Arroyo in 'exorcism' exercise

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has reportedly embarked on a programme to rid the country of bad luck by exorcising the seat of power, the Malacanang palace, of "satanic symbols".

In a report by the daily Philippine Star, Arroyo was said to have ordered the removal of a pentagram-shaped lighting fixture inside a room which once served as the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos' bedroom.

"The President wants the satanic symbols removed," Arroyo's spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao was quoted as saying in the report.

Arroyo, a devout Catholic but also a believer in the paranormal, lived four years of her life in Malacanang when her father, Diosdado was president.

Arroyo broke tradition last year when she became the first president to have lived in the palace prior to becoming president.

Since Corazon Aquino, who was president from 1986 to 1992, none of the Philippine leaders have used Malacanang as their abode for various reasons.

Aquino turned Malacanang into a museum and opened it to the public to show the excesses and extravagance of the dictator's family.

The Marcos bedroom was one of the highlights of the daily Palace Museum tours and featured the pentagram as proof of the alleged devil-worship of the dictator who in his final years had been very ill. Aquino's tradition was continued by her successor, President Fidel Ramos.

But when former President Joseph Estrada took over, he decided to live at Malacanang but used as his official residence the adjacent Guest House constructed during Marcos' term for visiting heads of state.