The Long Crisis: Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Philippine Underdevelopment

What’s in a presidency? In this book, Ken Fuller methodically dissects the headline-grabbing events surrounding the nine-year administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, discussing the circumstances that led to her rise to power and allowed her to maintain hold of it despite numerous controversies. Analyzing Arroyo’s laundry list of alleged wrongdoings in the context of neocolonization and Philippine socioeconomic and political history, he asserts that her presidency “must be seen (at least in part) as a product rather than the cause of the fundamental problems confronting the Philippines”—problems that, though Arroyo is no longer president, continue to plague the country.