Mrs. Arroyo was roundly applauded when she recalled how in the APEC summit hosted by Manila in 1996, "there was not a single female leader."
"I’m very happy that the Asia-Pacific region now has tough, gifted and thoughtful women leaders," she said, referring to Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri and New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.
"And I’m very honored to share this platform with them today. We come from different countries, with different cultures and three different challenges. But we share common commitments to prosperity, democracy and peace," she said.
One CEO of a sportswear company described the President’s speech as a "homerun," alluding to the ongoing World Series in US Major League Baseball that extends to its seventh game today.
Mrs. Arroyo, Megawati and Clark were the special guest speakers of the businessmen’s forum on the sidelines of the APEC leaders’ summit that formally opened yesterday afternoon at the Melia Cabo Real Hotel.
The three women, before joining their male counterparts in the 10th summit proper, were grilled by the top CEOs from the biggest multinational companies in the Asia-Pacific region.
Mrs. Arroyo, an economist, was applauded six times by the audience that included her husband, First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, during the course of her 10-minute speech, the same time allotted to the two other women leaders.
She was given a standing ovation at the end of her speech.
The 55-year-old President, clad in red sleeveless cocktail dress with a single strand mother-of-pearl necklace and matching earrings, was the second speaker after Megawati.
Megawati started her remarks by correcting the Mexican emcee who pronounced her name as "Swekarnoputri."
Mrs. Arroyo immediately won over the audience by speaking in flawless Spanish to joke about the Mexican emcee’s mispronunciation.
"My name is much easier because like the Mexicans, we’re of Latin descent," the President said, even as she referred to Megawati as "my sister" from Indonesia.
She recalled how the three women leaders were first together during the APEC summit last year in Shanghai, China.
Mrs. Arroyo was applauded by the businessmen despite her criticizing the protectionist practices of developed countries that at the same time preached the gospel of globalized free trade to developed countries like the Philippines.
At the open forum that followed, one businessman could not help but ask the women leaders how they coped with the challenge of being their nation’s leaders while also raising their families.
"Yes, there is a challenge to being a mother of a family and mother of a country," she said, and reiterated her own philosophy she learned from her late father, President Diosdado Macapagal who was president at the time Megawati’s own father was president of his country.
"If you’re a public servant, your priorities should be God first, country next, and family only third," she said.
This was why, she said, she had to wait for her children to grow big enough "before I could think of serving my country as a public servant."
After the APEC CEO breakfast, American business leaders from the US-ASEAN Business Council and the US Chambers of Commerce met separately with Mrs. Arroyo at the Clubhouse of Esperanza Hotel where her delegation is billeted.
It was Nike US president Joseph Ha who described Mrs. Arroyo’s speech as "a homerun," according to Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye, adding the CEOs said the President’s message was "powerful both in content and delivery." — Marichu Villanueva