And foreign investors and businesses are more welcomed than in the past, thanks to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's policies.
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo won the job of vice-president by direct election in 1998.
The new president of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, says she wants to sell the national power company by mid-year.
The clan was allied to the president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo at least until the massacre, when the governing party swiftly ended the alliance.
ECONOMIST: It is hard to imagine Philippine politics without them
Some senior officials are pressing President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to agree to a big expansion of state-provided contraception and other family-planning help.
ECONOMIST: The food crisis revives worries about population growth
The opposition has a particular weakness: the silence of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
The incumbent president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, has had a shaky grip on power since she was accused of rigging her election in 2004.
In the Philippines, the latest in a series of doomed but distracting attempts to impeach the president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, is gathering steam.
"She is the choice of the people, and the people know best who their leader should be, " says Philippine Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Congress went into recess earlier this month, having neither approved the 2006 budget proposed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo nor agreed on an alternative.
Mr Estrada himself has firmly ruled that out, but were he to relent, his popular vice-president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, would take over the presidency.
Many of the marchers, including First Lady Luisa "Loi" Ejercito and Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, wore something white - a symbol of lost innocence.
But above all, he is liked as a welcome change after the nine-year presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, which in its final years was widely seen as corrupt.
The "Ramos people" include three heavyweights: Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (doubling as social welfare secretary), National Security Adviser Alexander Aguirre and incumbent Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon Jr.
Daughters who have followed their fathers into politics include Myanmar's opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and the vice-presidents of Indonesia and the Philippines respectively, Megawati Sukarnoputri and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Mr Wolfowitz hinted that it was likely that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo would ask for the contingent to stay on after its mandate expires in July but stressed that the Americans were only instructors.
"People's power" has again triumphed (in the Philippines it toppled President Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, pushed President Joseph Estrada out in 2001 and would have ousted President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2005 had the Vatican not advised its Filipino bishops against involvement).
So although they may lean towards backing Mr Estrada, and would be unhappy about putting his vice-president the opposition leader, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the top spot, where she could remain for the next nine-and-a-half years, they will do so if the public sends them a clear message.
Another leading contender is Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a senator and the daughter of a former president.
The media have begun to speculate on a split between Mr Estrada and his vice-president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
If Estrada is driven from office on charges of gross corruption, Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will become the next president.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo have all been welcomed in recent weeks.
The corruption of Noynoy's predecessor, the regime of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, was well-known.
So, if the polls are to be believed, Mr Estrada will end up with Mr de Venecia's running-mate, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, as his deputy.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's government has slashed the budget deficit from 4% of gross domestic product three years ago to less than 1% now.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who inaugurated 11 of TeleTech's current 12 call center sites and granted it several tax holidays, is leaving office next year.
Among the presidents, Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf, Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai, Israel's Shimon Peres, Colombia's Alvaro Uribe, Nigeria's Umaru Yar'Adua and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, are likely to draw attention.
The most recent poll gave him just 4%, compared with 28% for the leading candidate, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a glamorous senator and daughter of a former president.
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