Under Siege

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo spent last week in desperate spin mode. First, the Philippine President went on national television to admit that she had spoken on the phone with an unnamed election official during the counting of votes in the presidential election in May last year—an issue that has galvanized the political opposition for weeks. Arroyo maintained it was an innocent call, not an attempt to rig the ballot, but acknowledged a "lapse in judgment" and asked the citizenry to "close this chapter." So important was the speech that she gave it twice, in English and then in Tagalog, which is more comprehensible to most Filipinos. In the second version, she asked for "forgiveness." On Wednesday, Arroyo addressed a lunch meeting of business executives and announced, with tears in her eyes, that her husband, Jose Miguel, who is being investigated for allegedly receiving kickbacks from an illegal gambling racket, would live outside the Philippines indefinitely to avoid being a target for her critics. "Today, my family is once again called to sacrifice our personal happiness," she said. The next day, Arroyo accepted the resignation of Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, who has been charged with tax evasion (which he denies).

Even as Arroyo was trying to rescue her presidency from a vertiginous tailspin, a potential rallying figure for the opposition made a dramatic debut. At a press conference carried live on TV and radio, Susan Roces, the widow of the challenger in last year's election, Fernando Poe Jr., said Arroyo's apology to the nation proved that her late husband was cheated out of the presidency. Poe, who died of a stroke last December, was a popular film actor. Roces is one too, as beloved among regular people as her husband was, and she chewed up the scenery in the role of the Furious Widow. "[Arroyo] can lie through her teeth with a straight face," she seethed. "She's arrogant!" Roces said she'd gladly join street protests to get Arroyo to resign—heightening the prospect, remote until now, of People Power demonstrations. Then, on Friday, the Supreme Court, acting on a petition by opposition legislators and oil dealers, suspended an unpopular value-added tax that had gone into effect only hours earlier. The tax was a key part of Arroyo's plan to raise government revenues to plug the Philippines' chronic budget deficit, and its suspension was a major blow to the President's hopes of revitalizing the economy.

It was, in short, a week from hell for Arroyo, a 58-year-old former economics professor who once seemed exactly the kind of leader the Philippines needed. A policy wonk with a Ph.D. from Georgetown University, Arroyo came to power in 2001 in a People Power revolt that toppled another movie star, President Joseph Estrada, who had been weakened by a flood of corruption allegations and a failed impeachment trial. Last year's election was meant to legitimize Arroyo's rule; and the middle class and the business sector, at least, were relieved when she beat Poe—the country badly needed economic reform, which Arroyo seemed far more capable of delivering. Better governance finally appeared to be at hand. Now that's all threatened because of scandals of the common sort in the Philippines—election cheating, graft—and Arroyo's handling of them. The nation, yet again, is living up to its reputation as unstable and perpetually in crisis. "Mrs. Arroyo has become the symbol of everything that is wrong in Philippine governance," says Randolf S. David, professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines. "Many believe that the longer she remains in office, the more the crisis engulfs the whole system."

Arroyo has chosen to break an old rule of politics—"never apologize, never explain"—in a gamble that she can rise above Manila's deafening political noise and appeal directly to the people. Her message: "My administration may have lost its way, but give me a second chance." And she may be orchestrating more damage control. Congressman Joey Salceda, part of the President's economic team, told the press last week that Arroyo was planning major changes in the way the government operates. "The political misfortunes of the President are reversible," he said. Nicandro Arcena, 57, a security guard in Manila, agrees—up to a point. "Arroyo, for the time being, should be retained," he says, "because she hasn't been proved guilty yet. If she is found guilty, she has to go. But who will replace her? It's possible we'd get someone even worse."

The risk of spring cleaning one year into a presidential term is that skeletons get exposed. News photos of Arroyo's husband arriving in Hong Kong—besides him, his brother and the Arroyos' eldest son have also been accused of accepting money from illegal gambling, which they have all denied—gained the President sympathy in some quarters. But the reverse reaction was also widespread, with some arguing that Arroyo was tacitly admitting to her husband's guilt and letting him escape judgment by Philippine law. "Going into exile? He's just going to have fun in California," says Homobono Adaza, a former immigration commissioner. "He should come back and face the music."