Quotes of the Day
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo sees the hand of God everywhere. At a Manila antidrug rally one Saturday in July, a downpour was drenching the speakers on an outdoor stage. But when Arroyo stood to give her speech, the rain suddenly stopped—a shift in weather that she believes was a sign from God. A few days earlier, a typhoon forced her to cancel a return helicopter trip from a nearby province to Manila. She found the resulting car journey through small villages so enjoyable that the typhoon, too, was deemed heaven sent. Throughout her days, she prays silently, seeking God's guidance. "God wanted me to be President at this very complex moment in our country's history," she declares.
Arroyo needs all the divine intervention she can get. Two and a half years after being catapulted into office via a People Power revolt on the avenues of Manila, the diminutive former economist faces her own insurrection on the capital's streets: over the weekend, a band of rogue soldiers abandoned their posts and marched to Manila's financial district, where they set explosives, seized a service apartment complex and forced the evacuation of at least one five-star hotel. It wasn't exactly a coup attempt—the soldiers said they were teed off at corruption in the military and also charged elements of the military with providing weapons and explosives to terrorists—but for the stability-challenged Philippines, that was hardly reassuring. Attempted coups were the bane of the Philippine leader Arroyo most resembles: Corazon Aquino, the ex-housewife who toppled late strongman Ferdinand Marcos in the original People Power revolution of 1986. Aquino survived seven such putschs. This is Arroyo's first brush with an unruly barracks.
The relentless Philippine rumor mill had been working overtime all last week churning out allegations that a coup was imminent. Arroyo herself on Wednesday dined at the palace with openly disgruntled mid-level officers. Later she visited a military training camp. The troops, apparently, were never mollified. On Friday, a small group of younger officers at navy headquarters on Roxas Boulevard went AWOL, taking their men and their weapons with them. (The government says there were no more than a dozen officers, with perhaps 50 enlisted men following them.) Arroyo was alerted on Friday afternoon. "Should we make the mutiny public?" she asked her assembled Cabinet. "The general feeling was to let the public know at once so that whatever plans the coup plotters had would be nipped in the bud," relates one Cabinet minister. Arroyo decided to employ Jaime Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila and hero of the original People Power revolt, who released a pastoral letter on Saturday saying that a coup was in the works and that the citizenry should rally around Arroyo. Early Sunday morning, the band of soldiers marched into Makati and started laying explosives around a central parking lot. They later took over the The Oakwood Premiere, an upscale service apartment building (and home to the Australian Ambassador to the Philippines, Ruth Pearce, who was evacuated Sunday). In a televised statement, the group demanded that Arroyo's government step down, but went on to gripe about low pay and corruption among senior officers.
Until the mutiny in Manila, Arroyo saw her biggest challenge in the country's south, where she describes the possibility of striking a deal with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) as "a defining moment" for her presidency. Talks are scheduled to begin in Kuala Lumpur on Aug. 8. Peace, she told TIME correspondents during an interview in a dim study within the sprawling Malacaņang Palace "is now within grasp." The U.S. is strongly backing the talks and has promised $30 million in development aid for Mindanao, the southern island at the center of the MILF insurgency, if a peace deal is inked. Though admitting the need for caution, the U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines, Francis Joseph Ricciardone, says, "the stars are in alignment for a workable and genuine peace."
It would certainly be a sterling achievement. But a TIME investigation (see following story) shows that a deal with the MILF could be more risky than Arroyo admits publicly. The MILF is not the only troublemaker on that island. For decades, international terrorists—including Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda and members of Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the Southeast Asian terror gang thought to be responsible for the Bali bomb blasts of last October—have used Mindanao for weapons and bomb training. Arroyo's negotiations with the MILF separatists, who have called for an independent Islamic state, might do nothing to rid the Philippines of jihadis who want to blow up embassies and attack Western targets. The escape last month of Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi from a military jail in the middle of Manila was a reminder of JI's reach. Al-Ghozi trained with the MILF, but his allegiance is to JI. He was arrested for possessing one ton of TNT and confessed to carrying out a bomb blast in Manila that killed 22 and injured more than 100 on Dec. 30, 2000. Al-Ghozi was almost certainly sprung from jail with inside help; three weeks ago, Arroyo announced that she would form a commission to undertake a total overhaul of the national police.
Arroyo is clearly gunning for achievements these days—exactly what was expected of the country's first baby-boomer President. The 56-year-old economist was supposed to usher in a younger, cleaner, smarter administration than the Philip-pines had seen in the past. But after replacing the bumbling but democratically elected Joseph Estrada in January 2001, Arroyo found her presidency dogged by legitimacy issues. In response, her handlers came up with often laughable attempts to bolster her image, such as placing her on a magazine cover dressed in Men In Black-style shades and suit in an effort to portray her as tough on terrorism. "You felt like saying: Will the real Gloria please stand up?" says one former Cabinet minister.
Over the past year, the real Gloria—a hard-nosed technocrat—has finally arisen, and some strong results have followed. On the economy: unemployment and interest rates are declining. So is the budget deficit, which had reached a worrisome level last year. In the first six months of this year, the deficit was 33% lower than during the same period in 2002. A big reason is an anticorruption drive at the notoriously lax Bureau of Internal Revenue. Its chief, the reformer Guillermo Parayno, has weeded out wrongdoers and introduced more efficient computer systems to decrease opportunities for graft. The result: a 14.7% increase in taxes collected in June compared with a year earlier.
All this has created 4.4% economic growth—still, econ-omists say, the Philippines needs to surpass 7% to reduce poverty and absorb additional workers resulting from the country's high birthrate. Central bank governor Rafael Buenaventura says the economy "is a diesel engine rather than turbocharged." Ask members of Arroyo's economic team what's holding the economy back, and they unanimously cough up one word: security. The bombings and insurgencies that are a common part of Philippine life suppress investment and force the government to redirect scarce resources away from economic stimulus programs. Last week's attempted coup is an example of how the government's agenda can be ruthlessly redirected by current events. That's why Arroyo considers an MILF peace deal a "defining moment." It's not only political: the economy can't boom without it.
During Arroyo's meeting with TIME, she ticked off the major problems facing her administration—corrution, drugs, poverty, and one of Southeast Asia's worst terrorism threats—a list that loomed even larger than her giant wooden presidential desk and didn't yet include the Makati siege. "I inherited a complex nation with complex problems," she said. "And I came in realizing there is no silver bullet."
Arroyo has only 10 more months in office after vowing last December to forswear a campaign to regain office. (She said at the time that God had approved her decision.) In fact, after 30 frustrating months—and before last weekend's mutiny—Arroyo seemed to be getting some purchase on the levers of power. There were the promising peace talks with the MILF. Four officials suspected of corruption in the revenue and customs bureaus were smoked out last week and are being investigated—the latest objects of a growing campaign against corruption. The economy is slowly improving, too. With such successes, Arroyo doesn't look like a politician ready to leave office next year—especially since her chances of winning keep improving. Her approval rating in one June survey jumped to 46%, from a paltry 34% only three months earlier.
Arroyo may say she is not running, but she is certainly not idling, either. Last Monday, she marched into a meeting of her economic team focused on how to spend assets won in a lawsuit from the estate of disgraced and deceased former President Ferdinand Marcos. Glasses pinched at the end of her nose, she pored over the specifics like a full-time accountant. "She knows our jobs better than we do," joked Trade Secretary Mar Roxas. The next day she was off to some provinces near Manila. In a speech at a spartan hall in the town of Santa Cruz, she exhorted recruits to a police-sponsored community-watch program to fight drugs and terrorism, and promised "to leave no stone unturned" in the hunt for al-Ghozi. She sure looks like a candidate on the hustings, and political analysts admit that another Arroyo administration is looking more attractive. Still, in a country where elections are more popularity contests than policy debates, the stern Arroyo is given even odds—at best—to win if she decides to run. Arroyo is insistent she can be more effective without worrying about a campaign. "I don't want to be distracted by politics," she tells TIME. At the same time, she admits that turning around a troubled nation like the Philippines isn't done in a hurry. "It's not a sprint," she says, "it's a marathon." Her distractions now transcend the merely political, as the latest mutiny reminds us of the fragility of the Philippines' democratic institutions.
- Michael Schuman | Manila
- As mutineers seize a Manila complex and demand that the government resign, Arroyo faces her presidency's toughest test