapagal, a stockbroker. “But unlike veteran politicians, she hasn’t built up a large network of political alliances–so she’s not beholden to any one of them,” he says. If that proves true, then perhaps it’s time to add another page to her father’s book.
