President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will be happily retiring as President of the Philippines but she's far from retirement from politics as she has just won her seat in Congress. Her passion for politics and country is far from over. I've always admired her brilliance, sharpness, poise & elegance coupled with grace and regalia!
Maria Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (born April 5, 1947) is the fourteenth and current president of the Philippines. Arroyo is the country's second female (after Corazon Aquino) and second longest serving (after Ferdinand Marcos) president, she is also the daughter of late former Philippine President Diosdado Macapagal and is of the royal blood due to ancestral lineage tracing her to Don Juan Macapagal, a great-grandson of Lakandula the last reigning Rajah (King) of Saludung.
A professor of economics, Arroyo entered government in 1987, serving as assistant secretary and undersecretary of the Department of Trade and Industry upon the invitation of President Corazon Aquino. After serving as a senator from 1992 to 1998, she was elected to the vice presidency under President Joseph Estrada, despite having run on an opposing ticket. After Estrada was accused of corruption, she resigned her cabinet position as Secretary of Social Welfare and Development and joined the growing opposition to the president, who faced impeachment.
Estrada was soon forced from office by what its advocates would ascribe to peaceful street demonstrations of the EDSA Revolution of 2001, but which critics credit to a conspiracy among political and business elites, military top brass and Catholic Church bishop Jaime Cardinal Sin. Arroyo was sworn into the presidency by then-Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr. at around noon on January 20, 2001 amidst the EDSA II crowd, hours before Estrada left Malacañang. She was elected to a full six-year presidential term in the controversial May 2004 Philippine elections, and was sworn in on June 30, 2004. Arroyo is nearing her 10th year in power and is currently serving the second longest presidential term in Philippine history, next to Ferdinand Marcos.
In the 2009 rankings of Most Powerful Women by Forbes, she was ranked as the 44th most powerful woman in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Macapagal-Arroyo
