Philippine President to Run for Congress

By CARLOS H. CONDE
The New York Times
Published: November 30, 2009

MANILA — Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the deeply unpopular Philippine president, announced Monday that she would run for a seat in Congress in elections scheduled for next year, ending months of speculation about her plans when her term ends in June but also raising questions about her long-term intentions.

“I have been mulling different ways to stay involved,” Mrs. Arroyo said in a taped message that a government radio station broadcast on Monday. “After much soul-searching, I have decided I will file my certificate of candidacy for Congress in order to serve the hard-working people of my province.”

Mrs. Arroyo, 62, is the longest serving and most unpopular president the country has had since Ferdinand Marcos. While she has survived several impeachment efforts, her administration has been embroiled in numerous scandals involving corruption and accused of involvement in the extrajudicial killing and abduction of hundreds of activists. Her closest political allies in the southern Philippines were implicated last week in the massacre of 57 people, most of them journalists, in the country’s worst case of election-related violence.

An American-educated economist, Mrs. Arroyo became president in 2001 after a popular revolt toppled President Joseph Estrada. She was his vice president at the time. In 2004, she was returned to office in an election marred by accusations of fraud, which she denied.

Her opponents immediately denounced her latest move and linked it to longstanding speculation that she wanted to remain in public office to maintain her immunity from prosecution and ward off investigations of her presidency.

“With a rule that has been characterized by shameless corruption and impunity, Arroyo is no longer morally qualified to hold any public office,” said Renato Reyes, secretary general of Bayan, the country’s largest leftist group. “Her attempt to get a congressional seat is not born out of a desire to serve but by a desire to get political leverage and avoid accountability for the many crimes committed by her regime.”

She will run in her home district in Pampanga Province, just north of Manila, her lawyer said in a briefing on Monday. Her son Juan Miguel Arroyo, a congressman who represents the district, has said he would step aside if she chose to run.

Under the law, a president cannot seek re-election, although Mr. Estrada is challenging that ban and filed candidacy papers on Monday for the presidency. No president has run for lower public office.

Mrs. Arroyo’s political opponents and critics have long suggested that she will run for Congress and then use her political clout to initiate a shift in the system of government from the present republican form to a parliamentary form in which she could become prime minister.

This course, they said, would allow her to head off lawsuits her opponents have promised to file against her after she leaves the presidency.

In her radio message, Mrs. Arroyo tried to brush aside the debate over her intentions. Calling the issue “so hypothetical,” she said: “I won’t even bother to speculate about it.”

But she did offer an acknowledgment of her critics, noting that “Congressional immunity is only from libel suits and utterances made in Congress.”