David T. Sternberg

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."