Power and Gloria

For

a few moments, she appears to be sleeping, ignoring the helicopter's incessant buzz and shutting her eyes to the beauty of the Cordillera Mountains below. She has taken off her reading glasses and put away the newspapers. Coup rumors, strife in the southern island of Mindanao, the landing of hundreds of American soldiers that her critics are calling an invasion—these are subjects she now deals with every day. She knows that beneath the daily cacophony assailing her—the sneers, the ingratiation, the pleading and cajoling, and the doubts, always the doubts—are the same questions that have haunted her presidency since she assumed office a year ago: Can Gloria Macapagal Arroyo run this nation? Does she deserve to? Will she have the chance to prove it?

For now, in the late afternoon of a glorious January day, the steady beat of rotors thrumming through her, a pause. It's not the best place for a nap, but it will have to do. The 54-year-old was up late last night, after all, resplendent in a gold gown and sparkling diamond earrings, hosting a state dinner for Japan's Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi—his visit testimony to an international profile that has been radically elevated since Sept. 11 and is now cresting with the arrival of American troops in the south.

This morning, she was up before she could get her customary seven hours of sleep and out the MalacaNang Palace door for this trip, a tour of isolated and poor villages in the northern province of Abra. By distributing food and medicine, land titles and millions of pesos' worth of funds intended for agricultural modernization programs, she has brought government into the mountains, she says, along with the spirit of EDSA II, the second People Power revolution that swept her into office 12 long months ago.

At each stop, she is greeted by entire village populations cheering and waving with a passion normally reserved for holy days. Her mother grew up not far away. Arroyo knows the local dialect—one of six languages she speaks—and remembers the steps of the traditional dances she's invited to join. She's happiest on these trips, she says repeatedly. And she does seem looser than she is around the palace or in press conferences and at official functions. Her frequent reminders that she's the first President to visit these towns—shrugging off two previous helicopter crashes and "risking my life" to be here—are self-congratulatory but also true. Her numerous opponents, many of whom supported the ouster of her predecessor, Joseph Estrada, cite her frequent sojourns out of Manila as evidence that she's already campaigning for the next election in 2004, which would be her first presidential race.

Arroyo revels in the details of the job, describing herself as "a plodder, not a highflyer." Her staff have come to expect her customary late-night phone calls demanding updates on even the most picayune government projects: bridge repairs, toilet construction, the delivery of a bulldozer. After one year in office, she says, "by and large, I'm on track." Yet Arroyo, like the Philippines at the moment, is fluttering in an uncertain sky, trying to set a course but too often buffeted by forces that appear far more powerful than she. Poverty reigns, and government programs are hampered by the huge bites foreign debt and corruption take from the budget. Faith in law and order is nonexistent. Reports of kidnappings in Manila—most are not reported because families would rather pay ransom than deal with the police—and firefights in the south have laid waste to the tourism industry. And now the international war on terrorism has come to her shores, but the possibility of a victory in the long-running skirmish against Abu Sayyaf has been complicated by assertions that by inviting foreign troops on Philippine soil, she has violated the constitution (see following story). It is the latest, and perhaps the largest, issue through which she could define her presidency—or find herself overwhelmed.

Her eyes open. It's been only a few minutes, but it's time to get back to work.

Malacanang is an elaborate place, a shamelessly opulent expanse of wood-paneled walls, gold-gilded mirrors, massive chandeliers and bulletproof windows (glass by Ferdinand Marcos; the rest, straight-up Imelda). Arroyo, who always dresses for the occasion, is wearing a deep purple suit, sitting up toward the edge of a couch with her hands in her lap. She's short, of course, under five feet, an easy target for people who attack her leadership by mocking her size (typical comment: "her policies are as diminutive as she is").

"I'm a pretty tough person," she insists, "so for those people (who) underestimate me, that's O.K. with me." She's no stranger to the palace, having lived here as a teenager from 1961 to 1965—her father, Diosdado Macapagal, her hero as parent and politician, was the President. The heavy wood desk in her office was his desk. The programs she espouses—an overarching anti-poverty campaign, empowerment through ownership of land, leadership by example—were also his.