It will be a sad 37th wedding anniversary for GMA, Mike A

On top of all her other problems — falling popularity ratings, economic jolts, and a looming impeachment trial — President Arroyo will also have to spend her 37th wedding anniversary on August 2 alone.

With First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo on an indefinite "exile" to the United States since last month, the President really knows the meaning of making it on her own.

And it’s not easy, she told radio station dzRH yesterday. "Malungkot po ‘pag ‘di magkasama ang magasawa (It’s sad if the wife and husband are not together)," Mrs. Arroyo said.

The President said even she doesn’t know when her husband will return to the country, but acknowledged that being an elected leader of the country often means making sacrifices.

Asked by veteran broadcaster Joe Taruc whether her husband would be returning home for their anniversary, she said: "I don’t know."

Mr. Arroyo, often a magnet for controversy, went on voluntary exile to avoid "distracting" his wife while she faces a number of challenges to her presidency, including Senate hearings on the "Hello, Garci" recordings, a previous House jueteng hearing that implicated the First Gentleman in collecting gambling payoffs, and an opposition-endorsed impeachment complaint. "What I can say is that I was not elected President to enjoy," Mrs. Arroyo told dzRH.

This may be the understatement of the season. The President faces daily calls for her to step down and weekly poll surveys that show — at least in Manila — a collapse of public support.

The President said her father, the late President Diosdado Macapagal, kept on reminding his children that as a public servant, one must be ready to make sacrifices "and suffer if necessary." 

"And that (guidance) is one of my inspirations that I keep on remembering in our country’s present situation and in my personal situation as well," Mrs. Arroyo said.

The First Couple were married in 1968 at the Santuario de San Antonio in Forbes Park in Makati. Close friends of the couple said Mr. Arroyo never fails to give her a dozen roses —11 red and one white — to symbolize his love for her.

The close associates recall how Mr. Arroyo would regularly visit the Palace to court his future wife. Then one day, the future Mrs. Arroyo, who was still in college, barged into the late President’s Cabinet meeting and demanded that she speak with her father.

"Is this a matter of life and death?" Mr. Macapagal was said to have angrily asked her daughter, to which she replied: "Yes, mine."

It turned out Mrs. Arroyo was there to inform her father that she had a boyfriend.

Last June 29, the President announced before prominent businessmen that she was prepared to make a personal sacrifice in sending her scandal-prone husband on exile to shield the presidency from ceaseless attacks from the opposition.