2022: Our most consequential elections yet
Next week, the Philippines will go to the polls yet again. And make no mistake: This is the most consequential elections in contemporary Philippine history. Or, at least, since the 1969 elections, which saw Ferdinand Marcos Sr. becoming the first post-war Filipino leader to be re-elected to the presidency.
And this brings us to the concept of “path dependency.” Readers who have watched the sci-fi thriller, “The Adjustment Bureau” (2011), should know what I’m referring to here: Our future options as individuals are often shaped by single important decisions we make in critical moments of our lives. And guess what? The same also applies to societies.
After six years in power, outgoing President Duterte has managed to effectively undermine our liberal democratic institutions, yet he has failed to supplant them with functional and enduring ones.
The upshot is a perilous interregnum, where the old order has perished without a new one bursting into existence. Whoever becomes our next president will be in a distinct position to shape our political system, and our fate as a nation, for generations to come.
To truly appreciate how crucial our upcoming elections are, we need to revisit a similar juncture almost half a century earlier, where, as in today, a Marcos was also chasing the highest office of the land.
Had Marcos Sr. lost in that highly contested 1969 presidential election, which the international media universally dubbed as one of the dirtiest and most violent ever, our country would have likely been on a radically different trajectory.
It’s hard to say for sure whether Sergio Osmena Jr., the losing candidate in that fateful election, would have turned out as our own version of a Franklin D. Roosevelt or, to use more “oriental” examples, Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore). Anyone who has bothered to read Benedict Anderson’s classic essay, “Cacique Democracy” (1988), would be viscerally skeptical of our landed elite.
To be fair, we saw how in South Korea feudal lords transformed into “chaebols” (think of Samsung), namely world-class manufacturers. Japan’s “zaibatsus,” and their rehabilitated post-war counterparts, followed a similar path decades earlier.
Could the Philippines have followed a similar path under leaders such as Osmeña Jr. and, likely not long after, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.? Maybe, especially if they had adopted optimal trade and industrial policy packages of developmental states in our neighborhood. Ninoy Aquino, a versatile journalist, was likely familiar with the successful economic strategies of our neighbors.
The Aquinos have clearly shown greater appreciation for institution-building than the man, who has come to shape our history over the past half a century. Had the 1969 elections, which saw Osmeña Jr. bizarrely losing in his own bailiwick, been truly fair and competitive, this would have been the likely outcome: There would have been no martial law and more than a decade of plutocratic dictatorship under a faux royal dynasty, which completely altered the trajectory of this nation.
Instead, the Philippines would have likely followed in the footsteps of more successful ex-Spanish colonies such as Chile, if not post-autocratic South Korea and Taiwan. From one of the world’s fastest-growing economies in the early 1960s, the Philippines descended into the ranks of bankrupt economies in the early 1980s. And it was no less than Marcos Sr., our “best president ever,” who oversaw this arc of long-term decline in the Philippines’ fortunes.
For someone who has a post-graduate degree or degrees, the Ilokanong-Iranian certainly exhibits a lack of knowledge and critical thinking with his analysis despite publishing several research papers and books and being on the staff of legislators. It makes me wonder if he is really well-versed in what he claims to be or is just masquerading as someone who thinks he knows and is nothing but a plain old grifter or con-artist, as is the more popular term for someone who is a snake oil or used car salesman.
Time to debunk the fiction of the academic cum analyst. Let’s start with the 1969 election. It is common knowledge that the oligarchs were supporting the candidates they favored who would advance their business interests. Diosdado Macapagal was not from the de buena familia of society. The same is true with Ferdinand Marcos. This was the reason why there was a revolving door between the Liberal Party and the Nacionalista Party. Whoever won would be at the beck and call of the oligarchs. In Marcos’ case, his running mate was none other than Fernando Lopez. Neither party had the exclusivity when it comes to guns, goons and gold.
Heydarian does not seem to remember that in 1949, when Elpidio Quirino ran for reelection, the Liberal Party was accused of the same practice by the Nacionalistas. Let us not forget also that the US has played a role in every election post-World War II. It is is safe to say that Marcos won a second term because the US wanted him to.
As far as development paths is concerned, the Americans had parity rights but did not make additional investments in the country. There was no technology transfer. The Philippines only became independent in 1946 and its economy was still the same plantation-based system that the Spaniards put in focused on export of coconut products and sugar.
In contrast, Japan was an independent country and Korea was its colony. The Japanese invested in research and development which enabled it to become an economic and military power in the region. The zaibatsus existence began when Japan opened its doors to the world.
Korea obtained its independence from Japan after World War II but became divided due to the Korean War. Its chaebols were organized and influenced by the zaibatsus as well. The South Koreans were wise to demand technology transfer in dealing with zaibatsus. This is why the South Koreans were able to build up their industrial base from car manufacturing, shipbuilding and electronices because the Japanese used South Korea as a manufacturing base. This ended when they went on their own and began exporting their products throughout the world.
The only time economic and bureaucratic structural reforms were put in place in the Philippines was during the Marcos administration. This is well-documented in the Gerardo Sicat paper presented to the UP School of Economics entitled The Economic Legacy of Marcos. Among the notable institutions established during the Maros administration were the National Economic and Development Authority, the Development Academcy of the Philippines and the Department of Energy to name a few.
Lastly, what institution-building is Heydarian talking about as far as Ninoy Aquino is concerned? Aquino was elected Senator in the midterm election of 1967. He wasted no time in going after Marcos. He was directly responsible for the expose’ of Oplan Merdeka. He was instrumental in the organization of the Moro National Liberation Front together with Rashid al Lucman. He was directly involved in the revival of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas underJose Maria Sison and the insurgency with the organization of the New People’s Army under Bernabe Buscayno. These organizations had the goals of either destabilizing and overthrowing the duly-elected government under Marcos.
If Heydarian is also referring to Cory Aquino, what institutions did she create? Those under the 1987 Constitution which all served to remind the Filipinos of martial law and continue to foment hate against the Marcos’? This is why the opposition finds themselves in such a deep quagmire now akin to quicksand. This is their own creation which we have already discussed at length in other articles.
But should opposition leader Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo pull off yet another electoral upset, she would be in a historic position to prevent a century of Marcosian hegemony—and, accordingly, spell a new dawn in the country’s democratic struggle. So dear reader, when you vote, think of the welfare of generations of Filipinos to come.
“A century of Marcosian hegemony?” Pray tell, how did it become a century which is equivalent to a hundred years? Marcos stayed in power for twenty years in contrast to the Yellowidiots who had all of thirty years to make good on their promised reforms to the Filipino people when they took power in 1986.
The flip side to Heydarian’s claims is what would have happened if Ninoy Aquino did not destablize the Marcos administration with the establishment of the MNLF and the CPP-NPA? Marcos would not have declared martial law. The Philippines would transition to the new Constitution. If Marcos was not eligible to run for President, he could have run for parliament and become Prime Minister. The same would be true for Ninoy Aquino and other Liberal Party stalwarts such as Gerry Roxas, Jovito Salonga and Ramon Mitra.
You have to ask yourself the question, why is Marcos being blamed for the actions he took to defend the State from internal threats when it was Ninoy Aquino who insitigated these threats against the State in violation of the oath he took as Senator?
Marcos is not a saint but neither was Ninoy. Both were trapos as defined by the political environment at that time. It is about time that the truth comes out and not just the “truth” that academics like the Ilokanong-Iranian, wants to instill in the minds of the public. This historical revisionism is part and parcel of his work as a propagandist of Stratbase-ADRi, the “think-tank” of former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert Del Rosario.
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