Presidential, congressional, provincial and local elections were held in the Philippines on May 9, 2016. All executive and legislative offices at the national, provincial and local levels of government were elected, with the exception of the lowest-level village (barangay) officials. The most important election was for the President and Vice President, followed by elections for half the seats in the Senate and all the seats in the House of Representatives.
Electoral and political system
The Philippines are a presidential republic, and its political and electoral system bears many similarities to that of the United States, but there remain some key differences.
The President of the Philippines (Pangulo ng Pilipinas) is the head of state and government of the Philippines, directly elected by voters to serve a six-year term by FPTP. The letter of the Constitution states that “the President shall not be eligible for any reelection”, which clearly bans immediate reelection for an incumbent elected to the office. The next sentence reads “No person who has succeeded as President and has served as such for more than four years shall be qualified for election to the same office at any time.” This allows someone (such as the Vice President) who has acceded to the presidency and served less than four years of the term to seek reelection, as President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo did in 2004. It remains unclear whether non-consecutive reelection for a former president is also banned, given that one former president (Joseph Estrada, 1998-2001) ran for president in 2010. Estrada’s case was brought to the Supreme Court, but the issue was heard after the election (which he lost), so it was dismissed.
The President’s powers are comparable to those of other presidents in most presidential system – appointment, commander-in-chief of the military, control of the executive branch and imposition of martial law.
The Vice President of the Philippines (Pangalawang Pangulo ng Pilipinas) is the first in the constitutional line of succession, and assumes the presidency in case of the death, permanent disability, removal from office, or resignation of the President. The VP is elected in the same manner, but separately from, the President – a fairly rare working, which sets the Philippines apart from other presidential system. The VP cannot serve for more than two consecutive terms. It is possible and in fact not uncommon for candidates from different parties to be elected as President and VP (as happened in the last election, in 2010). The Constitution does not establish any mandatory official duties for the VP besides presidential succession – the VP is not, for example, President of the Senate – but does allow for the VP to be appointed as a member of cabinet.
Only natural-born citizens over the age of 40 who have resided in the country for the ten years immediately preceding the election are eligible to be elected President or Vice President. The President, VP and some other senior officials (such as Supreme Court members) may be impeached for “culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust.” The House of Representatives initiates impeachment cases, although a main difference from US impeachment proceedings is that only a third of the House is required to approve articles of impeachment for them to be transmitted to the Senate for trial. In the Senate, presidential impeachment trials are presided by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (non-voting member), and like the US, a two-thirds majority is required for conviction.
The Congress of the Philippines (Kongreso ng Pilipinas) is the country’s bicameral national legislature, consisting of the Senate (Senado) as the upper house and the House of Representatives (Kapulungan ng mga Kinatawan). Congress’ powers are similar to those of the US Congress – general legislative powers, confirmation of appointments (by a joint commission), veto override (with a two-thirds majority in both houses), control and supervision of the executive, senatorial approval of treaties, declaration of war by joint session and impeachment.
The Senate has 24 members elected at-large for six-year terms through plurality at-large voting (block vote), with half of the seats up every three years. Senators may not serve more than two consecutive terms. In senatorial elections, parties or coalitions run a ‘ticket’ or slate (which are sometimes incomplete), which they sometimes complete with so-called ‘guest candidates’, or candidates who are members of another party.
The House of Representatives, after the election, will have 297 representatives serving three-year terms. Representatives cannot serve for more than three consecutive terms. 80% of all representatives (in 2013, 234, in 2016, 238) are elected in single-member legislative or congressional districts by FPTP. Seats are apportioned among the provinces and cities on the basis of their population, but Congress has shirked from its constitutional responsibility to reapportion legislative districts following every census, with the result being that there has been no national reapportionment since the Constitution was adopted in 1987 and the only changes to district boundaries have come as a result of the creation of new provinces or cities or piecemeal redistricting. The population of the districts currently runs the gamut from 16,600 to over 1 million.
The remaining 20% of the seats (in 2013, 58, in 2016, 59) are called party-list seats, which are for purportedly under-represented sectors (labour, poor, women, women, youth etc.). The country’s political parties do not run for the party-list seats, which are disputed between hundreds of small parties (or glorified lobbies/interest groups) which nobody really seems to care or know very much about. The distribution of the party-list seats follows an odd and arcane method – essentially the Hare quota, with several important modifications. Firstly, there is a 2% threshold, but it doesn’t amount to much: parties which pass the threshold automatically win at least one seat, but in successive rounds of allocation, any unfilled seats once all parties over 2% have received their seats are distributed to the parties until all seats have been filled. In addition, no party may win more than three seats. Wikipedia attempts an explanation, although it tough to get your head around it. Over 40 parties won party-list seats in 2013 – one won three seats, another 14 won two seats. The biggest party won just 4.6% of the vote, the smallest party to win seats won 0.86%. Over 31% of the votes cast in the party-list election in 2013 were invalid or blank votes.
Only natural-born citizens can serve in Congress, but there are different age qualifications – 35 for the Senate, 25 for the House – and residency requirements – no less than two years in the country for the Senate, no less than one year in the district for district representatives.
Provinces of the Philippines
The local government units in the Philippines are the provinces, independent cities, component cities/municipalities and barangays. There is one autonomous region, the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which stands above the provinces and cities. Local governments enjoy local autonomy under presidential supervision. There are 81 provinces and 38 independent cities (cities which are independent from provinces and do not vote, with some exceptions, for provincial offices) – but, to make matters confusing, official maps do not generally distinguish provinces and independent cities, and some independent cities are still grouped with their former provinces in congressional districts (while some component cities, not separate from provinces, form their own congressional districts). Provinces and cities are grouped into regions, but with the exception of the ARMM, these are purely administrative divisions without any form of regional/local government. All elected local officials (except barangay level) serve three-year terms and are limited to three consecutive terms.
Provinces have directly-elected governors, vice-governors and provincial boards (Sangguniang Panlalawigan). Provincial boards have elected members and three ex oficio members, and elected members are elected from single or multi-member districts which correspond to congressional districts except in lone-district provinces which have two districts for provincial board elections. Cities have directly-elected mayors, vice-mayors and city councils (Sangguniang Panlungsod) ranging in size from 10 to 36 seats, elected either at-large or in multi-member districts. Municipalities, which are part of provinces, have directly-elected mayors, vice-mayors and municipal councils (Sangguniang Bayan). In 2013, 143 city mayors/vice-mayors and 1,491 municipal mayors/vice-mayors were elected; 766 provincial board members, nearly 1,600 city councillors and nearly 12,000 municipal councillors were elected. The ARMM has a directly-elected governor, vice-governor and legislative assembly.
Political history and background
The Republic of the Philippines gained its independence from the United States in 1946. Its history of relative political instability, endemic corruption and weak economy compared to other Asian countries earned it the moniker “the sick man of Asia”. The Filipino economy has improved in recent years and, since the late 1980s, it has re-consolidated itself as a democratic country though it naturally continues to face major problems. Corruption remains deeply ingrained in the political system, and patronage remains central to Filipino politics (and has a local term: the Padrino system). The Philippines ranked 95th out of 168 in the 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index, lower than China, India, Indonesia and Malaysia. Elections, in many ways, continue to be the arena where the country’s elite families – political dynasties – compete for power, the wealthiest of them at the national and provincial levels (this despite the 1987 Constitution calling on a law to prohibit political dynasties).
The 2015 edition of the Freedom in the World report noted that “while open and competitive, elections in the Philippines are typically marred by fraud, intimidation, and political violence, though conditions have improved in recent years.” The report said that political parties have weak ideological identities, that legislative coalitions are “exceptionally fluid” and that the distribution of power is still strongly affected by kinship networks (political dynasties). The report lamented widespread corruption and cronyism, and an associated culture of impunity. Other major problems cited by the report include arbitrary detention, disappearances, kidnappings, abuse of suspects, police and military abuses (corruption, torture, extrajudicial killings) and grave dangers to journalists (the Philippines is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists). Nevertheless, the Philippines have a vibrant and outspoken private media, robust civic activism, many active human rights groups and the country has made progress on gender equality despite a very socially conservative culture and a politically active Catholic Church.
Roots of modern Filipino politics (1907-1946)
Under American rule, first as a territory (1907-1935) and later as a protectorate (the Commonwealth, 1935-1946, except for the Japanese occupation), the Philippines had a one-party dominant system monopolized by the Nacionalista Party, a conservative pro-independence party established in 1901 under a program of “immediate independence”. The Nacionalistas won the first elections to the lower house in 1907, and won every election thereafter until 1946 (with the exception of the 1943 elections under Japanese occupation), although the party was split on two occasions (1922 and 1934). The party represented the interests of the landed elites, and was led for the entire era by Sergio Osmeña and Manuel Quezon (whose social background was somewhat unusual, as he rose to prominence because of his academic merit), allies at times and rivals at other times. Osmeña and Quezon were pragmatists who used the appeal of independence to win votes but who otherwise pursued highly accommodating policies towards the Americans, adopting a conciliatory and evolutionary approach towards independence.
The nature of party politics in this period laid the foundations of the modern Filipino party system. Political scientist Carl Landé described Filipino parties as organized “upwards” rather than “downwards” – that is, national coalitions were put together by party leaders who worked in conjunction with local elites (in many cases, the descendants of leading families during Spanish rule) who controlled constituencies in patron-client relationships. At the local level, notables garnered support by exchanging support for votes. Reciprocal ties between inferior and superior usually involved repayment of debts and kinship ties, and they were the basis of support for local-level factions which decided political affiliation. Unsurprisingly under such a party system, local issues were of greater importance than national ones and patronage was vital to the retention of a following. Despite the expansion of suffrage in 1916 and 1938, the elite was largely successful in monopolizing the support of the newly enfranchised and checking the rise of populist alternatives.
Under Nacionalista hegemony, a conservative consensus precluded discussion of even moderate social and economic reforms. The status quo in landlord and tenant relationships was maintained and disparities in the distribution of wealth grew, but patterns of social control changed as the elite left the countryside to become absentee landlords.
Nevertheless, Quezon and Osmeña’s commitment to independence was sincere. Under a Democratic administration in the United States, the Philippines gained increased autonomy with the Jones Act (1916), which contained the first formal and official declaration of the US’ intent to grant independence as soon as a ‘stable government’ could be established. The law also provided for both houses of the legislature, including the upper house (Senate), to be directly elected although executive power remained in American hands with the governor-general.
Under another Democratic administration in 1934, the Tydings-McDuffie Act was passed, setting a ten-year transition period for independence in 1946 and establishing the Commonwealth of the Philippines, with the first directly-elected President of the Philippines. The Commonwealth was self-governing in all matters except foreign policy, immigration, currency and foreign trade, but the relationship between the Philippines and the United States remained an highly unequal one. Under the act, the 1935 Constitution of the Philippines was written. The original document created a unicameral legislature and limited the president to a single non-renewable six-year term but it was amended in 1940 to allow the executive to serve two consecutive four-year terms and reestablish a bicameral legislature with a Senate.
The debates preceding the passage of the Tydings-McDuffie Act had divided the Nacionalista Party between Manuel Quezon, opposed to the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act of 1933, and Sergio Osmeña, who supported the bill. Quezon successfully managed to kill the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act in the Senate, and renegotiated the Tydings-McDuffie Act with the US Congress, resulting in a bill slightly more favourable to Filipino interests. Following the passage of the Tydings-McDuffie Act and the 1935 Constitution, Quezon and Osmeña reconciled, ran on a Nacionalista ticket and were elected president and vice president, respectively. In 1941, both were reelected by landslide margins. During this period, the Nacionalista Party lacked any serious opposition. Quezon’s administration launched a ‘social justice’ program and passed a rice share tenancy law in 1933 to improve the lot of tenant farmers, but in the end both achieved meagre results due to insufficient funds and local-level sabotage by landlords. In fact, in 1940, thousands of cultivators were evicted by landlords as they insisted for enforcement of the 1933 law, and rural conflict became only more acute.
During World War II following the Japanese invasion and occupation of the islands, Quezon and Osmeña led the Filipino government-in-exile but several Nacionalista personalities, chief among them José P. Laurel (an associate justice of the Supreme Court), collaborated with the Japanese occupiers and provided the Filipino political personnel for the Second Philippine Republic, the Japanese-sponsored regime (which nevertheless sometimes faced down the Japanese). The issue of collaboration with the wartime occupier became a major point of political debate in the post-war Philippines.
During the war, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos – many of them tenant farmers and peasants who had already been opposing landlord practices – joined guerrilla units which prevented the Japanese from fully occupying the territory. The largest of these guerrilla forces were the Hukbalahap, a communist-inspired resistance movement formed in central Luzon. The Huks had fought alongside the Americans during the liberation of the Philippines, but there was much mutual distrust between the two, and after the war, many Huk guerrillas were forcibly disarmed, arrested or massacred by the US military or Filipino forces. After the war, the Huks, who resumed their guerrilla campaign in 1948, were painted as communists by the government and the US, but the Communist Party (PKP) gave its support to the Huk rebellion only in 1950 and historians have agreed that the Huks were a peasant movement driven largely by landlord-tenant conflicts in which Marxist-Leninist doctrine had little place.
In exile, Osmeña had succeeded Quezon as president following the latter’s death in August 1944, and presided over the reestablishment of the Commonwealth following the liberation of the islands in 1945, but also the difficult immediate post-war period of rampant inflation, food shortages and the problem of wartime collaborators. The Americans insisted on severe punishments, but were inconsistent in following their own policy, as General MacArthur granted clemency and liberated his friends. Quoting Kathleen Nadeau, “this meant that those who had collaborated with the Japanese were those who were charged with the task of dealing with the problem of collaborators, which, effectively, ensured the survival of the prewar landed elites.”
The two-party system of the Third Republic (1946-1965)
General elections were called for April 1946, to prepare for the transition to independence scheduled for July 1946. Incumbent President Sergio Osmeña sought reelection, but largely left the task of campaigning to his underlings. The main challenge to Nacionalista hegemony, as it turned out, came from a split within Nacionalista ranks. Manuel Roxas, an ambitious Nacionalista Speaker of the House (1922-1933) and President of the Senate (1945-1946), aroused much controversy for having served as minister without portfolio in Laurel’s cabinet (where he maintained contact with Allied forces, which exonerated him in the eyes of his prewar associate, Douglas MacArthur). When Osmeña won the Nacionalista nomination, Roxas split off from the party to form what became the Liberal Party so he could run for president. Osmeña received support from the Democratic Alliance, a makeshift left-wing alliance which included the Communist Party (PKP) and the Huks of northern and central Luzon, but he was greatly outspent and outspoken by Roxas. Roxas won the election 53.9% to 45.7% and the Liberals also won control of both houses of Congress.
In the campaign, Roxas had claimed that those who had collaborated with the Japanese had also resisted, and in 1948 he declared an amnesty for arrested collaborators. Economic relations were, however, the most salient issue. One of the first items passed by the new Congress, two days prior to independence, was the Bell Trade Act of 1946, a US trade act which stipulated that free trade be continued until 1954, thereafter tariffs would increase gradually by 5% annually until full amounts were reached in 1974. While there were quotas for Filipino products, there were no restrictions on the entry of US goods nor any import duties. The most controversial provision of the law was the ‘parity clause’, which granted US citizens equal economic rights with Filipinos in the exploitation of natural resources. Acceptance of this clause was the condition for the payment of US$620 million in war damages. Congressional approval of the parity clause (which required a three-quarters majority in both houses and a plebiscite) required Roxas to legislative engineering – denying congressional seats to six members of the Democratic Alliance and three Nacionalistas on grounds of electoral violence – to obtain its passage. In March 1947, a plebiscite on the amendment was held, and passed with over 78% of the vote although turnout was only 40%. The Liberals swept the 1947 midterm senatorial elections, winning seven of the eight seats up for grabs and giving them a wide 15-8 majority. Close ties to the United States in the military field were formalized by the 1947 Military Bases Agreement, which gave the US a 99-year lease on 23 military installations including Subic Bay. In addition, a 1947 military assistance agreement established a US military mission to train the Philippines armed forces and the transfer of millions of dollars worth of military aid.
US military assistance was used to fight the ‘communist threat’ in the countryside. The exclusion of the Democratic Alliance from Congress provoked unrest in the regions where they had been elected, while continued landlord-instigated violence against peasant groups convinced the Huks to resume their armed struggle. Although Roxas’ government passed a law giving peasants 70% of the harvest, his government followed mostly repressive tactics against the Huks.
Roxas died in office in April 1948 and was succeeded by Vice President Elpidio Quirino, who stepped up the military campaign against the Huks after unfruitful talks with their leader. The Huks’ momentum faded after 1951. In 1949, Elpidio Quirino was reelected (in an election marred by accusations of rigging and fraud) with 50.9% of the vote, against 37.2% for José P. Laurel, the former wartime collaborationist president standing for the Nacionalistas, and 11.9% for dissident Liberal José Avelino, former party leader and Senate President (ousted on charges of selling war surpluses). The Liberals won increased majorities in both houses of Congress. Nevertheless, two years later, discontent over Quirino’s inability to manage lawlessness in the countryside and widespread corruption led to the first midterm election defeat for a Filipino President. The Nacionalistas won all seats up for grabs in the Senate (although overall the Liberals retained a majority), with José P. Laurel as the top vote-getter.
Laurel declined the Nacionalista presidential nomination in 1953, and instead recommended defence secretary Ramon Magsaysay, whose counter-insurgency tactics against the Huks had been very successful and won him widespread recognition and support. Magsaysay was very close to, and owed some of his political success to the United States and a joint Philippines-US military mission which had devised the successful counter-insurgency strategy and a peasant resettlement plan (which led more than a million people to voluntarily resettle to Mindanao). With Laurel’s backing, Magsaysay won the Nacionalista nomination and ran a populist campaign in which he styled himself a man of the people. Incumbent President Quirino, hobbled by charges of corruption and ill health, was no match for Magsaysay and was routed, 68.9% to 31.1%.
Magsaysay’s personal style, his administration’s economic policies, robust economic performance and agricultural tenancy legislation made him very popular. He was the first postwar leader to bring the masses into contact with the government, although his personalization of state institutions also reduced their effectiveness. In March 1957, Magsaysay died in a plane crash and was succeeded by Vice President Carlos P. Garcia. Garcia completed Magsaysay’s term and won a full term in his own right in November 1957, an unprecedented multi-sided contest. Garcia, as the Nacionalista candidate, was opposed by former Speaker Jose Yulo for the Liberals, former Magsaysay supporters behind Manuel Manahan in the Progressive Party, and nationalist political thinker/rebel Nacionalista senator Carlos M. Recto for the Nationalist Citizens’ Party (NCP). Garcia was reelected with 41.3% against 27.6% for Yulo, 20.9% for Manahan and 8.6% for Recto, but he was unable to carry his running-mate, Jose B. Laurel Jr., over the line and the vice presidency was won by Liberal congressman Diosdado Macapagal. Garcia’s most significant legacy is his Filipino First policy, a protectionist and nationalist policy designed to reduce the dominance of foreign (read: US) interests in the national economy and promote industrialization with special incentives to Filipino investors. Under Garcia, the policy was successful at creating new jobs in production of consumer goods and secondary industries, although most benefits flowed to the rich. In 1957, the richest 20% received 55% of the national income against 4.5% for the poorest 20%. Festering corruption and the unpopularity of the Filipino First policy with some groups made Garcia’s administration quite unpopular by the time of the 1961 election, in which he sought reelection.
The opposition – the Liberals, the Progressive Party and Nacionalista dissidents – nominated Vice President Diosdado Macapagal for the presidency and Nacionalista senator Emmanuel Pelaez for the vice presidency. The Nacionalistas were further divided by the independent vice presidential candidacy of Sergio Osmeña Jr. and the very public falling out between President Garcia and NP Senate President Eulogio Rodriguez. Macapagal was elected president with 55% against 45% for Garcia, and Pelaez narrowly won the vice presidency with 37.6% against 34.4% for Osmeña Jr.
Diosdado Macapagal strongly advocated for ‘free enterprise’, pledging to reduce government intervention in the economy and opening the country to foreign investment. His administration removed exchange controls, floated the peso and recruited American-trained technocrats to staff a new economic development agency which replaced an old, corrupt economic council. In 1963, Congress passed Macapagal’s land reform code, which replaced tenancy with a leasehold system, but not until landlords in Congress had drained the law of all its substance and funding. The land reform had good intentions, but under such conditions, it was a major failure. An unfriendly Congress frustrated other of his ideas and prevented the full implementation of his programs. Macapagal launched an anti-corruption drive cracked down on tax evaders, a campaign which remained fairly one-sided as corruption remained endemic in Macapagal’s government. These campaigns won him enemies in powerful places, who used their power to malign the president’s character in the press and expose government corruption and waste.
Macapagal’s administration was wracked by defections in the run-up to the 1965 elections, the most prominent being that of Liberal Senate President Ferdinand Marcos, who joined the Nacionalista Party. Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez also fell out with the Liberals and returned to his first home, the Nacionalistas, to unsuccessfully battled Marcos for the party’s nomination. The Progressives, who had supported Macapagal’s candidacy in 1961, re-created their party (as the Party for Philippine Progress) and ran a separate ticket. Marcos campaigned hard against government corruption, targeted dissatisfaction with economic conditions (jobs, overcrowded cities etc.) and had a pledge to “make this nation great again” which is very familiar in 2016 (ahem). Marcos won a decisive victory with 51.9% against 42.9% for President Macapagal. In the vice presidential race, Marcos’ running-mate was Fernando Lopez, member of a powerful family (owners of one of the country’s largest business conglomerates) which had been targeted by Macapagal’s crackdown on ‘big fish’ tax evaders. Lopez defeated Liberal senator Gerardo Roxas, son of former President Manuel Roxas, in a very close race (48.5% to 48.1%). The Nacionalistas regained the Senate, but the Liberals retained control of the House until 1967.
Ferdinand Marcos (1965-1986)
Ferdinand Marcos was born in 1917 in Ilocos Norte, a province in northwestern Luzon, in a family which was part of the provincial elite class. His father, Mariano, served two terms in the House of Representatives between 1925 and 1931 and later collaborated with the Japanese before his death in 1945. In 1938, Ferdinand Marcos was one of several members of his family accused of the murder of a political rival from Ilocos Norte, but was acquitted on appeal to the Supreme Court in 1940, reversing a lower court’s guilty verdict – likely due to the machinations of a wealthy Chinese man (with whom Marcos’ mother may have had an affair before her marriage to Mariano). Marcos’ war record remains shrouded in mystery, but Marcos promoted his political career on the basis of an entirely fabricated ‘heroic’ war record; he claimed to be the country’s most decorated war hero, receiving almost every single Filipino and American medal, something which later turned out to be a lie. Similarly, Marcos’ claims to have commanded an 8,000-strong guerrilla force seems to be a fraud. Marcos served ten years in the House as a Liberal representative from Ilocos Norte before being elected to the Senate, under the Liberal ticket, in 1959 (with over 2.6 million votes). He served as President of the Senate between 1963 and 1965. In 1954, Marcos married Imelda Marcos, a former beauty queen, perhaps best known today for her insane shoe collection. But Imelda also came with political connections to the Romualdez political dynasty of Leyte in the Visayas.
In his first term (1965-1969), Marcos initiated ambitious public works projects (roads, bridges, schools, irrigation, health centres) which improved the quality of life but which provided generous pork barrel opportunities for his friends and allies. Marcos liked public works spending as politically beneficial, since they won him loyal allies and were appreciated both by local elites and ordinary people. In contrast, land reform was a high-cost and risky idea which risked alienating allies, and Marcos never forcefully implemented any land reform ideas. Marcos’ popularity led to a Nacionalista sweep in the 1967 midterm senatorial polls – seven of the eight seats went to the governing party, with only a single Liberal winning – Benigno Aquino Jr., who soon emerged as the regime’s most forceful opponent.
In one of the most fraudulent elections in the country’s history, Marcos and Lopez were reelected in a landslide in 1969 against their Liberal opponents, senator Sergio Osmeña Jr. and senator Genaro Magsaysay (incidentally, two former Nacionalistas). Marcos won 61.5% of the vote against 38.5% for Osmeña in the presidential race. Marcos spent at least US$50 million on his campaign, and blatantly abused public funds to bribe political bosses into bringing in votes from their regions for him. Marcos’ Nacionalistas won a massive majority in the House and increased their majority in the Senate.
The optimism and tranquility that had characterized his first term dissipated, as economic growth slowed and political dissent increased. The late 1960s and early 1970s were, of course, a turbulent period in Southeast Asia with the Vietnam War. The Philippines sent about 2,000 troops, but, more importantly, the US military bases at Subic Bay and Clark Air Base became the largest US overseas military facilities as important staging grounds for the Vietnam conflict. The Vietnam war, the Philippines’ close alignment with US foreign policy, the Chinese Cultural Revolution and other anti-imperialist movements around the world in the late 1960s radicalized middle and upper-class Filipino students and rejuvenated the communist movement. The Huk rebellion had ended in the 1950s and the old PKP seemed dormant by 1970, but a new generation ‘reestablished’ the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) along Maoist lines in 1968. The CPP’s armed faction, the New People’s Army (NPA), launched a People’s War (following Maoist theory) in 1969. In southern Mindanao and Sulu, violence between Muslims and Christians was on the rise and resulted in the creation of the Muslim separatist Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in 1969. In January 1970, student demonstrators marching to the presidential palace clashed with riot police in Manila, resulting in many injuries.
There was wide agreement on the need to adopt a new constitution to replace the old 1935 document and serve as the basis for a thorough reform of the political system. In 1970, an election was held to elect delegates to a constitutional convention. Under the 1935 constitution, Marcos was barred from seeking a third term in the 1973 election, and opposition delegates at the convention adopted a provision in September 1971 which banned Marcos or members of his family from holding the position of head of state regardless of whatever arrangement was adopted. But Marcos, through bribery and coercion, managed to have the ban nullified.
In August 1971, grenades thrown during a Liberal Party campaign rally in Plaza Miranda (Manila) killed 9 and injured another 95, including most leading Liberal senatorial candidates. It has never been conclusively established who was responsible, but Marcos blamed the CPP while others (like the Liberals) pointed to government involvement. Other bombings at the time were attributed to communists, but were likely set by government agents provocateurs. Marcos used the Plaza Miranda as a pretext to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and arrested a score of Maoists.
President Marcos had grown highly unpopular by the time of the 1971 midterm polls, and the opposition Liberal Party captured 6 of the 8 seats. On such numbers, it looked unlikely that Marcos or a stand-in candidate would win the 1973 election against the opposition frontrunner, senator Benigno Aquino. In September 1972, following a (staged) assassination attempt on defence secretary Juan Ponce Enrile and the mounting communist insurgency, Marcos declared martial law across the country. Marcos ruled by decree until 1981, using his extraordinary powers to arrest opposition leaders (including Benigno Aquino Jr.), close Congress, shut down several media outlets and tightly curtail press freedom and civil liberties. Marcos’ measures were initially well-received at home, and his anti-communist justifications found a ready audience in the United States, which hardly protested the demise of Filipino democracy. In 1981, US Vice President George H.W. Bush infamously praised Marcos for his “adherence to democratic principles and to the democratic processes.” The US provided billions of dollars in bilateral military and economic aid.
Marcos claimed that martial law was the prelude to the creation of a ‘New Society’, based on new political and social values and an overarching spirit of self-sacrifice for the national welfare. That was, of course, mostly completely vacuous nonsense since Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos’ regime was notoriously kleptocratic, focused on enriching themselves and a small circle of cronies by looting the treasury and corruption on an ‘awe-inspiring scale’. In his nepotistic system, Imelda Marcos was appointed governor of Metro Manila, an office she held from 1975 to 1986 and also served in the legislature and as ‘minister of human settlements’ (a fancy title for embezzlement, money laundering and racketeering). Marcos used martial law to confiscate and appropriate many private and public businesses, and hand them over to friends and family. He also used his power to settle scores with rivals, a practice which alienated parts of the old social and economic elites of the country.
The martial law years were a violent period, with the NPA’s communist/Maoist insurgency and the Moro (Muslim) insurgency in the south, conflicts which killed thousands of people. In 1976, a cease-fire agreement was signed under Libyan mediation between the government and the MNLF, in which the government undertook to create an autonomous region for Muslims in Mindanao (the ARMM, however, was only created in 1989). An Islamist separatist faction of the MNLF unhappy with the cease-fire split and created the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), whose goal was the creation of an Islamist state in the south of the country.
The economy performed well during the first years of martial law, benefiting from increased stability and business confidence bolstered by Marcos’ appointment of talented technocrats. The economy weathered the 1973 oil shock and the ensuing inflation by reducing dependence on imported oil. Yet, most benefits flowed to Marcos’ family, cronies A land reform was proclaimed in 1975, resulting in the formal transfer of land to over 180,000 families, but the program was filled with loopholes and had little impact either on the landowning elites or landless peasants. More importantly, the government launched the Green Revolution, a model emphasizing increased crop production which was heavily funded by the IMF and the World Bank. The Green Revolution did increase crop production, but at the cost of expensive and environmentally damaging pesticides and fertilizers. And overall, it mostly benefited wealthy farmers, large landowners and agri-business rather than poor farmers. Marcos borrowed heavily to finance his economic development and infrastructure projects, in the process saddling the country with a huge external debt ($28.3 billion) by the time he left office in 1986 and creating several balance of payments crises in the 1980s which required IMF assistance.
In 1973, the constitutional convention finished its work and produced a new constitution, supposed to shift towards a parliamentary system of government with a unicameral National Assembly, a Prime Minister who would be head of government and commander-in-chief and a ceremonial president elected by the National Assembly with no term limits. The constitution was ratified by a show of hands, rather than secret ballot, in January 1973 with 90.7% approving. In July, the same majority supported continuation of martial law. In 1975, over 88% of voters approved of the manner in which Marcos had been carrying out his duties. In 1976, the 1973 constitution was amended to substitute the interim National Assembly (which never met) for an interim Batasang Pambansa and to allow the President to serve as Prime Minister and exercise legislative powers until martial law was lifted. In April 1978, elections to 165 seats in the interim Batasang Pambansa were held, contested by Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos’ Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (New Society Movement, KBL) and – in Metro Manila – by jailed opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr.’s Lakas ng Bayan (People’s Power, LABAN – literally ‘fight’). However, most of the opposition boycotted the polls, and with the odds stacked in their favour, the KBL swept the country with 137 seats. LABAN won no seats, but other provincial opposition leaders won seats in Region VII (Cebu/Central Visayas) and Region X (Northern Mindanao). Aquino later went into exile in the United States.
Martial law was lifted in 1981 (but decrees issued during that time remained in force, so it was a cosmetic change), while constitutional amendments that year replaced the false parliamentary system with a semi-presidential system where the President was directly elected and regained executive powers. In June 1981, a presidential election was held. The opposition umbrella group, UNIDO, did not have its preconditions for participation met and boycotted the election, clearing the field for Ferdinand Marcos to win a landslide reelection against only token opposition. Marcos won 88% of the vote, with his strongest opponent being Alejo Santos of the moribund Nacionalista Party (Santos’ campaign was basically run by the government), who won 8.3%.
In 1983, economic woes and Marcos’ own worsening health (he had lupus erythemotosus and was on dialysis) persuaded Aquino to return home, despite the dangers that awaited him, to persuade the president to relinquish power (which was very unlikely) or build a responsible opposition to prevent extremists (or Imelda Marcos) from taking over. Aquino managed to find a tortuous way to fly back to the Philippines despite the government’s opposition, but was assassinated as he was escorted off the airplane at Manila airport. The government immediately claimed that he was killed by a lone communist gunman (who was conveniently killed in a shoot-out by soldiers after the alleged act), but a fact-finding commission appointed by Marcos concluded in October 1984 that the assassination was a military conspiracy including General Fabian Ver, the then-commander of the armed forces. However, in 1985, a special court acquitted Ver and 24 other military officers. Aquino’s funeral drew millions and he became a martyr to the opposition.
Marcos held a parliamentary election in 1984. The opposition was divided between those, like former senators Jose Diokno and Jovito Salongo, who opted to boycott the polls and those who participated in the election with the UNIDO coalition (led by former senator Salvador ‘Doy’ Laurel) or the PDP-Laban (Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan) led by Cagayan de Oro mayor Aquilino Pimentel Jr. Marcos’ KBL retained a large majority, winning 62% of the seats, but the opposition won 61 seats – about a third of the seats – a marked improvement from 1978.
Marcos faced mounting unrest and international pressure, and, in November 1985, he decided to call a snap presidential election for February 1986. Marcos ran for reelection as the KBL’s candidate, with Arturo Tolentino (a member of the legislature and former senator) as his running-mate. Media tycoon Chino Roces convinced Benigno Aquino’s widow, Corazon ‘Cory’ Aquino, to run for president. Salvador ‘Doy’ Laurel, the other opposition candidate, reluctantly stepped aside to become Cory’s running-mate, only after intervention by Jaime Cardinal Sin, the influential Catholic Archbishop of Manila (the ‘spiritual leader’ to millions of devoutly Catholic Filipinos). Both ran together for UNIDO, and the opposition was supported by a broad coalition including the Church, unhappy sectors of the business elite and old politicians.
The election was marred by violence, rampant fraud and cheating, and the official Commission on Elections (COMELEC) declared Marcos and Tolentino the winners, with Marcos winning about 53% of the vote. However, the accredited election observer National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), with a parallel tally from 70% of precincts, reported Aquino and Laurel as the winners with 52.6% for Cory Aquino (47.4% for Marcos). The election was condemned by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference and the US Senate, while even Marcos’ friend and steadfast ally President Ronald Reagan called the fraud reports ‘disturbing’. Yet, despite the controversy and growing protests, the government-controlled Batasang Pambansa officially proclaimed Marcos as the winner.
A group of disgruntled junior officers, supported by defence secretary Juan Ponce Enrile, in the armed forces had organized the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM), and they set into motion a coup attempt after the disputed elections. The plot was uncovered, but Enrile et al. rallied Lt. General Fidel Ramos, vice chief of staff of the armed forces, and hunkered down in two military camps in Manila. Cardinal Sin, the Archbishop of Manila, appealed to Filipinos in the capital to go out and provide support to the rebel leaders. Despite the danger, hundreds of thousands descended onto the streets of Manila. Marcos quickly lost control of the military, and was advised by the Reagan White House (through Senator Paul Laxalt) to flee. Marcos fled the country to Hawaii on February 25, three days after the protests began. Corazon Aquino became President, with the success of what has become known as the People Power Revolution or EDSA I (after EDSA, the nickname for a major circumferential highway in Manila where protests took place).
Cory Aquino (1986-1992)
Corazon Aquino was unwillingly thrust into politics after the assassination of her husband, but she herself came from a powerful and well-connected family, the Cojuangco of Tarlac province (of distant Chinese ancestry).
Aquino led a turbulent transition to democracy. Immediately upon taking office, Aquino suspended the 1973 constitution and promulgated an interim constitution, while she appointed a constitutional commission which drafted the 1987 constitution (currently in force). The 1987 constitution protects civil and political rights, promotes education and includes a bill of rights similar to that of the United States. In institutional terms, it largely restored features of the 1935 constitution – the presidential system, the bicameral Congress and an independent judiciary with the Supreme Court. Her government also reorganized the executive branch and devolved power to local governments.
Congressional elections for the new House of Representatives and Senate were held in May 1987. Pro-Aquino parties formed the LABAN coalition, facing off against the Grand Alliance for Democracy (GAD) opposition coalition of the KBL and Nacionalista Party. The LABAN coalition swept 22 of the Senate’s 24 seats, with the opposition winning only two seats – for Joseph Estrada and Juan Ponce Enrile. In the House, the LABAN coalition also secured a large majority with the GAD winning very few seats. Despite the appearance of broad support for her administration, the coalition which brought her to power soon came undone. Enrile and Laurel were unhappy to learn that Aquino intended to serve out of her six-year term, and both set out to undermine her. Enrile was fired from cabinet as early as the fall of 1986; Laurel was relieved of his duties as foreign secretary in September 1987 but remained in cabinet as VP. Laurel was publicly opposed to her administration, to the point of announcing his willingness to lead the country if she was ousted by a coup. Besides her fractious political coalition, Aquino had trouble dealing with the military. In 1986 and 1987, there were several coup attempts from factions of the armed forces – the RAM, Marcos loyalists, Enrile. In December 1989, Aquino faced a serious coup attempt/revolt by Marcos loyalists and RAM elements, and she survived only by requesting support from the US military. The coup seriously weakened her politically (Laurel openly backed it) and hurt the fragile economy. Ramos’ support was crucial to Aquino retaining her grip on power through all coup attempts.
Aquino had inherited a massive foreign debt and poor economy, courtesy of Marcos’ mismanagement. Advised by some to repudiate the debt, Aquino instead took the unpopular decision of honouring all the debts previously incurred in an effort to regain investors’ confidence. Under her presidency, the foreign debt as a percentage of GDP shrank (from 88% to 68%). Aquino began a process of market liberalization by privatization, deregulating industries and seeking to dismantle the monopolies and oligopolies of the Marcos years. The economy performed well in 1988 and 1989, but the 1989 coup attempt badly hurt the fragile economic recovery, and the economy was just climbing out of recession when Aquino left office in 1992.
The 1987 constitution notably includes a provision for agrarian reform, although the article makes land reform “subject to such priorities and reasonable retention limits as the Congress may prescribe” and forces the state to “respect the right of small landowners” in determining land retention limits. Shortly after the adoption of the new constitution by referendum, farmers and agrarian workers demonstrated near the presidential palace to demand genuine land reform, but were met by Marines who fired into the crowd and killed 12. Aquino was not directly to blame for the massacre, but it was held against her. In 1988, Congress passed an agrarian reform law paving the way for land redistribution to tenant farmers, but the law allowed for landowners to opt for stock distribution instead of actual redistribution. This scheme was controversially used on an estate in Tarlac province which belonged to the Cojuangco family.
Her presidency was further complicated by major natural disasters – the 1990 Luzon earthquake, which killed 1,600, and the 1991 volcanic eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, which killed 800 and caused huge problems for the country’s economy and agriculture. The volcanic eruption covered the US naval station at Subic Bay and destroyed the Clark Air Base. After the Senate’s rejection of an earlier treaty and the breakdown of further talks, the US withdrew its forces from Subic Bay.
Fidel Ramos (1992-1998)
The 1992 presidential election was the first election under the new multi-party system. Retired General and former defence secretary Fidel Ramos lost the nomination of the then-dominant Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) party to House Speaker Ramon Mitra Jr., but bolted from the LDP to create his own party, Lakas ng Tao, which allied with the National Union of Christian Democrats (NUCD) of former senator and foreign secretary Raul Mangaplus (previously one of the main players of the Progressive Party in the ’60s). The field also included Miriam Defensor-Santiago, a former judge and Aquino’s former agrarian reform secretary, for the populist People’s Reform Party (PRP); Eduardo ‘Danding’ Cojuangco Jr., business tycoon (owner of San Miguel Corporation, one of the biggest food and beverage corporation in SE Asia), Corazon Aquino’s estranged cousin and Marcos inner circle crony (suspected of having had a role in Ninoy Aquino’s assassination), for the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC, a split-off from the Nacionalista Party); former First Lady and corruption icon Imelda Marcos for her late husband’s KBL; Senate President Jovito Salonga (a noted opposition leader under Marcos) for the Liberal Party and VP Salvador Laurel of the Nacionalista Party. Aquino initially was behind Ramon Mitra, but switched her support to Fidel Ramos. Ramos ended up winning the election with the smallest plurality in Philippines history – 23.6% to 19.7% for Santiago, 18.2% for Danding Cojuangco, 14.6% to Mitra, 10.3% to Imelda Marcos, 10.2% to Salonga and only 3.4% to Salvador Laurel. In contrast, the vice presidential contest was won with a larger plurality (33%) by senator Joseph Estrada (NPC), Danding Cojuangco’s running-mate and a former movie star. In the congressional races, the LDP ended up with the most seats, although that’s a rather meaningless factoid since many later defected to support the incoming administration.
Fidel Ramos also came from a political family (and Marcos’ second cousin by his mom) – his dad was a member of the House and later foreign secretary under Marcos – but made his career in the military, in active duty in Korea and Vietnam before becoming chief of the Philippine Constabulary (a militarized gendarmerie/Guardia Civil force formed by the Americans in 1901, abolished in 1991) in 1972 and serving as one of Marcos’ trusted advisers for 20 years (notably enforcing martial law). His defection to the People Power Revolution in 1986 was key in tipping the balance against Marcos, and his loyalty to President Aquino allowed her to retain office despite military revolts.
Ramos entered office with an ambitious plan to make the Philippines a new economic ‘tiger’ in Asia by 2000, which meant liberalizing the economy to make it more attractive to outside investors and increase export-oriented industrialization. Ramos’ government continued the privatization of state-owned corporations (telecommunications, banking, shipping, oil, Philippine Airlines), reformed the tax system by raising the VAT to 10% on IMF-World Bank recommendations and reduced the external debt to 55% of GDP by 1996. Foreign investors regained confidence in an apparently re-stabilized country, and international investments in export zones and other industrial area created thousands of new jobs and strengthened the economy (especially in Metro Manila, Cebu and northern Luzon). The Filipino economy performed well between 1994 and 1997, with growth rates between 4% and 6% annually, declining inflation and unemployment.
Under Ramos, the government restarted negotiations with the MNLF, leading to a ‘peace agreement’ with the MNLF in 1996 which allowed the MNLF’s leader, Nur Misuari, to be elected governor of the ARMM. The government also held negotiations with the MILF and the CPP/NPA, and legalized the Communist Party of the Philippines. His administration faced several allegations of corruption and mismanagement, and his economic record has been criticized – particularly by the left – for ‘artificial’ economic growth and the damaging effects of privatization.
The Philippine economy, like that of its East Asian neighbours, was hit by the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The country’s GDP fell by 0.6% in 1998, a much milder recession than the ones which Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia suffered that year. Nevertheless, unemployment rose to 10% and the peso lost 37% of its value.
Fidel Ramos attempted to have the constitution amended by a constitutional convention to adopt a unicameral parliamentary system and remove term limits, but his controversial move failed to receive popular support. Although initially popular, a combination of the 1997 financial crisis, corruption scandals, mismanagement, rising criminality and his attempt to prolong his term in office led many to lose confidence in him.
Joseph Estrada (1998-2001)
Like the 1992 election, the 1998 election was a multi-faceted affair – confirming the volatility and instability of the new multi-party system. However, unlike the 1992 election, there was a clear winner in the 1998 race. The winner, with 39.9% of the vote, was Vice President Joseph Estrada, a former movie star, mayor and senator. The government’s candidate (from Lakas-NUCD-UMDP), House Speaker Jose de Venecia, followed in a very distant second with 15.9%. However, Jose de Venecia’s running-mate, senator Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (the daughter of former President Diosdado Macapagal), won the vice presidency in a landslide obtaining nearly 50% of the vote. The other presidential candidates included senator Raul Roco (13.8%); former Cebu governor Emilio Osmeña (grandson of former President Sergio Osmeña, and a recent Lakas dissident, 12.4%); Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim (8.7%); defence secretary Renato de Villa (another Lakas dissident, 4.9%); Miriam Defensor-Santiago (3%) and Juan Ponce Enrile (1.3%). Imelda Marcos, elected to Congress in 1995, withdrew her candidacy to support Estrada instead.
In the Senate, Estrada’s slate – the Laban ng Makabayang Masang Pilipino (LAMMP), a coalition of his Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP), his running mate Eduardo Angara’s LDP, ‘Danding’ Cojuangco’s NCP and Aquilino Pimentel Jr.’s PDP-Laban – won 7 to 5 against Lakas. In the House, Lakas won an absolute majority of the district seats, but there were enough defections that the LAMMP’s Manny Villar (himself an earlier defector) was elected Speaker.
Estrada was swept into power on a populist, nationalist and anti-corruption message. He had strong support from the poor, based on a ‘buddy of the masses’ image and his acting career, where he was usually a John Wayne-type hero who defended the weak and poor against the establishment. Most of that, of course, turned out to be rubbish.
The economy recovered quickly from the 1997 Asian financial crisis, working its way out of a recession in 1998 with 3% and 4% growth in 1999 and 2000 respectively. Unemployment, however, increased to 11%, its highest level since EDSA I, and government debt increased to 59% of GDP by 2000. Despite nationalist rhetoric, the government continued to liberalize the economy, supporting laws which removed restrictions on foreign investments, created tax incentives for multinationals to establish their headquarters in the country, liberalized retail trade and banking.
In March 2000, President Estrada declared an ‘all-out war’ against the MILF in Mindanao. Despite the agreement with the MNLF in 1996, violence had continued in the Muslim (Moro) regions of Mindanao. In 1991, Abdurajik Abubakar Janjalani, who returned home after studying Islamic theology in the Arab world and fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, created the Islamic terrorist organization Abu Sayyaf, which would become a more prominent actor in the conflict in the late 1990s and 2000s. The military offensive successfully weakened the MILF, causing its leader to flee the country and hundreds of its militants to surrender, but in December 2000 several Islamist groups retaliated by bombing several key locations in the National Capital Region (NCR), killing 22.
Estrada’s administration quickly gained a nasty reputation for cronyism, incompetence and corruption. Estrada surrounded himself with business and drinking partners and gambling buddies, who all had easy access to his office. Corruption under Estrada involved extracting commissions from contracts, embezzlement, ownership of companies through nominees, stock manipulation and the use of government funds for corporate mergers and takeovers.
Estrada’s downfall began in October 2000 when one of his shady partners, Ilocos Sur governor Luis Singson, reported that he had given him over 400 million pesos (about US$8 million) in bribes from illegal gambling profits. There were also allegations of malfeasance in the use of lottery funds, misuse of tobacco tax money and the use of illegal earnings to purchase mansions and expensive cars for Estrada’s mistresses and children. In November 2000, the House filed an impeachment case against Estrada, fast-tracked by House Speaker Manny Villar. In December, the Senate began impeachment proceedings against Estrada.
However, on January 17, 2001, the Senate voted 11-10 against opening an envelope (a bank account suspected to belong to Estrada) said to contain incriminating evidence – Estrada’s allies in the Senate had successfully blocked the impeachment process from going further, and the ten opposition senators and prosecutors walked out. Protesters gathered on EDSA in Metro Manila. The movement for Estrada’s ouster was supported by Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (who had resigned her cabinet position), former Presidents Cory Aquino and Fidel Ramos, Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, the Manila business community, left-wing organizations . Some of Estrada’s supporters included Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Gringo Honasan (retired colonel and professional plotter, leader of many of the 1987/1989 coup attempts). On January 19, the chief of the Armed Forces ‘withdrew’ his support from Estrada and transferred it to Macapagal Arroyo. Estrada defiantly refused to resign, and needed to be pushed out – by a Supreme Court decision on January 20 declaring the presidency to be ‘vacant’. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was sworn in as President, and while Estrada said that he had strong doubts about the legality of her proclamation as president, he agreed to leave office.
The legacy of EDSA II remains far more contested than that of EDSA I (People Power). Estrada continues to claim that he never resigned the presidency, and he and his supporters claim that he was the victim of an illegitimate coup and conspiracy of the political and business elites. The incoming government added to the controversy by creating a special court, charging him with plunder and arresting him in April 2001. His supporters responded with large protests in Manila (called ‘EDSA III’), which saw a violent attempt by the crowds to storm the presidential palace and forced Arroyo to declare a ‘state of rebellion’ in the NCR. The crowds were later dispersed. Supporters of EDSA III, whose crowds were mostly made up of the urban poor and followers of the Iglesia ni Cristo, say that it was a more representative movement than the predominantly middle and upper-class EDSA II; critics of EDSA III brush it off as unlike the first two EDSA protests and may see it as a mob movement.
In May 2001, a pro-ouster coalition (People Power Coalition) won the Senate elections against the pro-Estrada Puwersa ng Masa coalition (LDP, independents and PRP) 8 seats to 4. Two of the victorious pro-Estrada candidates were his wife, Loi Ejercito, and his police chief Panfilo Lacson.
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (2001-2010)
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, born in 1947, is the daughter of former President Diosdado Macapagal (1961-1965). Arroyo worked in Philippine academia until 1987, when she was called by President Cory Aquino to serve as undersecretary of trade and industry. She was elected to the Senate in 1992 and reelected in 1995, winning her second term with over 15.7 million votes (61%). As noted above, she was elected Vice President in 1998 with a very large margin, even if the name at the top of her ticket lost the presidency to Estrada by a wide margin.
Besides dealing with Estrada and his supporters, Macapagal Arroyo faced several major challenges: restoring investor confidence in the economy, continuing the process economic liberalization, improving disastrous social indicators (health, education), reducing poverty and the ongoing conflict with Muslim separatists and Islamist terrorists in the south.
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had, in December 2002, announced that she would not seek a second term in office, but she reversed her decision in October 2003 and sought a full six-year term in the 2004 election. Because she had served less than four years as president after acceding to the office in 2001, she was constitutionally eligible to run for reelection. Arroyo’s coalition in the 2004 election, the Koalisyon ng Katapatan at Karanasan sa Kinabukasan or K4 for short, was made up of Lakas-CMD, Arroyo’s own KAMPI party, the Liberal Party, the Nacionalista Party, the NCP and the PRP. Estrada and his allies (PMP, PDP-Laban, LDP) formed the Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP) coalition and fielded popular action actor Fernando Poe Jr., a friend of deposed President Estrada. The LDP, the largest opposition party, split between Eduardo Angara, who backed Poe’s candidacy, and a rival wing which backed retired police chief and senator Panfilo Lacson. The two other candidates were former education secretary Raul Roco (who had already stood in 1998, now assembled a coalition of dissidents from the original 2001 People Power Co