LET us put things into perspective. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA), daughter of the late President Diosdado Macapagal, entered government service in 1987 as assistant secretary (later undersecretary) with the Department of Trade and Industry during the administration of Corazon Cojuangco Aquino. In the 1992 national elections, Arroyo successfully ran for a seat in the Senate, placing 13th out of 24 with around 20 percent of the votes. She ran for reelection in 1995 and was the top vote-getter that year with more than 60 percent of the votes.

In the 1998 presidential elections, she was selected as the running mate of then-speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. While Speaker de Venecia could only muster about 16 percent of the votes for the presidency as runner-up to eventual winner, then-vice president Joseph Ejercito Estrada’s 40 percent, Arroyo dominated the vice-presidential race with almost 50 percent. She served as vice president until Jan. 20, 2001 when Estrada left Malacañang Palace in the middle of his impeachment trial.

The Arroyo presidency was tumultuous. After his ouster from the presidency, Estrada challenged before the courts the constitutionality of Arroyo’s assumption into office. Once Estrada was charged with plunder, his supporters moved to storm Malacañang in an attempt to force Arroyo out of office. Arroyo declared a state of rebellion in Manila and ordered the arrest of opposition leaders associated with the rioting and attempt to bring her government down. In 2003, Arroyo survived a mutiny led by junior officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) at the Oakwood Premier serviced apartment tower in Ayala Center.

Arroyo was reelected president during the controversy-riddled 2004 elections, collecting 40 percent of the votes against her closest rival, actor Fernando Poe Jr. who got 36.5 percent. Those elections were marred by irregularities and cheating allegations, with Arroyo herself caught in an audio recording discussing the election results with a senior official of the Commission on Elections.

One year after her controversial reelection to the presidency, Arroyo was hailed by Forbes magazine as 4th most powerful woman in the world. In 2006, the Arroyo government placed the country under a state of emergency after a coup d’etat plot within the AFP was foiled. Simultaneously, numerous arrests were made involving members of the opposition and other prominent personalities.

Martial law was declared in the province of Maguindanao as a consequence of the so-called Ampatuan Massacre in 2009 where around 58 people were killed, including at least 34 journalists, in connection with the filing of the certificate of candidacy for the Maguindanao governorship by then-Buluan vice mayor Esmael Mangudadatu.

Arroyo ended her nine-year presidency in 2010 with one of the lowest net public satisfaction ratings for a sitting president. According to pollster Social Weather Stations, 69 percent of Filipinos did not approve of Arroyo’s performance as the outgoing president while 16 percent said they did, for a net satisfaction rating of negative 53 percent in the survey for March 2010. Nevertheless, in the 2010 elections, she was voted as the representative of Pampanga’s second legislative district.

Arroyo spent four years in detention on plunder charges beginning in 2012, which political watchers generally regarded as retribution by the administration of President Benigno Aquino 3rd for actions during her presidency. While under custody, Arroyo is generally believed to have supported the successful presidential campaign of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte in the 2016 elections.

Released from detention in 2016 and serving the third of her three consecutive terms as congresswoman, Arroyo was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2018, largely on the support of the president’s daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte.

Arroyo took a break from 2019 to 2022 due to the constitutional term limits for members of the House. She reclaimed her seat in Congress in the 2022 national elections and served as godmother of the so-called UniTeam that brought together presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and vice presidential candidate Sara Duterte as the first majority winning tandem since EDSA 1986.

Recently, Arroyo was demoted as senior deputy speaker of the House of Representatives after being accused of leading an unsuccessful attempt to unseat Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez. Consequently, her ally and protege, Vice President Duterte promptly resigned as chairman of the Lakas Christian-Muslim Democrats (Lakas CMD) of which Romualdez is the party president.

It would be a tremendous blunder to fail to recognize Arroyo’s history as a political survivor and shrewd strategist. She is not a wide-eyed political newbie in over her head. Arroyo is a battle-tested political veteran capable of pulling major surprises. She has managed to stay on top with less material than what she has right now, which seems to be the unswerving support of Vice President Duterte, the more popular and powerful part of the last elections’ rampaging UniTeam.