Background
María is a daughter of the late ninth president of the Philippines Diosdado Pangan Macapagal during the ruling of which the country ranked the second by economic development in Asia, considerably contributed to economic and political development of the state.
María Arroyo is one of the richest women of the Philippines. She inherited her fortune from the father. Her husband José Miguel Tuason Strim also is considered to be one of the well-off men of the country. He is a lawyer by profession and also he did private practice. The presidential couple Aroyo has three adult children.
Career
At first María Arroyo taught in a college, later after she became professor of economics she began to lecture in a number of higher educational institutes of the Philippines. In 1987 she holds her first state post of the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry at the president Akino administration. In a year she was appointed the Executive Director of the Garments and Textile Export Board and in a year -Undersecretary of the Department of Trade and Industry of the Philippines.
During the period from 1992 to 1998 María Arroyo actively works with law-making in the parliament of the country. Already at that time she is called the most outstanding member of the parliament of all history of the Philippines. She made herself fifty five economic and social laws.
On June 30, 1998 Maria Gloria Arroyo was elected vice-president of the country. However, she leaves this post when in October, 2000 the sitting president of the Philippines Josef Estrada was caught in corruption. On January 20, 2001 when the corruption scandal and national actions about it drew to a head the Supreme court of the Philippines declared that the country`s president post became vacant. At the same day María Gloria Makapagal-Arroyo was put on oath as the head of the state.
Probably such fierce attacks of opposition succeeded to María Arroyo to change her mind and not to participate in the 2004 presidential election. She made this statement on December 31, 2002, but later she all the same nominated herself on the post of the president of the country. And on May 10, 2004 María Arroyo was again elected by the president of the Republic of the Philippines for the next six-year term.
