Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo got married to Jose Miguel Arroyo in 1968. Her husband was a businessman and attorney. The couple has two sons, named Juan and Diosdado, and a daughter named Evangelina.

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was born on 5 April 1947 in San Juan, Philippines, to Diosdado Macapagal and Evangelina Macaraeg Macapagal,. His father was a politician who went on to become President of Philippines. She had two half sisters.

In her childhood, she lived in Iligan City with her maternal grandmother from the age of four to seven and then switched her stay between the cities of Mindanao and Manila in the subsequent years. In 1961, she started living in Manila permanently after his father became the President.

She studied at the Assumption Convent and graduated from the school in 1964. Following her high school graduation, she went to the Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, in Washington DC. Former US President Bill Clinton was one of her batch mates at the Walsh School.

Subsequently, she studied at Assumption College in Makati City, Philippines and received her bachelors’ degree in economics in 1968. In 1978, she attained a master’s degree in economics from the Ataneo de Manila University.

In 1977, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo started teaching economics and for the next ten years she taught simultaneously in different institutions including the Ataneo de Manila University and the University of the Philippines. It was during this period that she was also awarded her doctorate in economics by the University of the Philippines located in Quezon City.

In 1987, the then President of Philippines, Corazon Aquino, offered her the position of Undersecretary of the Department of Trade and Industry, which Gloria accepted.

In 1992, she entered electoral politics and became a senator. She served as senator for six years and during her term as senator, she authored or sponsored several landmark bills, such as the Anti-Sexual Harassment Law, the Indigenous People's Rights Law, and the Export Development Act.

In 1998, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo decided to run for the presidency but instead chose to contest the election for the Vice President and was elected as the first female Vice President of Philippines. Concurrently, she held the cabinet position of Secretary of Social Welfare and Development. Two years into her tenure, Arroyo resigned amid corruption allegations against the then president Joseph Estrada.

President Joseph Estrada was forced out of the presidential palace in 2001 by protestors who were enraged at the corruption scandal that he was allegedly involved in and in the same year Arroyo took over the reins of the presidency. Her presidency was beset with problems as the supporters of President Estrada continued to protest and she had to suppress a coup by disaffected soldiers.

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had a long political career in which she held plenty of important positions and his most important work was to provide a sense of calm when Philippines was being ravaged with anti-corruption protests in 2001.