Gloria was born to Salvacion and Federico De La Cruz in 1952 in Laoag City. She received her B.S. Education with a math minor in 1973, graduating summa cum laude, and in 1975, she received her M.A. Education in Administration and Supervision. She later moved to Hawaii and worked for Dole Packaging and Litton Electron Industries as a Programmer Analyst before moving to California in 1989. Later she married Juanito Santos in 1991 before working with the City of San Francisco as an Information Systems Engineer in 1993 before retiring in 2004. She is survived by her husband and son Audie Mar Santos.