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In memoir, Gloria claims win over FPJ not because of Hello Garci


In her memoir entitled “Deus Ex Machina,” former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo claimed her win was not because of phone calls to an election commissioner but due to several factors including having Noli de Castro as her running mate.

“Victory has many fathers, but there were four keys to my victory.  The first key: I made a political calculation to tap Noli.  I got 50 percent of his survey points, marginalizing Raul Roco,” she said in her 216-page book.

“The second key is that the opposition did not unite,” she said, adding that tycoon Danding Cojuangco, who could have been “a formidable rallying point to unite the opposition” chose not to contest the presidency. 

She also said that the 36.5 percent of actor Fernando Poe Jr. combined with the 11 percent of Panfilo Lacson would have beaten her 39.4 percent.

The solid front of the administration coalition is the third key to her win, Arroyo said.  The fourth key was the “personal adjustments” she made, which she said “perhaps” was not done by Poe.

“I have faults enough, and one is my temper.  But for the 2004 campaign, a smiling Gloria replaced the mataray Gloria.  …I avoid a lot of needless stress and that certainly improves one’s mood," Arroyo said.

Arroyo quoted a newspaper column that noted Poe’s “style,” and an incident in the campaign trail where the actor called out GMA’s Sandra Aguinaldo as she was doing a stand-upper on the stage.

She said that a week after the incident, Arroyo surged past Poe in the Social Weather Stations survey by 5 percent, and then by 7 percent two days before elections.

GMA News Online has sought comment from Poe's daughter Senator Grace Poe but has received none as of posting time.

Hello Garci

Arroyo maintained the phone call she made to an elections commissioner happened after all the votes had been counted and the winning senatorial candidates had been declared.

“The final vindication of my victory came on January 18, 2008, when Loren Legarda lost her electoral protest against Vice President Noli de Castro.  My election lawyer Romy Macalintal saw that as a victory for me too,” she said.

She noted that the certificates of canvass in determining De Castro’s win were the same ones used to proclaim her presidency.

“So how could I have cheated based on the same certificates that showed Noli to have won,” she said.

“As to those who will maintain the fiction that I won by cheating in 2004, I refer to Jeremiah 5:21 that chastise those “who have eyes but do not see, who have ears, but do not hear,” she added.

Arroyo won the presidency in the 2004 elections over closest rival Poe, giving her a fresh six-year term.

Poe lodged an election protest, which remained pending at the time of his death on December 14, 2004.  His widow, Susan Roces, instead stood as the petitioner.  The Presidential Electoral Tribunal dismissed the case in 2005.

In 2012, Poe was proclaimed National Artist for Film.—with Hana Bordey/LDF, GMA News

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