PHILIPPINES, REPUBLIC OF THE, (1978 files)
Is a group of more than 7,000 islands off the southeast coast of Asia in the Pacific Ocean. Most of the islands are small. The island group extends about 688 miles east and west and about 1,152 miles north and south between Formosa and Borneo. The Philippines are bounded by the South China Sea on the west and north, the Philippine Sea on the east, and the Celebes Sea on the south.
The island group was given the name Las Felipinas in 1542 by the members of a Spanish expedition which had crossed the Pacific Ocean westward from Mexico. The name honored the prince who later became King Philip II of Spain.
The Spanish ruled the Philippines until the end of the 19th century. After the Spanish – American War (1898) the United States governed the islands until they became an independent country in 1946.
Landscape
Only about 1,000 of the Philippine Islands have people on them. The others are uninhabited coral reefs or small, rocky points rising out of the ocean. The country’s total area is 115,830 square miles. Luzon in the north and Mindanao in the south are the two largest islands. Together they make up about two-thirds of the area of the Philippines. The other large islands of the group include Samar, Negros, Palawan, Panay, Mindoro, Leyte, Cebu, and Bohol.
The Philippines are a part of a vast underwater mountain chain. The peaks rising above the water’s surface form many of the islands. Most of the islands are mountainous with only a narrow rim of coastal plains. The mountain ridges run generally north and south. Most of the people live in the lowlands.
There are several volcanoes in the Philippines. Most of them are no longer active. Mount Apo (9,687 feet), an active volcano on Mindanao, is the highest peak in the islands. Mount Mayon (7,928 feet) in southern Luzon, noted for its almost perfect volcanic cone, is also active. The areas of volcanic soils are the most fertile, but good soils are also found in many of the small basins and river valleys.
The rivers are short, rapid streams. The Cagayan River on Luzon is the largest. None are navigatable for any distance except the Pasig River, along which the city of Manila has grown. Of the many lakes, Laguna de Bay on Luzon is the largest. Many small bays and inlets fringe the coasts of most of the islands. Manila has the finest natural harbor in the Orient.
Climate and Vegetation
The climate of the islands is tropical except in the higher mountain areas. The moderate temperatures vary only slightly throughout the year in the lower areas. Monthly averages range from 76 to 84 degrees Fahrenheit.
Heavy rainfall is common throughout the year on the eastern sides of the islands, with the greatest amount during the winter. Monsoon winds bring heavy rains to the western portions from October to June, but there is a dry season during the remaining months. Total yearly rainfall for the east coasts is usually more than 120 inches. A few areas receive more than 250 inches. The drier western areas usually receive less than 60 inches. The northern and central islands are in the typhoon belt. Between May and early December, violent storms cause great destruction in these areas. Occasional earthquakes also cause damage.
Tropical forests of the islands contain valuable timber, such as Philippine mahogany, one of the country’s leading exports. The forests also provide other hardwoods, softwoods, bamboo, rattans, and gums and resins.
Nearly 20 % of the country is grassland. The most common grass, "cogon," grows to about six feet. The coconut palm, found throughout the islands, yields the chief export products – coconut oil and copra – and is also a source of food, clothing and building materials, and other products.
Animal Life and Mineral Resources
Many species of wildlife live in the forests, including wild buffaloes, wild hogs, monkeys, deer, and civet cats. Hundreds of birds add color and noise to the forests. Many kinds of reptiles are found throughout the islands. The domesticated animals include cows and water buffaloes (carabaos) , both of which are important as dairy animals and beasts of burden. Marine life is plentiful in the coastal waters of the islands.
The Philippines are rich in mineral resources. Gold, silver, iron ore, manganese, copper, and chromium are exported, and lead, asphalt, marble, and gypsum also are mined. The islands, however, lack large deposits of two important minerals – petroleum and high-grade coal. The lack of good coal has slowed the development of metal industries.
The People of the Philippines
The Filipinos are mainly descendants of the many groups of invaders, settlers, and traders who have traveled to the islands during the past 8,000 years. The customs, physical appearance, and languages of the people are a blend of many different backgrounds.
Primitive Negrito peoples were among the earliest inhabitants of the Philippines. They are thought to have come from some of the other Pacific islands thousands of years ago. The Negritos have very dark skin and kinky hair and are usually less than five feet tall. Today there are fewer than 15,000 Negritos in the Philippines. They live among the rougher highlands and still use primitive ways of hunting and fishing.
The Malays are the largest racial group in the Philippines. They are a Mongoloid people with brown skin and straight black hair. Over a period of thousands of years, the Malays came in groups to the Philippines from the other Pacific islands or from the mainland of Southeast Asia. These groups settled in many parts of the islands. Their languages and customs therefore developed separately. Today 81 dialects are spoken in the Philippines, and there are 40 separate cultural groups. The Tagalog peoples of central and southern Luzon and the Visayan peoples of the central islands are among the largest of these groups.
Chinese and Indian traders visited the Philippines as early as 2,000 years ago. They brought new skills and ideas and also introduced Chinese and Indian racial characteristics into the physical makeup of the population. It is estimated that about 5 % of the people are partly of Indian origin and about 10 % partly Chinese.
After the Spaniards cane to the Philippines in the 16th century, they converted many of the islanders to Christianity and introduced several elements of Western culture. Strong Spanish influence is still seen – particularly in dress, architecture, manners, and names. During the years of the U.S. administration, the Americans influenced the islanders. Many Filipinos now speak the English language. But even with the strong Spanish and United Sates influence, there is a much older and deeper heritage from the mainland of Southeast Asia. It is seen especially among the farming people – in the way they work their land, build their homes and prepare their food.
Two areas of the islands have been largely untouched by Western influences. One of these is the northern part of Luzon, where Malay tribesmen long resisted Spanish efforts to conquer them. One of the tribes, the Igorots, only gave up head - hunting in the U.S. period. These tribesmen number about 312,000.
The other area, more resistant both to the Spanish and to the United States, was the group of southern islands, including Mindanao. Here related groups of native people were converted to Islam in the 13th century. Hostilities between them and their Christian neighbors continued into the 1970’s. A tribe living in a Stone Age manner was discovered in the dense rain forest of Mindanao in 1971. This tribe is less than 100 people calls itself the Tasaday.
Cities, Towns, and Villages
Most Filipinos live in villages or small towns. Often a village is simply a double row of bamboo houses facing each other along a road. About 32 % of the people live in cities with populations of 1,000 or more. The largest city, capital and main business center is Manila.
Many Philippine cities and towns are laid out around a central plaza or village square. The residential areas of the cities often consist of a wide variety of housing styles. Split bamboo and wood are the most common building materials. Many Filipinos build their homes on stilts in order to keep them dry during floods that result from heavy rains.
How the People Make a Living
Agriculture. About 50 % of the Philippine workers are farmers. Most farms are between four to ten acres in size. Farmers plow with iron-tipped wooden plows drawn by water buffaloes. Crops are harvested by hand. Crop rotation is practiced rarely, and seldom are farmers able to afford fertilizer. As a result, even though the tropical climate and fertile soils favor agriculture, crop yields are low.
There is a surplus of farmland in the Philippines. Only about 30 % of the land is used for farming, although much more is suitable. Nevertheless, some farming areas are very crowded. The government is urging farmers of the crowded central islands to move to Mindanao and other less-populated islands.
Rice, the main food of the Philippines, is grown on about one-third of the cultivated land. Luzon’s central plain is the largest cropped area. Corn, another important food crop, is grown on about ¼ of the cropland. Garden crops – sweet potatoes, cassavas, and beans – peanuts, bananas, and a variety of tropical fruits are usually grown in small plots around the farmer’s houses.
Crops grown mainly for export include coconuts, sugar cane, abaca (Manila hemp), pineapples, and tobacco. Southern Luzon has large coconut plantations. The republic leads the world in the export of coconut products. In addition to crop raising, many Filipinos raise livestock – including water buffaloes, horses, hogs, cattle, goats, sheep, and poultry.
Fishing. After rice, fish is the most important food in the Philippine diet. Fishing and fish canning are also important to the Philippine economy. Canned tuna and shrimp are the chief fish export products. Many marine creatures are used for purposes other than the production of food. Coral and shells, for example, are used for making jewelry and various other decorative articles.
Manufacturing. The chief manufacturing industries in the Philippines are based on the processing of products from the farms, forests, and mines. There are rice, sugar, and palm-oil processing plants; lumber mills; leather tanneries; rope, furniture, and cigar and cigarette factories; mineral-refining plants; and food factories.
Several government-owned cement plants, a small shipbuilding center, an iron and steel plant, a hydroelectric plant, and several thermo-electric plants are also operating. Aided by government, manufacturing has begun to grow rapidly, especially near Manila. Rubber, chemical, textile, aluminum, and enamelware plants are among the newer industries.
Handicrafts employ more workers than all the other industries together. Working at home, Philippine women turn out beautiful woven fabrics, baskets, hats, matting, and embroidery.
Transportation
The Philippine government greatly improved the road system between the mid-1960’s and mid - 1970’s. During that time the length of paved roads was doubled. More roads were needed, however, especially in underdeveloped areas. Narrow-gauge railways serve cities on the islands of Luzon, Panay, and Cebu.
Travel between islands is usually by boat. Airlines, however, connect all the major cities and towns of the islands. Philippine Air Lines also runs regular passenger and cargo service to other countries in the Orient.
Government
The constitution of the Republic of the Philippines was adopted in 1935 and amended in 1940 and 1946. It is very similar to the Constitution of the United States in that it contains a bill of rights and divides the government into three branches. The executive branch is headed by the president and vice - president. The legislative, or law-making branch, is the Senate and the House of Representatives. The judiciary is headed by the Supreme Court.
Below the national government are the 56 provincial governments, each with a governor and an elected legislature. Cities and towns are governed by mayors and municipal councils.
Education
The Philippines has the highest literacy rate of any of the countries of Southeast Asia. More then 65 % of the people are able to read and write. Education is compulsory through the sixth grade and is free at all levels. The educational system is similar to that in the United States and includes elementary schools, secondary schools, and institutions of higher learning. The best-known universities are the University of the Philippines, the University of Santo Tomas (founded 1611), and the Far Eastern University.
Filipino, based on Tagalog (a Malayan dialect), is the national language. English and Spanish also are recognized as official languages and are used in international trade and diplomacy.
Religion
The Republic of the Philippines is the only country in eastern Asia in which Christianity is the principal faith. Most of the church members are Roman Catholic. Some, however, are followers of the Philippine Independent church (a Catholic group that does not recognize the Roman Catholic pope as its head), Islam, and Protestantism.
The islanders celebrate many religious festivals. Christmas lasts from December 16 to January 6. Each village has a festival on the day of its patron saint and one before Lent.
History
Ferdinand Magellan is thought to have been the first European to visit the Philippines (1521). Spain claimed the Philippines as the result of his visit, and by the end of the 16th century the Spaniards ruled nearly all of the islands. Hundreds of Spanish friars came to live in the Philippines to convert the people to Christianity and to teach them to live in peace.
During the 19th century open resentment flared up against the Spanish. One of the leaders of the campaign for freedom was Jose Rizal. He wrote against the dictatorial manner in which the friars ruled the villages. When the Spanish executed him on December 30, 1896, he became a national hero. Meanwhile, another Philippine leader, Emilio Aguinaldo, was organizing the people to revolt.
In 1898 the first major battle of the Spanish-American War took place in Manila Bay, where a U.S. fleet led by Commodore George Dewey defeated a Spanish fleet. That same year, Spain gave up the islands to the United States in return for $ 20,000,000. By this time the Filipinos had declared themselves independent and made Aguinaldo president of the provisional government. Agunaldo’s forces resisted the United States occupation but were beaten in 1901, and, by 1902, peace was established in all parts of the islands except those inhabited by the Moro peoples. The Moros continued guerilla warfare on the island of Mindanao for nearly ten years.
The United States wanted the Philippines to have self-government but realized that the people needed much help before they would be ready for independence. The United States government built schools and roads, installed sewage systems, vaccinated the people to protect them from smallpox and cholera, and drilled deep wells to provide pure drinking water.
William Howard Taft was the first civil governor of the Philippines (1900 to 1904). In 1916 the United States Congress passed the Jones Act, which gave the Philippines an elected legislature. In 1934 the Tydings-McDuffie Act set the date for Philippine independence at July 4, 1946. This act made the Philippines a commonwealth and gave it almost complete control over its own affairs. The United States kept control of defense, foreign relations, and important financial policies. Manuel Quezon, elected in 1935, was the first president of the Philippine Commonwealth.
World War II broke out in the Pacific on December 7, 1941. The Philippine Islands were one of Japan’s chief objectives. On January 2, 1942, Manila was captured. President Manuel Quezon went to Washington, D.C., where he organized his government in exile. Upon his death in 1944, he was succeeded by Sergio Osmena, the vice-president. While the Philippines were occupied by the Japanese, U.S. and Filipino guerillas kept resistance alive. In 1945 the Japanese were driven out.
The Philippines became independent on July 4, 1946. Manuel Roxas y Acuna was elected the first president of the new Republic of the Philippines. War damage was wide spread, and the Communist-led Hukbalahaps (Huks) occupied considerable areas in Luzon and Panay. These problems were overcome, largely because of the enthusiasm of the Filipinos for their independence. Money was given by the U.S. to help repair war damage.
In 1948 President Roxas died and was succeeded by the vice-president, Elpidio Quirino. In 1949 Quirino was elected for a full four-year term. In November 1953 Ramon Magsaysay, a famous guerilla fighter during World War II, was elected president.
Magsaysay began a widespread program of improvements for the new republic. In order to defeat the Huks, he kept the Philippine Army constantly in the field, introduced land reforms, and gave farm lands on Mindanao to all Huks who would surrender. When he was killed in an airplane accident in March 1957, Magsaysay was succeeded by the vice-president, Carlos P. Garcia. In November 1957, Garcia was elected for a four-year term, and in 1961 Diosdado Macapagal succeeded him.
In 1965 Macapagal ran for reelection, but was defeated by Ferdinand E. Marcos, the Nationalist candidate. Marcos immediately embarked on a campaign to improve the economy. With the aid of large U.S. loans, he began a four-year program to increase agricultural output. In 1969 Marcos became the first man to be reelected to the presidency since Philippine independence. Marcos ended his term in 1986 after being overthrown by a citizen’s revolution. He was succeeded by Corazon Q. Aquino, the first female president of the country, leading a revolutionary form of government. In 1992, Fidel V. Ramos was the new Philippine president and was succeeded by Joseph E. Estrada in 1998. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, daughter of former president Diosdado Macapagal, then became the second female president in 2001.
The Republic of the Philippines was an original member of the United Nations. It also belongs to the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), established in Manila in 1954.
Philippines
INDEPENDENCE AND CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT, 1945-72
Demoralized by the war and suffering rampant inflation and shortages of food and other goods, the Philippine people prepared for the transition to independence, which was scheduled for July 4, 1946. A number of issues remained unresolved, principally those concerned with trade and security arrangements between the islands and the United States. Yet in the months following Japan's surrender, collaboration became a virulent issue that split the country and poisoned political life. Most of the commonwealth legislature and leaders, such as Laurel, Claro Recto, and Roxas, had served in the Japanese-sponsored government. While the war was still going on, Allied leaders had stated that such "quislings" and their counterparts on the provincial and local levels would be severely punished. Harold Ickes, who as United States secretary of the interior had civil authority over the islands, suggested that all officials above the rank of schoolteacher who had cooperated with the Japanese be purged and denied the right to vote in the first postwar elections. Osmeña countered that each case should be tried on its own merits.
Resolution of the problem posed serious moral questions that struck at the heart of the political system. Collaborators argued that they had gone along with the occupiers in order to shield the people from the harshest aspects of Japanese rule. Before leaving Corregidor in March 1942, Quezon had told Laurel and José Vargas, mayor of Manila, that they should stay behind to deal with the Japanese but refuse to take an oath of allegiance. Although president of a "puppet" republic, Laurel had faced down the Japanese several times and made it clear that his loyalty was first to the Philippines and second to the Japanese-sponsored Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere.
Critics accused the collaborators of opportunism and of enriching themselves while the people starved. Anticollaborationist feeling, moreover, was fueled by the people's resentment of the elite. On both the local and the national levels, it had been primarily the landlords, important officials, and the political establishment that had supported the Japanese, largely because the latter, with their own troops and those of a reestablished Philippine Constabulary, preserved their property and forcibly maintained the rural status quo. Tenants felt the harshest aspects of Japanese rule. Guerrillas, particularly those associated with the Huks, came from the ranks of the cultivators, who organized to defend themselves against Philippine Constabulary and Japanese depredations.
The issue of collaboration centered on Roxas, prewar Nacionalista speaker of the House of Representatives, who had served as minister without portfolio and was responsible for rice procurement and economic policy in the wartime Laurel government. A close prewar associate of MacArthur, he maintained contact with Allied intelligence during the war and in 1944 had unsuccessfully attempted to escape to Allied territory, which exonerated him in the general's eyes. MacArthur supported Roxas in his ambitions for the presidency when he announced himself as a candidate of the newly formed Liberal Party (the liberal wing of the Nacionalista Party) in January 1946. MacArthur's favoritism aroused much criticism, particularly because other collaborationist leaders were held in jail, awaiting trial. A presidential campaign of great vindictiveness ensued, in which Roxas's wartime role was a central issue. Roxas outspent and outspoke his Nacionalista opponent, the aging and ailing Osmeña. In the April 23, 1946, election, Roxas won 54 percent of the vote, and the Liberal Party won a majority in the legislature.
On July 4, 1946, Roxas became the first president of the independent Republic of the Philippines. In 1948 he declared an amnesty for arrested collaborators--only one of whom had been indicted--except for those who had committed violent crimes. The resiliency of the prewar elite, although remarkable, nevertheless had left a bitter residue in the minds of the people. In the first years of the republic, the issue of collaboration became closely entwined with old agrarian grievances and produced violent results.
Data as of June 1991
Philippines
Economic Relations with the United States after Independence
If the inauguration of the Commonwealth of the Philippines in November 1935 marked the high point of Philippine-United States relations, the actual achievement of independence was in many ways a disillusioning anticlimax. Economic relations remained the most salient issue. The Philippine economy remained highly dependent on United States markets--more dependent, according to United States high commissioner Paul McNutt, than any single state was dependent on the rest of the country. Thus a severance of special relations at independence was unthinkable, and large landowners, particularly those with hectarage in sugar, campaigned for an extension to free trade. The Philippine Trade Act, passed by the United States Congress in 1946 and commonly known as the Bell Act, stipulated that free trade be continued until 1954; thereafter, tariffs would be increased 5 percent annually until full amounts were reached in 1974. Quotas were established for Philippine products both for free trade and tariff periods. At the same time, there would be no restrictions on the entry of United States products to the Philippines, nor would there be Philippine import duties. The Philippine peso (for value of the peso--see Glossary) was tied at a fixed rate to the United States dollar.
The most controversial provision of the Bell Act was the "parity" clause that granted United States citizens equal economic rights with Filipinos, for example, in the exploitation of natural resources. If parity privileges of individuals or corporations were infringed upon, the president of the United States had the authority to revoke any aspect of the trade agreement. Payment of war damages amounting to US$620 million, as stipulated in the Philippine Rehabilitation Act of 1946, was made contingent on Philippine acceptance of the parity clause.
The Bell Act was approved by the Philippine legislature on July 2, two days before independence. The parity clause, however, required an amendment relating to the 1935 constitution's thirteenth article, which reserved the exploitation of natural resources for Filipinos. This amendment could be obtained only with the approval of three-quarters of the members of the House and Senate and a plebiscite. The denial of seats in the House to six members of the leftist Democratic Alliance and three Nacionalistas on grounds of fraud and violent campaign tactics during the April 1946 election enabled Roxas to gain legislative approval on September 18. The definition of three-quarters became an issue because three-quarters of the sitting members, not the full House and Senate, had approved the amendment, but the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the administration's interpretation .
In March 1947, a plebiscite on the amendment was held; only 40 percent of the electorate participated, but the majority of those approved the amendment. The Bell Act, particularly the parity clause, was seen by critics as an inexcusable surrender of national sovereignty. The pressure of the sugar barons, particularly those of Roxas's home region of the western Visayan Islands, and other landowner interests, however, was irresistible. In 1955 a revised United States-Philippine Trade Agreement (the Laurel-Langley Agreement) was negotiated. This treaty abolished the United States authority to control the exchange rate of the peso, made parity privileges reciprocal, extended the sugar quota, and extended the time period for the reduction of other quotas and for the progressive application of tariffs on Philippine goods exported to the United States.
Data as of June 1991
Philippines
The Magsaysay, Garcia, and Macapagal Administrations, 1953- 65
Ramon Magsaysay, a member of Congress from Zambales Province and veteran of a non-Huk guerrilla unit during the war, became secretary of defense in 1950. He initiated a campaign to defeat the insurgents militarily and at the same time win popular support for the government. With United States aid and advisers he was able to improve the quality of the armed forces, whose campaign against the Huks had been largely ineffective and heavy-handed. In 1950 the constabulary was made part of the armed forces (it had previously been under the secretary of the interior) with its own separate command. All armed forces units were placed under strict discipline, and their behavior in the villages was visibly more restrained. Peasants felt grateful to Magsaysay for ending the forced evacuations and harsh pacification tactics that some claimed had been worse than those of the Japanese occupation.
Nominated as Nacionalista Party presidential candidate in April 1953, Magsaysay won almost two-thirds of the vote over his opponent, Quirino, in November. Often compared to United States president Andrew Jackson, Magsaysay styled himself as a man of the people. He invited thousands of peasants and laborers to tour the Malacañang Palace--the presidential residence in Manila--and encouraged farmers to send him telegrams, free of charge, with their complaints. In the countryside a number of small-scale but highly visible projects had been started, including the building of bridges, roads, irrigation canals, and artesian "liberty wells"; the establishment of special courts for landlord-tenant disputes; agricultural extension services; and credit for farmers. The Economic Development Corps project settled some 950 families on land that the government had purchased on Mindanao. In the ensuing years, this program, in various forms, promoted the settlement of poor people from the Christian north in traditionally Muslim areas. Although it relieved population pressures in the north, it also exacerbated centuries-old MuslimChristian hostilities. The capture and killing of Huk leaders, the dissolution of Huk regional committees, and finally the surrender of Taruc in May 1954 marked the waning of the Huk threat.
Magsaysay's vice president, Carlos P. Garcia, succeeded to the presidency after Magsaysay's death in an airplane crash in March 1957 and was shortly thereafter elected to the office. Garcia emphasized the nationalist themes of "Filipino First" and attainment of "respectable independence." Further discussions with the United States on the question of the military bases took place in 1959. Early agreement was reached on United States relinquishment of large land areas initially reserved for bases but no longer required for their operation. As a result, the United States turned over to Philippine administration the town of Olongapo on Subic Bay, north of Manila, which previously had been under the jurisdiction of the United States Navy.
The 1957 election had resulted, for the first time, in a vice president of a party different from that of the president. The new vice president, Diosdado Macapagal, ran as the candidate of the Liberal Party, which followers of Magsaysay had joined after unsuccessful efforts to form an effective third party. By the time of the 1961 presidential election, the revived Liberal Party had built enough of a following to win the presidency for Macapagal. In this election, the returns from each polling place were reported by observers (who had been placed there by newspapers) as soon as the votes were counted. This system, known as Operation Quick Count, was designed to prevent fraud.
The issue of jurisdiction over United States service personnel in the Philippines, which had not been fully settled after the 1959 discussions, continued to be a problem in relations between the two countries. A series of incidents in the 1960-65 period, chiefly associated with Clark Air Base, aroused considerable anti-American feelings and demonstrations. Negotiations took place and resulted in an August 1965 agreement to adopt provisions similar to the status of forces agreement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization regarding criminal jurisdiction. In the next four years, agreements were reached on several other matters relating to the bases, including a 1966 amendment to the 1947 agreement, which moved the expiration date of the fixed term for United States use of the military facilities up to 1991.
Philippine foreign policy under Macapagal sought closer relations with neighboring Asian peoples. In July 1963, he convened a summit meeting in Manila consisting of the Philippines , Indonesia, and Malaysia. An organization called MAPHILINDO was proposed; much heralded in the local press as a realization of Rizal's dream of bringing together the Malay peoples, MAPHILINDO was described as a regional association that would approach issues of common concern in the spirit of consensus. MAPHILINDO was quickly shelved, however, in the face of the continuing confrontation between Indonesia and newly established Malaysia and the Philippines' own claim to Sabah, the territory in northeastern Borneo that had become a Malaysian state in 1963.
Data as of June 1991
Marcos and the Road to Martial Law, 1965-72
In the presidential election of 1965, the Nacionalista candidate, Ferdinand E. Marcos (1917-90), triumphed over Macapagal. Marcos dominated the political scene for the next two decades, first as an elected president in 1965 and 1969, and then as a virtual dictator after his 1972 proclamation of martial law. He was born in llocos Norte Province at the northwestern tip of Luzon, a traditionally poor and clannish region. He was a brilliant law student, who successfully argued before the Philippine Supreme Court in the late 1930s for a reversal of a murder conviction against him (he had been convicted of shooting a political rival of his father). During World War II, Marcos served in the Battle of Bataan and then claimed to have led a guerrilla unit, the Maharlikas. Like many other aspects of his life, Marcos's war record, and the large number of United States and Philippine military medals that he claimed (at one time including the Congressional Medal of Honor), came under embarrassing scrutiny during the last years of his presidency. His stories of wartime gallantry, which were inflated by the media into a personality cult during his years in power, enthralled not only Filipino voters but also American presidents and members of Congress.
In 1949 Marcos gained a seat in the Philippine House of Representatives; he became a senator in 1959. His 1954 marriage to former beauty queen Imelda Romualdez provided him with a photogenic partner and skilled campaigner. She also had family connections with the powerful Romualdez political dynasty of Leyte in the Visayas.
During his first term as president, Marcos initiated ambitious public works projects--roads, bridges, schools, health centers, irrigation facilities, and urban beautification projects--that improved the quality of life and also provided generous pork barrel benefits for his friends. Massive spending on public works was, politically, a cost-free policy not only because the pork barrel won him loyal allies but also because both local elites and ordinary people viewed a new civic center or bridge as a benefit. By contrast, a land reform program--part of Marcos's platform as it had been that of Macapagal and his predecessors--would alienate the politically all-powerful landowner elite and thus was never forcefully implemented.
Marcos lobbied rigorously for economic and military aid from the United States but resisted pressure from President Lyndon Johnson to become significantly involved in the Second Indochina War. Marcos's contribution to the war was limited to a 2,000- member Philippine Civic Action Group sent to the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) between 1966 and 1969. The Philippines became one of the founding members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), established in 1967. Disputes with fellow ASEAN member Malaysia over Sabah in northeast Borneo, however, continued, and it was discovered, after an army mutiny and murder of Muslim troops in 1968 (the "Corregidor Incident"), that the Philippine army was training a special unit to infiltrate Sabah (see Relations with Asian Neighbors , ch. 4).
Although Marcos was elected to a second term as president in 1969--the first president of the independent Philippines to gain a second term--the atmosphere of optimism that characterized his first years in power was largely dissipated. Economic growth slowed. Ordinary Filipinos, especially in urban areas, noted a deteriorating quality of life reflected in spiraling crime rates and random violence. Communist insurgency, particularly the activity of the Huks--had degenerated into gangsterism during the late 1950s, but the Communist Party of the Philippines-Marxist Leninist, usually referred to as the CPP, was "reestablished" in 1968 along Maoist lines in Tarlac Province north of Manila, leaving only a small remnant of the orgiinal PKP. The CPP's military arm, the New People's Army (NPA), soon spread from Tarlac to other parts of the archipelago. On Mindanao and in the Sulu Archipelago, violence between Muslims and Christians, the latter often recent government-sponsored immigrants from the north, was on the rise. In 1969 the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) was organized on Malaysian soil. The MNLF conducted an insurrection supported by Malaysia and certain Islamic states in the Middle East, including Libya.
The carefully crafted "Camelot" atmosphere of Marcos's first inauguration, in which he cast himself in the role of John F. Kennedy with Imelda as his Jackie, gave way in 1970 to general dissatisfaction with what had been one of the most dishonest elections in Philippine history and fears that Marcos might engineer change in the 1935 constitution to maintain himself in power. On January 30, 1970, the "Battle of Mendiola," named after a street in front of the Malacañang Palace, the presidential mansion, pitted student demonstrators, who tried to storm the palace, against riot police and resulted in many injuries.
Random bombings, officially attributed to communists but probably set by government agents provocateurs, occurred in Manila and other large cities. Most of these only destroyed property, but grenade explosions in the Plaza Miranda in Manila during an opposition Liberal Party rally on August 21, 1971, killed 9 people and wounded 100 (8 of the wounded were Liberal Party candidates for the Senate). Although it has never been conclusively shown who was responsible for the bombing, Marcos blamed leftists and suspended habeas corpus--a prelude to martial law. But evidence subsequently pointed, again, to government involvement.
Government and opposition political leaders agreed that the country's constitution, American-authored during the colonial period, should be replaced by a new document to serve as the basis for thorough-going reform of the political system. In 1967 a bill was passed providing for a constitutional convention, and three years later, delegates to the convention were elected. It first met in June 1971.
The 1935 constitution limited the president to two terms. Opposition delegates, fearing that a proposed parliamentary system would allow Marcos to maintain himself in power indefinitely, prevailed on the convention to adopt a provision in September 1971 banning Marcos and members of his family from holding the position of head of state or government under whatever arrangement was finally established. But Marcos succeeded, through the use of bribes and intimidation, in having the ban nullified the following summer. Even if Marcos had been able to contest a third presidential term in 1973, however, both the 1971 mid-term elections and subsequent public opinion polls indicated that he or a designated successor--Minister of National Defense Juan Ponce Enrile or the increasingly ambitious Imelda Marcos--would likely be defeated by his arch-rival, Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino.
Data as of June 1991
Proclamation 1081 and Martial Law
On September 21, 1972, Marcos issued Proclamation 1081, declaring martial law over the entire country. Under the president's command, the military arrested opposition figures, including Benigno Aquino, journalists, student and labor activists, and criminal elements. A total of about 30,000 detainees were kept at military compounds run by the army and the Philippine Constabulary. Weapons were confiscated, and "private armies" connected with prominent politicians and other figures were broken up. Newspapers were shut down, and the mass media were brought under tight control. With the stroke of a pen, Marcos closed the Philippine Congress and assumed its legislative responsibilities. During the 1972-81 martial law period, Marcos, invested with dictatorial powers, issued hundreds of presidential decrees, many of which were never published.
Like much else connected with Marcos, the declaration of martial law had a theatrical, smoke-and-mirrors quality. The incident that precipitated Proclamation 1081 was an attempt, allegedly by communists, to assassinate Minister of National Defense Enrile. As Enrile himself admitted after Marcos's downfall in 1986, his unoccupied car had been riddled by machinegun bullets fired by his own men on the night that Proclamation 1081 was signed.
Most Filipinos--or at least those well positioned within the economic and social elites--initially supported the imposition of martial law. The rising tide of violence and lawlessness was apparent to everyone. Although still modest in comparison with the Huk insurgency of the early 1950s, the New People's Army was expanding, and the Muslim secessionist movement continued in the south with foreign support. Well-worn themes of communist conspiracy--Marcos claimed that a network of "front organizations" was operating "among our peasants, laborers, professionals, intellectuals, students, and mass media personnel"--found a ready audience in the United States, which did not protest the demise of Philippine democracy.
Data as of June 1991
The New Society
Marcos claimed that martial law was the prelude to creating a "New Society" based on new social and political values. He argued that certain aspects of personal behavior, attributed to a colonial mentality, were obstacles to effective modernization. These included the primacy of personal connections, as reflected in the ethic of utang na loob, and the importance of maintaining in-group harmony and coherence, even at the cost to the national community. A new spirit of self-sacrifice for the national welfare was necessary if the country were to equal the accomplishments of its Asian neighbors, such as Taiwan and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Despite Marcos's often perceptive criticisms of the old society, Marcos, his wife, and a small circle of close associates, the crony (see Glossary) group, now felt free to practice corruption on an awe-inspiring scale.
Political, economic, and social policies were designed to neutralize Marcos's rivals within the elite. The old political system, with its parties, rough-and-tumble election campaigns, and a press so uninhibited in its vituperative and libelous nature that it was called "the freest in the world," had been boss-ridden and dominated by the elite since early American colonial days, if not before. The elite, however, composed of local political dynasties, had never been a homogeneous group. Its feuds and tensions, fueled as often by assaults on amor proprio (self-esteem) as by disagreement on ideology or issues, made for a pluralistic system.
Marcos's self-proclaimed "revolution from the top" deprived significant portions of the old elite of power and patronage. For example, the powerful Lopez family, who had fallen out of Marcos's favor (Fernando Lopez had served as Marcos's first vice president), was stripped of most of its political and economic assets. Although always influential, during the martial law years, Imelda Marcos built her own power base, with her husband's support. Concurrently the governor of Metro Manila (see Glossary) and minister of human settlements (a post created for her), she exercised significant powers.
Data as of June 1991
Crony Capitalism
During the first years of martial law, the economy benefited from increased stability, and business confidence was bolstered by Marcos's appointment of talented technocrats to economic planning posts. Despite the 1973 oil price rise shock, the growth of the gross national product (GNP--see Glossary) was respectable, and the oil-pushed inflation rate, reaching 40 percent in 1974, was trimmed back to 10 percent the following year. Between 1973 and the early 1980s, dependence on imported oil was reduced by domestic finds and successful energy substitution measures, including one of the world's most ambitious geothermal energy programs. Claiming that "if land reform fails, there is no New Society," Marcos launched highly publicized new initiatives that resulted in the formal transfer of land to some 184,000 farming families by late 1975. The law was filled with loopholes, however, and had little impact on local landowning elites or landless peasants, who remained desperately poor.
The largest, most productive, and technically most advanced manufacturing enterprises were gradually brought under the control of Marcos's cronies. For example, the huge business conglomerate owned by the Lopez family, which included major newspapers, a broadcast network, and the country's largest electric power company, was broken up and distributed to Marcos loyalists including Imelda Marcos's brother, Benjamin "Kokoy" Romualdez, and another loyal crony, Roberto Benedicto. Huge monopolies and semimonopolies were established in manufacturing, construction, and financial services. When these giants proved unprofitable, the government subsidized them with allocations amounting to hundreds of millions of pesos. Philippine Airlines, the nation's international and domestic air carrier, was nationalized and turned into what one author has called a "virtual private commuter line" for Imelda Marcos and her friends on shopping excursions to New York and Europe (see Transportation , ch. 3).
Probably the most negative impact of crony capitalism, however, was felt in the traditional cash-crop sector, which employed millions of ordinary Filipinos in the rural areas. (The coconut industry alone brought income to an estimated 15 million to 18 million people.) Under Benedicto and Eduardo Cojuangco, distribution and marketing monopolies for sugar and coconuts were established. Farmers on the local level were obliged to sell only to the monopolies and received less than world prices for their crops; they also were the first to suffer when world commodity prices dropped. Millions of dollars in profits from these monopolies were diverted overseas into Swiss bank accounts, real estate deals, and purchases of art, jewelry, and antiques. On the island of Negros in the Visayas, the region developed by Nicholas Loney for the sugar industry in the nineteenth century, sugar barons continued to live lives of luxury, but the farming community suffered from degrees of malnutrition rare in other parts of Southeast Asia.
Ferdinand Marcos was responsible for making the previously nonpolitical, professional Armed Forces of the Philippines, which since American colonial times had been modeled on the United States military, a major actor in the political process. This subversion occurred done in two ways. First, Marcos appointed officers from the Ilocos region, his home province, to its highest ranks. Regional background and loyalty to Marcos rather than talent or a distinguished service record were the major factors in promotion. Fabian Ver, for example, had been a childhood friend of Marcos and later his chauffeur, rose to become chief of staff of the armed forces and head of the internal security network. Secondly, both officers and the rank and file became beneficiaries of generous budget allocations. Officers and enlisted personnel received generous salary increases. Armed forces personnel increased from about 58,000 in 1971 to 142,000 in 1983. Top-ranking military officers, including Ver, played an important policy-making role. On the local level, commanders had opportunities to exploit the economy and establish personal patronage networks, as Marcos and the military establishment evolved a symbiotic relationship under martial law.
A military whose commanders, with some exceptions, were rewarded for loyalty rather than competence proved both brutal and ineffective in dealing with the rapidly growing communist insurgency and Muslim separatist movement. Treatment of civilians in rural areas was often harsh, causing rural people, as a measure of self-protection rather than ideological commitment, to cooperate with the insurgents. The communist insurgency, after some reverses in the 1970s, grew quickly in the early 1980s, particularly in some of the poorest regions of the country. The Muslim separatist movement reached a violent peak in the mid1970s and then declined greatly, because of divisions in the leadership of the movement and reduced external support brought about by the diplomatic activity of the Marcos government.
Relations with the United States remained most important for the Philippines in the 1970s, although the special relationship between the former and its ex-colony was greatly modified as trade, investment, and defense ties were redefined (see Relations with the United States , ch. 4). The Laurel-Langley Agreement defining preferential United States tariffs for Philippine exports and parity privileges for United States investors expired on July 4, 1974, and trade relations were governed thereafter by the international General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). During the martial law period, foreign investment terms were substantially liberalized, despite official rhetoric about foreign "exploitation" of the economy. A policy promoting "nontraditional" exports such as textiles, footwear, electronic components, and fresh and processed foods was initiated with some success. Japan increasingly challenged the United States as a major foreign participant in the Philippine economy.
The status of United States military bases was redefined when a major amendment to the Military Bases Agreement of 1947 was signed on January 6, 1979, reaffirming Philippine sovereignty over the bases and reducing their total area. At the same time, the United States administration promised to make its "best effort" to obtain congressional appropriations for military and economic aid amounting to US$400 million between 1979 to 1983. The amendment called for future reviews of the bases agreement every fifth year. Although the administration of President Jimmy Carter emphasized promoting human rights worldwide, only limited pressure was exerted on Marcos to improve the behavior of the military in rural areas and to end the death-squad murder of opponents. (Pressure from the United States, however, did play a role in gaining the release of Benigno Aquino in May 1980, and he was allowed to go to the United States for medical treatment after spending almost eight years in prison, including long stretches of time in solitary confinement.)
On January 17, 1981, Marcos issued Proclamation 2045, formally ending martial law. Some controls were loosened, but the ensuing New Republic proved to be a superficially liberalized version of the crony-dominated New Society. Predictably, Marcos won an overwhelming victory in the June 1981 presidential election, boycotted by the main opposition groups, in which his opponents were nonentities.
Data as of June 1991
From Aquino's Assassination to People's Power
Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino was, like his life-long rival Ferdinand Marcos, a consummate politician, Philippine-style. Born in 1932, he interrupted his college studies to pursue a journalistic career, first in wartime Korea and then in Vietnam, Malaya, and other parts of Southeast Asia. Like Marcos, a skilled manager of his own public image, he bolstered his popularity by claiming credit for negotiating the May 1954 surrender of Huk leader Luis Taruc. The Aquino family was to Tarlac Province in Central Luzon what the Marcos family was to Ilocos Norte and the Romualdez family was to Leyte: a political dynasty. Aquino became the governor of Tarlac Province in 1963, and a member of the Senate in 1967. His marriage to Corazon Cojuangco, a member of one of the country's richest and most prominent Chinese mestizo families, was, like Marcos's marriage to Imelda Romualdez, a great help to his political career. If martial law had not been declared in September 1972, Aquino would probably have defeated Marcos or a hand-picked successor in the upcoming presidential election. Instead, he was one of the first to be jailed when martial law was imposed.
Aquino's years in jail--physical hardship, the fear of imminent death at the hands of his jailers, and the opportunity to read and meditate--seemed to have transformed the fast-talking political operator into a deeper and more committed leader of the democratic opposition. Although he was found guilty of subversion and sentenced to death by a military court in November 1977, Aquino, still in prison, led the LABAN (Lakas Ng Bayan--Strength of the Nation) party in its campaign to win seats in the 1978 legislative election and even debated Marcos's associate, Enrile, on television. The vote was for seats in the legislature called the National Assembly, initiated in 1978, which was, particularly in its first three years essentially a rubber-stamp body designed to pass Marcos's policies into law with the appearance of correct legal form. (The LABAN was unsuccessful, but it gained 40 percent of the vote in Metro Manila.)
Allowed to go to the United States for medical treatment in 1980, Benigno Aquino, accompanied by his wife, became a major leader of the opposition in exile. In 1983 Aquino was fully aware of the dangers of returning to the Philippines. Imelda Marcos had pointedly advised him that his return would be risky, claiming that communists or even some of Marcos's allies would try to kill him. The deterioration of the economic and political situation and Marcos's own worsening health, however, persuaded Aquino that the only way his country could be spared civil war was either by persuading the president to relinquish power voluntarily or by building a responsible, united opposition. In his view, the worst possible outcome was a post-Marcos regime led by Imelda and backed by the military under Ver.
Aquino was shot in the head and killed as he was escorted off an airplane at Manila International Airport by soldiers of the Aviation Security Command on August 21, 1983. The government's claim that he was the victim of a lone communist gunman, Rolando Galman (who was conveniently killed by Aviation Security Command troops after the alleged act), was unconvincing. A commission appointed by Marcos and headed by jurist Corazon Agrava concluded in their findings announced in late October 1984, that the assassination was the result of a military conspiracy. Marcos's credibility, both domestically and overseas, was mortally wounded when the Sandiganbayan, a high court charged with prosecuting government officials for crimes, ignored the Agrava findings, upheld the government's story, and acquitted Ver and twenty-four other military officers and one civilian in December 1985.
Although ultimate responsibility for the act still had not been clearly determined in the early 1990s, on September 28, 1990, a special court convicted General Luther Custodio and fifteen other officers and enlisted members of the Aviation Security Command of murdering Aquino and Galman. Most observers believed, however, that Imelda Marcos and Fabian Ver wanted Aquino assassinated. Imelda's remarks, both before and after the assassination, and the fact that Ver had become her close confidant, cast suspicion on them.
For the Marcoses, Aquino became a more formidable opponent dead than alive. His funeral drew millions of mourners in the largest demonstration in Philippine history. Aquino became a martyr who focused popular indignation against a corrupt regime. The inevitable outcome--Marcos's overthrow--could be delayed but not prevented.
The People's Power (see Glossary) movement, which bore fruit in the ouster of Marcos on February 25, 1986, was broad-based but primarily, although not exclusively, urban-based, indeed the movement was commonly known in Manila as the EDSA Revolution (see Glossary). People's Power encompassed members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, the business elite, and a faction of the armed forces. Its millions of rural, working-class, middle-class, and professional supporters were united not by ideology or class interests, but by their esteem for Aquino's widow, Corazon, and their disgust with the Marcos regime. After her husband's assassination, Corazon Aquino assumed first a symbolic and then a substantive role as leader of the opposition. A devout Catholic and a shy and self-styled "simple housewife," Mrs. Aquino inspired trust and devotion. Some, including top American policy makers, regarded her as inexperienced and naive. Yet in the events leading up to Marcos's ouster she displayed unexpected shrewdness and determination.
Data as of June 1991
The Old Political Opposition
Martial law had emasculated and marginalized the opposition, led by a number of traditional politicians who attempted, with limited success, to promote a credible, noncommunist alternative to Marcos. The most important of these was Salvador H. "Doy" Laurel. Laurel organized a coalition of ten political groups, the United Nationalist Democratic Organization (UNIDO), to contest the 1982 National Assembly elections. Although he included Benigno Aquino as one of UNIDO's twenty "vice presidents," Laurel and Aquino were bitter rivals.
The Catholic Church
During the martial law and post-martial law periods, the Catholic Church was the country's strongest and most independent nongovernmental institution. It traditionally had been conservative and aligned with the elites. Parish priests and nuns, however, witnessed the sufferings of the common people and often became involved in political, and even communist, activities. One of the best-known politicized clergy was Father Conrado Balweg, who led a New People's Army guerrilla unit in the tribal minority regions of northern Luzon. Although Pope John Paul II had admonished the clergy worldwide not to engage in active political struggle, the pope's commitment to human rights and social justice encouraged the Philippine hierarchy to criticize the Marcos regime's abuses in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Church-state relations deteriorated as the statecontrolled media accused the church of being infiltrated by communists. Following Aquino's assassination, Cardinal Jaime Sin, archbishop of Manila and a leader of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, gradually shifted the hierarchy's stance from one of "critical collaboration" to one of open opposition.
A prominent Catholic layman, José Concepcion, played a major role in reviving the National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) with church support in 1983 in order to monitor the 1984 National Assembly elections. Both in the 1984 balloting and the February 7, 1986, presidential election, NAMFREL played a major role in preventing, or at least reporting, regime-- instigated irregularities. The backbone of its organization was formed by parish priests and nuns in virtually every part of the country.
Data as of June 1991