Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was born on April 5, 1947 also known by her initials "G.M.A.” is the 14th and current president of the Philippines. She is the country's second female president after Corazon Aquino. She is the daughter of former President Diosdado Macapagal.
Prior to becoming president, Arroyo was the country's first female vice president. She was launched into the presidency in 2001 by EDSA II that ousted Joseph Ejercito-Estrada from power amid accusations of widespread corruption. Arroyo was elected to a six-year term in 2004, defeating popular actor Fernando Poe, Jr. In 2005, Arroyo was selected as the fourth most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine. She is ranked as number 45 on Forbes magazine's list of the World's 100 Most Powerful Women in 2006.
Due to her awfully corrupt government, the Philippines still remains to be very poor, 99% of the population lives way below the poverty line. Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) remittances are the only reason why the Philippine economy is afloat. The Philippines is a great country, with a lot of educated and intelligent people, the problem is on the way things are being run, and even during elections people don't have a choice anymore if only they can just assassinate all politicians and start over again.
As stated in the constitution every fourth Monday of the month of July and this time is one the 23rd day of the month. The president of the Philippines must deliver his or her State of the Nation Address (SONA) for the opening of the regular session of Congress. It was on that day that President Arroyo was to deliver her Sona for the year 2007. The audience came as in an expensive fashion show, with the male solons in costly barongs and the ladies in frippery costumes that must have cost thousands of pesos per vanity. Outside, the masses were rallying against the administration. Many of them were from the abject poor living on a hand-to-mouth existence removed from the splendors of the rich. And they were all waiting, the destitute in hopes and the over-abundant in wealth, for the performance of the hour by the Nora Aunor of Malacañang.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's seventh State of the Nation Address lasted 56 minutes and was interrupted 106 times by loud, and sometimes mechanical, applause from the "hakot" (bussed in) crowd. On Commonwealth Avenue, 7,000 protesters held an alternative address.
During her State of the Nation Address (Sona), President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was at her technocratic best when she spoke of infrastructure projects in the provinces. And yet even then, she betrayed her true nature when, each time she mentioned a project, she would cite by name, with a glint in her eye and a pleased smile, each congressman, governor or mayor who, I suppose, first promised the bridge, highway or pier to his constituents.
Will the true Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo stand up, please? Which is it really? The economist and visionary who thumbs her nose at the urban-based intelligentsia, who would “be rather right than popular” and thus chooses to focus on the practical needs of the provincial folk? Or is it the political patron, showing everyone the rewards of loyalty and teaching a lesson or two to the next generation of willing flock?
What set the 2007 Sona apart from the past Sonas of this administration was the bravura and callousness that attended its entire delivery. President Arroyo sounded as if she was the winner of the recent election. She spoke as if the problems that have troubled our society over the past years -- the political killings, the mass hunger and unemployment, the threat of renewed conflict in Mindanao, the government’s continuing dependence on massive foreign and domestic borrowings, etc. -- are nothing but figments of her enemies’ imagination.

Arroyo devoted a section of her speech to "terrorism and human rights." But she didn't cite a single numerical figure of her government's record to uphold human rights. How many killers have been convicted and punished? How many military officials have been suspended for failing to stop political killings? How many witnesses have been given protection? Arroyo identified the tiniest roads and bridges her government is building, yet she could not boast of one political killing that had been solved.
Many waited to hear the President expound on the P125-wage hike proposal, P3, 000 salary increase for government workers, oil price rollback, tuition regulation, debt audit. These are some of the numbers and issues which Arroyo could have discussed in the recent State of the Nation Address. Instead, she displayed her knowledge of Philippine geography and numerical proficiency, and her adeptness at name recall.
The Sona is supposed to be a report by the President to Congress on the state of the nation at present. But the nation GMA painted in her Sona is not the Philippines at all. It is another world. As she described it, it is a land of milk and honey, not the real poverty-stricken Philippines, among the poorest in the world. GMA described a fantasyland. We can call it GMAland, another Disneyland.
But this is the real Philippines: Farm-to-market roads are rutted, and bridges and avenues lie abandoned and unfinished even in Metro Manila cities (example: Congressional Avenue in Quezon City, more than 10 years in the making and still unfinished). Interisland ships and Roro ferries sink with increasing frequency. Irrigation canals are silted and waterless. So many places are isolated, not reachable by road, sea or air vessels. Many airports cannot accommodate the modern airplanes. Nurseries and mountainsides go up in flames every summer. Watersheds are “subject to private rights.” As for flood control and water conservation projects, Metro Manila streets are flooded when it rains. At the same time, it is suffering from a water shortage even as the rainy season is upon it. What the nation is feeling is sharp pains in the stomach. According to a survey, more Filipinos are going hungry and poverty-stricken. The Philippines is rated as one of the poorest in the world. The homeless and squatters are everywhere. Beggars are everywhere even when the government has prohibited begging. Theft and robberies are rampant because the poor have to steal sometimes in order to survive.
She said that the unemployment rate has gone down and peace and order has improved.. The real Philippines is that more and more Filipinos have to work abroad to support their families; there are no jobs for them at home. Thousands line up daily at recruitment centers hoping for non-existent jobs. Is this tha peace that she is talking about? Almost every day, somebody is assassinated with impunity; almost every week somebody disappears, never to be found. Few suspects, fewer arrests, no trials, no convictions. She said that the justice is working. The truth is the wheels of justice grind so slowly: cases take many years, even decades, to be finished by the courts. As a result, detention cells and prisons are overflowing; prisoners escape frequently. And the must unbelievable statement! Graft and corruption is going down. In his thought! I just laugh on it.
The danger is when a leader speaks like a visionary and acts like a street-smart operator. When that happens, the grand programs become nothing but legal and ideological cover for rent-seeking opportunities doled out to local warlords. Policy programs are compromised in day-to-day horse-trading with local powers and sycophants. And even her duties as commander in chief and the main enforcer of the laws are selectively exercised to protect her own, punish her foes and allow their aboveground supporters to be wantonly slaughtered.
Yet that was the most applauded line of her entire address: “From where I sit, a president is always as strong as she wants to be.” I grant that the standing ovation was genuine, not scripted. I grant that the cheering was broad-based and not narrowly drawn from apple-polishing partisans. I grant that the support in the gallery reflects the acclaim outside, but for the parliament of the streets. And for this we’ve got to hand it to Arroyo and her handlers.
They know what ails the Filipino soul, and know only too well how to manipulate those flaws. The Filipino wants a strong leader who will deliver results, and they wager that the Filipino will make the Faustian bargain and trade his liberties for a more prosperous life.
The 2007 Sona showed the Machiavellian masquerading as visionary, and those who applaud her selective use and non-use of her powers to protect her own against outsiders better beware of whose turn is next at the hangman’s noose. A State of the Nation Address (Sona) is interesting not only for what it says but also for what it does not say. The nation hears not only the speech but also its silences. Every Sona reveals a president’s way of seeing, and there is no way of excusing its blind spots by referring to the speaker’s limited time. But the State of the Nation Address should be more than just a report card on government's achievements. It should inspire the people, arouse their interest in governance and mobilize them for political goals.