January 19, 2002, CNN News, Arroyo's struggle to be president,

January 19, 2002, CNN News, Arroyo's struggle to be president,

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo marks her first year in office amid political instability that threatens to undermine the economic gains of her administration and her growing stature as a strong and decisive world leader.

Arroyo rose to the country's highest post January 20 last year through a military-backed people's uprising known as "EDSA 2", recalling the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos' fall in 1986.

The revolt was an emotional verdict to the aborted impeachment trial of Arroyo's predecessor, Joseph Estrada, on corruption charges.

Although the Supreme Court swore her in as president, the unusual circumstance of her rise to power put her under the critical eye of various groups, which took part in moves to oust Estrada but pledged only conditional support for her becoming president.

Arroyo had actually been a popular vice president, garnering more votes than Estrada did for the presidency in the 1998 national elections.

She rode on the prestige of her father Diosdado, a Philippine president in the 1960s, and an effective poster campaign that softened her image as a technocrat who belonged to the country's economic elite.

But the lack of an election mandate to be president has made her continually vulnerable.

Early on, allegations of influence peddling by her husband cracked the moral ascendancy expected of her administration, as did later those of bribery and case-fixing at the justice department.

Investigations by a divided Senate, where the opposition is just two seats shy of assuming the majority, further fueled the unfavorable publicity.

Resentful Estrada loyalists have pounced on such political opportunities, and sometimes, too, the local media that tends to bristle at her undisguised pique at any allegations against her administration.

The Arroyo government has been able to contain the national budget deficit, and the country's economy has grown by 3.3 percent -- a better performance than other countries in the region.

Such gains have earned her the continuing support of the business community, but coup rumors and law and order problems carried over from previous administrations still dampen the influx of foreign investment.

Moreover, Arroyo had reversed the hardline stance of the Estrada administration against insurgents, resuming peace talks with communist rebels and a Muslim separatist group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

But negotiations have stalled and a hostage crisis involving Abu Sayyaf guerrillas in the south remains unsolved.