Nearly eight years ago I asked President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, “I’m sure a lot of women are dying to ask you this question.”
“And since you are not a widow, they would like to ask you this question. You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but a lot of women are dying to know – do you still have sex?”
The 55-year-old mother of three replied “Plenty” – and gave a toothy smile.
Last January 22, when she hosted a a surprise dinner for 23 officers and members of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) I asked her a milder personal question about her hair. Now I’m not so sure if her reluctant reply pertained to my question eight years ago or two Fridays ago.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and FOCAP
During the hour-long dinner, Mrs Arroyo was at her gracious best but she was not all that candid. I must say, it took all of our reportorial skills to get her to talk about her former college student and now leading presidential contender Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III. She refused to talk about her party’s presidential standard bearer Gilbert Teodoro or about her feelings towards the Ampatuans – her long-time allies now accused of murdering 57 people including 30 journalists.
The ease with which she talked to reporters vanished in 2005 when wiretapped tapes of her, suggesting she was trying to rig her 2004 poll victory by a million votes, leaked out.
During her dinner some of that ease returned as she talked about the presidential palace, her girlhood and her Palace chef. Only to vanish when she refused to answer many questions she deemed “political” or which asked about her “feelings”.
Still, the occasion gave me a momentary glimpse of the power and the pomp of the presidency, its lonely isolation, and the woman who was determined to hold on to it for as long as she could.
I did not get any hint she was ready to clear out her desk by June 30 when her term ends.
At short notice. An invitation to dine with her, even at several hours’ notice, was highly unusual and one I seized at a moment’s notice. She had not seen FOCAP since 2007. A press conference in 2008 was abruptly canceled after we were told she would only talk about the economy and would not entertain political questions.
I was curious why the President wanted to meet us on the same day she waved goodbye to the remains of her press secretary, Cerge Remonde.
Her terms for engaging the foreign press quickly became evident. At the entrance to the presidential palace, the guards impounded all tape recorders and cameras on orders of the palace media relations office. It was a first for many of the journalists, including me, who have covered Palace events in three previous presidencies.
The media handlers later explained that no tape recorders and cameras were allowed because it was a strictly social event. A Palace photographer would snap photos. The confiscation disoriented me somewhat because we were informed earlier that while there was no formal Q and A, the President “may answer questions”.
Didn’t she want to be quoted correctly? And it would have been bad manners for us to scribble throughout the meal.
It turned out alright in the end, because someone else, who asked to remain unnamed, enabled me to put together almost the entire dinner conversation. Besides, Mrs Arroyo never told us it was off the record.
I wasn’t going to write about poll automation just yet. I thought what President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo told the foreign press corps last Friday, January 22 was old hat, until I saw the presidential palace story on the dinner:
PGMA assures foreign media there will be no failure of election
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo last night assured foreign correspondents there will be no failure of elections in May.
In a dinner she hosted for the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) at the Palace, the President said she was assured by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) that it is doing its best to complete the automated poll system before May. She said all the funds necessary for holding the national elections have been disbursed.
That’s funny. I did not come away from the Palace dinner feeling reassured that the automation was going great guns.
Oliver Teves of Associated Press shakes hands with President Arroyo while I (in brown coat) look on; left foreground is FOCAP president Jim Gomez; behind Jim is Dana Batnag of Jiji Press; on right background is Zhao Jiemin of Xinhua News Agency - PHOTO courtesy of Malacanang Palace press office
In fact I felt more apprehensive because of what Mrs Arroyo told us.
When I asked her – “Maam, are you personally worried” – about the automation?
Her reply did not give comfort. First she said, “Um”, and she looked up at the ceiling. Then she said, more like talking to herself, “I’m worried. I’m worried, but I – I have to go by what the Comelec said.”
Dear readers, tell me if I’m being paranoid by reading more than what the President really told us.
Help me out here by reading for yourself what President Arroyo (GMA) said – word for word – on poll automation during our dinner . I would like to thank a colleague in FOCAP for providing me with the specific quotes reprinted below:
FOCAP MEMBER: THERE ARE CONCERNS ABOUT THE AUTOMATION PROCESS.
GMA: Ya, thats why I called a national security council meeting. Because we needed to ask Comelec.
FOCAP MEMBER: ARE WE STILL ON SCHEDULE?
GMA:Ya, that’s what the Comelec said.
FOCAP MEMBER: WHAT ASPECT ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT, OF AUTOMATION?
GMA: Well, it’s not been tested. So we expressed the concern that everybody —
FOCAP MEMBER (ME): MAAM, ARE YOU PERSONALLY WORRIED?
GMA: Um – I’m worried. I’m worried, but I – I have to go by what the Comelec said.
FOCAP MEMBER: WHAT IF IT FAILS?
GMA: They said it might fail in some – some areas. But it cannot, but not nationally.
FOCAP MEMBER: WHAT ABOUT THE AUTOMATION ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT?THE COUNTING,THE–
GMA: I don’t know, I don’t know. It’s just that –
FOCAP MEMBER (ME): YOU’RE UNEASY
GMA: I don’t know. Like all of you. Like all of you. It’s more –
FOCAP MEMBER: WHAT STEPS ARE YOU DOING TO AVOID A FAILURE OF ELECTIONS?
GMA: We have to support the Comelec in everything they want to do. It’s their primary responsiblity but we’re suporting them. That’s why we called a National Security Council meeting. To ask them what they would need. We’ve made the budget tthat they need available.
FOCAP MEMBER: LET’S KEEP OUR FINGERS CROSSED.
GMA: They said they’re not entertaining a failure of elections
FOCAP MEMBER: NANDON BA ANG (IS THERE A )BACKUP PLAN IF EVER?
GMA: You know I can’t be their spokesman. You have to ask them. But then they made a presentation. What about failure of elections. They said there may be some but only in isolated areas, but not nationwide.
FOCAP MEMBER: SO WHAT DID THEY SAY IN SOME ISOLATED AREAS
GMA: Same as now. It happens. So they have their mechanism. But it doesnt affect the national anymore.
FOCAP MEMBER: THEY ASSURED YOU IT WON’T BE MASSIVE FAILURE
GMA: That’s what they said. They’re not entertaining national failure of elections, maybe in some isolated areas but not nationwide.
FOCAP MEMBER: DID THEY MENTION TO YOU ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF PARALLEL MANUAL COUNT?
GMA: They did not say.
FOCAP MEMBER (DANA BATNAG OF JIJI PRESS: – YOU SAID COMELEC IS NOT ENTERTAINING THE POSSIBILITY. DOES THAT MEAN THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT IS NOT PREPARING FOR THE POSSIBLITY OF A FAILURE OF ELECTIONS? OR ARE THERE PREPARATIONS?
GMA: As far as we are concerend, we would rather prepare to help Comelec succeed.
FOCAP MEMBER: IN CASE IT HAPPENS
GMA: You know, they said it’s not going to happen. So we take their word for it.
Since our Friday dinner, pronouncements from the Comelec have made me even warier.
Fidel Ramos won in 1992 with only 5,342,321 votes.
Joseph Estrada won in 1998 with 10,722,295 votes or 31.39% of registered voters then.
In 2004, Mrs Arroyo was credited with 12,905,808 votes or 29.64% of registered voters.
Given these trends, we should not be worried with an automation failure rate that could affect as much as 14.4 million voters?
There are other things I’m worried about. When I was listening to Wednesday’s Comelec and Smartmatic presentation before Senator Francis Escudero’s Senate committee, I realized that the automation left very little margin for error as far as ballot distribution is concerned.
Let me explain. In all our elections, Comelec only had to send out the number of ballots for each precinct nationwide plus a little extra for spoilage.
Now, because all the local candidates’ names from congressman down to councilor are printed at the back of each ballot, Comelec has to be very precise in delivering to every area.
In Quezon City for instance, ballots for District 1 should only go to District 1 and not anywhere else. Otherwise, the name of the candidates for congressman would be wrong. For the same reason, ballots for Quezon City cannot go to Manila since the names of the candidates for mayors and city councilors would be wrong.
For the first time, Comelec would have to practice that kind of precision especially in far-flung areas.
And some candidates could take advantage by finding ways for ballots, intended for certain areas where they are weak, to be diverted somewhere else.
From what I have seen of candidates’ behavior in previous polls, I am certain there are candidates who are even now trying to find ways to game the system for to their own advantage.
If you want to know more about what President Arroyo told FOCAP – about her hair, the grade she gave her former student Senator Noynoy Aquino, about life in the presidential palace, etc – click on the link below:
Your protegé, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, is rushing to build you a monument after calling you a “bully”.
Does she have the presidential power to order your memorial erected in Rizal Park, in effect declaring you a national hero equal or second only to Jose Rizal?
Is there a mischievous political purpose behind the planned memorial?
President Arroyo has not told the nation how she personally feels about Aquino, whom she once told me was her only “living role model”, during an interview in October 2000, four months before Aquino helped her to power.
But there are enough indications to show that her four-year rift with Aquino, while the latter was still alive, has not been laid to rest.
Arroyo’s message of condolence upon Aquino’s death sounded stilted.
When she said “our hearts go out to the family in this hour of grief and sorrow,” she sounded and looked the same as when she said “I am sorry” following the leak of the infamous wiretapped tapes of her talking to an election official, which caused Aquino to quit her side.
Listen to the video below:
Then compare it to her message of condolence.
Arroyo’s terse message of sympathy on the death of her benefactress deviated from her usual, highly personal style of speaking. She used the word “I” only once, never mentioned Aquino’s bereaved children by name nor extended her own personal condolences or those of her own family.
If you want to read her message of condolence, click on this.
When she issued this message, she was abroad. And the 10 days of mourning she ordered for the entire nation excluded her and her entourage. They had the time of their lives wining and dining in the swankiest restaurants.
Upon her return home, she visited Arroyo’s wake for all of seven minutes and skipped the requiem mass altogether.
Why then would she want to erect a monument in her honor?
Once the shrine is built, guess who will unveil it most probably during next month’s Edsa People Power Anniversary, based on the six months deadline announced by the late presidential spokesman Cerge Remonde.
Because Arroyo ordered it built, guess whose name will forever be engraved on the same plaque embedded on the said monument.
Guess, too, who will give the keynote speech during the occasion defining the Cory legacy for future generations. And in so doing, could a kinder and gentler Arroyo also emerge for the yet unborn Filipinos who will thank her for memorializing Aquino with a shrine?
It was, ironically, Aquino and her family who gave Arroyo the head start in politics. Arroyo has since boasted that she played a major role in installing Aquino as president in 1986 by knocking on various foreign embassies for their support. But reporters and sources interviewed do not remember Arroyo at Edsa.
Arroyo’s reward for helping Aquino – an appointment to head a minor trade bureau – does not seem commensurate to a key role.
Arroyo told me in October 2000 that it was Aquino’s brother-in-law Paul who had drafted her to the Senate slate in 1992. Since she placed 13 out of 24 winning senators she had to run again in 1995. She topped that.
“That was when the thought came to me that probably he (God) wants me to try to go for a higher position (the presidency in 1998),” Arroyo said.
But Aquino refused to anoint Arroyo’s presidential bid despite the personal prodding of three people close to her: her brother, ex-Congressman Jose “Peping” Cojuangco; the late Philippine Star columnist Teodoro Benigno; and Pastor “Boy” Saycon.
Three sources, including marketing man and now Philippine Star columnist William “Billy” Esposo” separately confirmed to me that Aquino rejected Arroyo saying ““I find her too pragmatic. She will do anything to gain the presidency.”
In the year 2000, Aquino herself would make the pragmatic move of backing Arroyo against Estrada. Six months before her death, she publicly apologized for this “mistake”.
Contrasting Presidents Arroyo and Aquino
Interestingly, both women appeared to lead parallel lives early on. Born 14 years apart, both have “Maria” appended to their baptismal names – Maria Corazon and Maria Gloria – meaning heart and glory. Their very names reflected the driving force of their personalities.
Both were locally schooled by nuns, studied at American Catholic universities, spoke European languages and married at age 21.
Both were born to political families but neither was raised to wield power. Both accidentally became president at the age of 53 after spending the early part of their adult lives rocking the cradle – producing eight children between them.
When each became president, however, the differences became marked.
Aquino wore the mantle of power like a massive allergy. She used her revolutionary powers sparingly because, as Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. told me, “she wanted to be the opposite of (the strongman Ferdinand) Marcos.
Aquino seemed to have one foot inside a nunnery and was never seen dancing nor jetting around, although reports said she played mahjong to relax. She was frugal in spending people’s money on herself. Her clothes mimicked the habit of nuns in their shapelessness and length.
While some relatives were accused of enriching themselves, her own integrity was never questioned.
Aquino knew the seduction of power but never succumbed to it. Once, her former spokesman Rene Saguisag told me an anecdote about her. During a massive adoring crowd chanted out her name, Aquino had turned to Saguisag and said, “kaya pala mga pulitiko gustong gusto ito. Nakakalasing.” (No wonder politicians love this sort of thing. It’s intoxicating.)
In stark contrast, Arroyo seems to thrive and become more comely with power although she told me once: “I’ve never been known as a great beauty.”
Last Friday, when she hosted a dinner for members of FOCAP (Foreign
Correspondents Association of the Philippines) she was stylishly turned out although in deep mourning.
She works very hard but also enjoys the perks of a traveling head of state, staying in the best hotels and eating gourmet. Since 2001, she has spent abroad the equivalent of 10 months. In last year’s first half alone, she spent over a month (43 days) overseas, according to government records.
She often stretches the powers of the presidency beyond what the 1987 Cory Constitution provides, especially when protecting herself from corruption probes.
With the planned Cory monument, it is unclear whether she has the power to even undertake it. Because before and after the regime of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, all major shrines were approved by Acts of Congress.
Both Aquino and Arroyo once promised to be transition presidents and then step down. But Arroyo went back on her word. And when the nation heard an electronic recording of Arroyo asking an election official whether she would win by one million votes during the 2004 presidential polls, Aquino bluntly told her to resign.
This episode in their intertwining lives is something Arroyo hopes history will forget. She and her aides have clearly indicated what Aquino should be remembered for. Immediately upon Aquino’s death, they confined her historical legacy to the 1986 Edsa people power uprising.
Arroyo herself called Aquino “a national treasure” because she “helped lead a revolution that restored democracy” 23 years ago. Period.
For her to call Aquino a hero for one part of her life and a heel and bully in another part could confuse the yet unborn Filipinos about Aquino’s worth as a hero. To confine Aquino’s legacy to just 1986 and disregard the 2005-2009 period could lead to a reality distortion.
Aquino’s legacy had two phases
Aquino’s struggle had two phases. The initial phase began when she returned to Manila a widow of an assassinated senator and ended when she stepped down from the presidency in 1992.
The second phase started when she stepped out of retirement three times as Citizen Cory to force all her successors – Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada and Arroyo – to behave as she thought presidents should.
On July 8, 2005 she publicly asked Arroyo “to make the supreme sacrifice of resigning from office” after wiretapped tapes surfaced which Aquino said “cast serious doubt on the electoral victory of the President in the recent elections.”
Two months later on September 13, 2005, she nagged Arroyo about resigning and lectured her protegé:
According to moral principles, a government that assumes or retains power through fraudulent means has no moral basis. For such an access to power is tantamount to a forcible seizure and cannot command the allegiance of the citizenry.
If such a government does not of itself freely correct the evil it has inflicted on the people, then it is our serious moral obligation as a people to make them do so.
But days later on September 22, 2005, Arroyo fired back saying -
I’m tired of chasing the bully around the schoolyard…. those who will not (heed my call) and continue to sow trouble, we will enforce the rule of law.
Although Aquino’s name wasn’t mentioned, it was clear she was among “those” being referred to.
A close Arroyo ally, Senator Miriam Santiago,then proceeded to blacken
Aquino’s name a week later by accusing the global icon of democracy of plotting to kill Arroyo. (Isn’t there a move to disqualify Santiago from running on grounds of …just asking, just asking.)
Since 2005, Aquino has never wavered from her demand for Arroyo’s resignation. From her deathbed last June, she lashed out at “the shameful abuses of the powerful that seek to destroy our sacred laws.” She clearly meant Arroyo.
Now the presidential palace, which Aquino restored to the people, wants
Filipinos to forget Arroyo ever said all those things about Aquino. Once the Arroyo-sponsored memorial is built, it would be a strange one indeed, intended for Filipinos to forget.
The sudden death of Press Secretary Cerge Remonde shows the immense burden he was carrying for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
And if he was this distressed, how much more President Arroyo.
We won’t know until years from now if and when she issues an autobiography.
But this much I do know.
Elpidio Quirino, whose scandal-ridden administration has often been compared to hers, disclosed his own agony in the dying days of his presidency.
When Ayala Museum was given custody of Quirino’s presidential papers I was privileged to be tapped to write his uncensored biography based on his papers.
I found out that when Quirino ran for reelection in May 1953 against the highly popular Ramon Magsaysay – who won by 1.5 million votes – Quirino confessed that “mysterious chills, fevers and vomiting” suddenly came upon him.
The affliction dogged him and became quite unbearable. Two months later in July he had to undergo surgery twice – July 8 and July 25 – at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He had a heart ailment, gout and ulcers.
We have not been told the true state of the incumbent Arroyo’s physical health.
One reporter who was invited to eat with her inside the presidential palace personally narrated to me afterwards that Mrs. Arroyo had asked an aide to bring to the table a certain drug, which the reporter recognized was a painkiller.
President Arroyo must be under even more pressure than Remonde, now that her back is against the wall.
Whenever I think of her nowadays, I remember Shakespeare’s portrayal of King Henry IV, who wailed about his insomnia saying: “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown/ Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”
I often wonder – how does she sleep?
For those who want to savor Henry IV’s entire soliloquy, here it is below. Part of the secret of reading Shakespeare is that you don’t have to know the meaning of all the words to appreciate him. Just let yourself be carried away by the lilt of the language and the tidal wave of emotion that the words evoke.
KING HENRY IV:
How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee
And hush’d with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull’d with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch
A watch-case or a common ‘larum-bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s run for Congress is being favourably compared by her supporters to that of United States President John Quincy Adams.
The allusion, it turns out, is not entirely correct. It could also prove unfortunate and make her critics quite happy.
Adams, according to our 1968 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica printed in the US, finished his term as president in 1829. It was only a year later that he ran for Congress and won, and not while sitting in the Oval Office.
“When it was suggested to him that his acceptance of this position would degrade an ex-president, Adams replied that no person could be degraded by serving the people as a representative in Congress.”
A desire for vindication may have been behind Adam’s decision to run for Congress. Like Arroyo, his presidential electoral victory came under a cloud early on and marred his entire term. He was accused of vote-buying and corruption after he appointed as Secretary of State the person who had cast the winning vote for him in the electoral college – the body that ultimately determines who should be president.
Arroyo, too,was accused of allegedly rigging her votes in the 2004 race.
Adams served in Congress for 17 years but all the while “he had not abandoned his hopes for a re-election to the presidency,” the Britannica said.
On February 21, 1848, while delivering a vituperative speech inside the session hall, “he suffered a cerebral stroke, fell unconscious to the floor of the house and died two days later in the capitol building.”
Britannica’s description of Adams reminds me very much of Arroyo: “He had few intimate friends, and not many men in American history have been regarded, during the period of our lifetime, with so much hosility and attacked with so much rancour by their political opponents.”
I believe the true test of a democratic nation is the ability of its people to sack their leaders ritually through fraud-free elections. And to criticize and hold them accountable without fear of being buried by a backhoe.
January 31, 2010 | Posted by raissa robles 
Categories: Ampatuan massacre, Asking Pres. Gloria Arroyo about sex..., Ex-defense secretary Gilberto Teodoro, Journalism, Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and family, Sen. Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III | 
Tags: Ampatuan massacre, FOCAP, Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines, Gilberto Teodoro, Jim Gomez of Associated Press, Malacanang Palace, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, presidential accountability, Senator Benigno Aquino III | 
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