Arroyo: I’m no longer a lame duck

A lame duck no more.

President Arroyo’s decision to run for the presidency next year has all but erased that image branded on her by the opposition and sundry critics.

"And perhaps they thought I was a lame duck... that was before I declared (last Saturday)," she said, referring to her announcement in her home province of Pampanga that she would stand in the May 2004 election.

The President made the remark in a phone patch interview over GMA-7’s Frontpage news program Monday night.

This was to refute criticisms now being hurled at her by the political opposition as someone who has no word of honor for reneging on a public avowal she made last Dec. 30.

"When I said that (last Rizal Day) I do not want to run anymore because I want to spend the remaining one and a half years of my administration, hopefully without politics and I would just do my job on the things that I must do for the country," Mrs. Arroyo pointed out.

"But this did not materialize. Politics even turned for the worse, black propaganda, destabilization," she said.

The President reiterated that she did try her best to focus on just work during these past few months.

"I thought that if I do not run, we would have these changes about these things (on politicking). But things remained the same and politics even got much worst," she rued.

But Mrs. Arroyo said she is one person who learns her lessons well, and using her experience in the past two and a half years in office she decided to reverse her Dec. 30 decision for the "higher cause" of the country — that is, to "soar" into the race for the presidency that will be decided by Filipino voters next May.

One of her staunchest Palace defenders, chief of staff Rigoberto Tiglao, had once likened Mrs. Arroyo to a "soaring eagle" to deflect concerns by her supporters that she might be looked down on as a "lame duck" President when she decided to renounce her original plans to run for a full six-year term of office at Malacañang.

Ending months of speculations on her body language by both the political opposition and her own partymates at the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats, Mrs. Arroyo finally announced last Saturday during a senior citizens gathering in Clark Field in Pampanga that she has indeed changed her mind and decided to "defer" her retirement from politics.