Macapagal, Diosdado
(1910–1997), President of the Republic of the Philippines. Born to a poor family on 28 September 1910, Diosdado Macapagal worked his way through law school and joined the largest U.S. law firm in Manila while the Philippines was still a U.S. colony. After independence he joined the Department of Foreign Affairs, rising to the position of second secretary of the Philippine embassy in Washington, D.C. While in Washington, Macapagal conducted graduate work in economics, earning a Ph.D. in 1957. He was twice elected to the Philippine Congress, serving from 1949–1956, and was vice president from 1957–1961. According to Marcos biographer James Hamilton-Paterson, in 1961 Macapagal successfully challenged incumbent president Carlos Garcia after making a tacit agreement with Ferdinand Marcos that if elected he would only serve one term, after which he would support a Marcos candidacy. In 1965, when it became clear that Macapagal was going to renege and run for reelection, Marcos ran as the opposition candidate, easily defeating the incumbent president, who ran a poor campaign. As president, Macapagal supported land redistribution but lacked the political support to implement sweeping reform. In 1963 he proposed legislation giving the government greater power to expropriate landed estates, but members of the elite resisted the reforms, and Congress watered down the proposal, which was inadequately funded and poorly implemented. Although considered personally honest, Macapagal's administration was tainted by corruption, and he was threatened with impeachment when he protected political allies from prosecution. Out of office, Macapagal ran as a delegate and was elected president of the 1971 Constitutional Convention. Before the body was able to draft a new constitution, however, President Marcos declared martial law, rendering the convention powerless. Macapagal died in 1997, but his political legacy continues. His daughter, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, became president in February 2001 following the impeachment trial of President Joseph Estrada.
Further Reading
Hamilton-Paterson, James. (1999) America's Boy: A Century of Colonialism in the Philippines. New York: Henry Holt.
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