The Philippine State and the Marcos Regime: The Politics of Export
This is an effort to trace the convoluted interplay of political, economic and social factors in the postwar history of the Philippines. There are case studies of the sugar, coconut and fruit-products industries and interesting discussions of how Marcos gained and lost the support of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank; how he weakened the landowning groups; how he used state enterprises for private gain; why the Philippines is not like Korea and Taiwan, and more. But somehow it all does not quite come together.
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The Philippine Republic started the new year, its twentieth as a sovereign nation, with a new President, a partly new and re-shuffled legislature, and something of an innovation in presidential inaugural addresses. "The Filipino," declared President Ferdinand Marcos to his startled listeners, including foreign dignitaries attending the inaugural, "has lost his soul and his courage. . . . We have ceased to value order. Justice and security are as myths. Our government is gripped in the iron hand of venality, its treasury is barren, its resources are wasted, its civil service is slothful and indifferent, its armed forces demoralized, and its councils sterile."
The Federation of Malaysia is scheduled to come into existence on August 31 of this year by the merger of the existing Federation of Malaya with Singapore, the British colonies of Sarawak and North Borneo and the British- protected Sultanate of Brunei, thus forming a crescent well over a thousand miles long from the borders of Thailand almost to within eyesight of the southernmost Philippine islands. Although many difficulties stand in the way, the British and Malayan Governments say categorically that they will not be deterred from pushing the plan through. Some of the difficulties are historical and local, for the new Federation will be a rather arbitrary assemblage of widely separated territories with mixed populations at different stages of development. More important are the objections raised by Indonesia and the Philippines.
American optimism about East Asia, in precious short supply only a few years earlier, was abundantly available in 1980. "The arc from Korea through Taiwan and the Philippines, at the very center of great power rivalry for much of this century, is less subject to these strains today than at any time in well over forty years," Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke declared in June. Such pronouncements by U.S. policymakers were understandable: East Asia offered far more possibilities--for diplomatic overtures, for expanding trade--than anyone dared predict during the Vietnam era. But in 1980 enough warning signals were flashing throughout the region to suggest the need for a more balanced--and less buoyant--assessment.
