It was UP Professor Clarita Carlos who said that it’s about time that an objective review of the Marcos Administration be made by academics specializing in various fields in order to finally put to rest the divisiveness which has wracked the country since 1986.
As it turns, economist Gerardo P. Sicat already did in this paper he submitted to the UP School of Economics in 2011. It’s supposed to focus only on the economic aspect but a discussion of the economy wouldn’t be complete without taking into account the socio-political aspect. Sicat is articulate not only in his choice of words but in his presentation of what the state of the Philippine economy was after World War II when the US granted it independence in 1946 up to Marcos’ ouster in 1986.
How can a newly independent country grow its economy on its own when it wasn’t allowed to seek foreign investments other than from its former colonizer whose citizens were granted parity rights? The 1935 Constitution was amended for this purpose by the American lackey Manuel Roxas of the Liberal Party.
It wasn’t until Marcos became President that the restructuring of the Executive began in earnest. Marcos recruited the best of the best beginning with Rafael Salas. He was later joined by Onofre Corpuz and Cesar Virata. The lone military recruit was Alejandro Melchor. Blas Ople and Adrian Cristobal were brought in to focus on the messaging prose of the President as his speechwriters. Ople would become Minister of Labor and Employment later on.
The Bell Trade Act/Laurel-Langley Agreement remained in effect until 1973 when Marcos chose not to renew it. It was only at this time that the parity rights of the Americans ended but even if he could issue a Presidential Decree to amend the Constitution, Marcos still didn’t. Sicat doesn’t explain why either.
Bureaucratic reform was initiated by Marcos through Corpuz with the establishment of the Career Executive Service and the Development Academy of the Philippines which served as the training ground for the continuing education of career civil servants. This would eventually become the Career Executive Service Board.
It was evident that Marcos seized the opportunity presented by the turmoil of the First Quarter Storm to declare martial law and rule by Presidential Decree in order to hasten reforms which was held captive by a Congress controlled by the oligarchy. Yet the opposition continues to insist on the yarn that It was Marcos’ plan all along to extend his term. If that was the case, shouldn’t Ninoy Aquino be blamed for reviving the communist insurgency and prodding Nur Misuari to launch the secessionist movement with the backing of Malaysia in exchange for the dropping of the Sabah claim?
It was only during the Marcos administration that infrastructure development spending hit 6% of GDP. It was only also that most infrastructure destroyed by the war was rebuilt. The total war reparations which was finalized in the Treaty of San Francisco in 1957 was $800M when the original claim of the Philipppines was $8B.
Sicat traces Marcos’ ignominious downfall to his falling prey to the idea of dynastic sucession. Apo Lakay had settled on First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos to succeed him. As soon as this became evident, the errors of political decision-making piled up one after the other primarily due to Marcos’ failing health.
But he probably focused mainly on overseeing a dynastic succession that would assure political continuity for his personal lineage. He gambled that his wife could be that successor since his children were too young to be in that kind of fray at the time. He ignored the thought that his wife would be a political lightweight without the beam of light that she derived from being the wife of the incumbent. It became clear that towards the close of the 1980s. Marcos was bothered by the question of succession and he had to make clear his intentions. When he gave Mrs. Imelda Marcos prominent political powers as member of the cabinet in a new and powerful ministry on human settlements in 1978 (a combination of housing, environment, local government and other things that could be imagined) and as Metro Manila Governor simultaneously, it became clear who was being given enormous political advantage for that future battle for succession. As soon as this had taken place, it seemed as if there were almost two presidencies: Marcos’s which was the real government and that of Mrs. Marcos, which tried to corner as much resources from the first. Marcos could have stopped this from happening. But he seemed to have been humored by this turn of events. Perhaps he felt that he could snuff it when he needed to, because in the end he made the final decisions. Mrs. Marcos began building a political constituency and alliances that were meant to expand her political fences. Her activities began to cause disarray in government directions and priorities. Her programs and projects began to chip away at scarce government and financial resources. She demanded financial support from the government financial institutions for her favorite off‐budget activities. She tried to corner some development aid funding for her favorite projects. She began to call governors and mayors to help her in her ministry programs sometimes at the expense of what they had planned to do. Some programs of the government were getting relabeled as her own. This caused mixed signals about government intentions and priorities. In addition to these, she traveled extensively out of the country sometimes on diplomatic assignments for the government. But often some of the destinations included travel in the world capitals that were not required for the missions. They were obviously for fun and shopping. Her well known trademark of financial profligacy, jet travels and other extravagances made her into a serious political liability to Marcos that he had failed to read. Even as Marcos might have recognized what was happening, he could not fully stop these activities. In time, his health would get in the way and cause him to remain quiet about the burgeoning public criticisms that the activities of Mrs. Marcos invited. Perhaps he had made a calculated risk that these could be corrected later. This was surely a sign of his waning judgment as a politician, a massive case of diminishing returns in political skills. As his health had begun to fail, his political decisions began to lose their quality.
Sicat fails to include the costly political gamble of the 1986 Snap Election which Marcos called for on a whim because of the American dare. By this time there had already been infighting in the Marcos camp which resulted in the formation of factions with Imelda/Ver, Danding, Ramos and Enrile, each of whom had their own praetorian guard they could count on in case of an armed confrontation.
If only Apo Lakay had thought of a succession plan, Sicat opines that Cesar Virata, Juan Ponce Enrile, Eduardo Cojuangco, Blas Ople, Vicente Paterno, Jose Aspiras, Estelito Mendoza, Conrado Estrella, Fabian Ver and Fidel Ramos all could’ve been part of the transition government and become leaders of the country in their own right had the 1973 Constitution been left intact. Some of them qualify for President. Others for Prime Minister.
The balance sheet for Marcos is that he left a legacy that was significantly positive. Yet in the writing of history, it has been made to look very negative. Perhaps, it can be argued that that positive legacy was reduced by his mistakes and shortcomings. However, there was still a sizable economic legacy left. Certainly, some of the blame must fall on those who implemented the post‐Marcos transition. Those who succeeded him failed to capitalize fully and effectively on what he had left behind. The larger blame for that failure to seize on his economic accomplishments was that of his immediate successors. Although she was genuinely sincere and well‐intentioned, Corazon Aquino by careless choice, lack of experience, or sheer lack of understanding failed to turn opportunity into missed chances. Through a policy of denial of Marcos’s accomplishments, vindictiveness and the magnification of his faults, the successor government made wrong decisions that have led to the crippling of the nation’s leap in the economic realm. If Marcos had left via an orderly transition of power, most of his accomplishments would have helped move the country forward without the country having lost any momentum. In fact, his accomplishments could have become a foundation for that new momentum. In the final accounting, the economic legacy from Marcos is very positive but it was lessened during the transition in leadership. The discontinuity of the transition led to many problems that were blamed conveniently on the shortcomings of the Marcos presidency, whereas in fact some of problems to certain decisions taken during the transition. To analyze many of these will be the task of future economists, social scientists and historians.
Sicat doesn’t claim his account to be the definitive one as he leaves it up to others to do the final accounting. What is evident from this essay is thirty-six years after Marcos’ ouster, not much has changed. He attributes this to the first Aquino administration under Cory which went on to restore the status quo from the pre-martial law period and erase all traces of Marcos.
This is the dilemma concerning the judgment of the post‐Marcos transition in the Philippines. There were a number of important contributions that Marcos had undertaken which could have enhanced the nation’s economic development but were discontinued after his fall. The post‐Marcos transition in some part was mainly about historical discontinuity rather than a seamless transfer of capable people within the reins of the government. Some of the discontinuity was in the form of mistakes of inordinate proportions. Instead of capitalizing on the foundations already laid and the enormous opportunities made available, there were efforts to consciously turn away from the programs that Marcos had started which were left in midstream as he fell from power. These were done for reasons of bad feelings and political reprisal or backlash. This was the danger of a turbulent succession that was the hallmark of the transfer of power and which suffered the inexperience of the succession. There was some legacy from various infrastructure achievements that were not fully used because of the transfer of power. How much the economy could have traveled forward if some of the major projects were fully harnessed by the succeeding leaders remains a major issue for speculation. But Mrs. Corazon Aquino, who succeeded Marcos, was too inexperienced and emotionally affected by her personal loss during the martial law years. She had intended to do well and in some aspects of the economy, she did. She owed much to the enormous legacy in public infrastructure in transport, telecommunications, and irrigation and public services investments that Marcos had undertaken. On her own, she advanced the trade liberalization program that got stalled when crisis hit the economy. But in general, she failed to take advantage of the important economic legacies that she had inherited from her predecessor. Had she been more capable of understanding governance of a divided country, she could have restored economic and political stability quickly. But because of those poor decisions as leader, she invited political instability during her term. (For one, her weak leadership posture served to encourage military adventurism through attempted coups for political power.) The mistakes that she committed could be grouped generally into four areas: (1) failure to achieve rapid national reconciliation that was essential in rebuilding the nation; (2) outright condemnation of the many contributions in infrastructure and institution building made emotions displace reason; (3) displacement of the bureaucracy of government that was running the country’s economic and social programs; and (4) the dissipation of the huge political capital arising from the EDSA revolution and her success in toppling Marcos. To deal specifically with these major areas of failure is not the focus of this paper. But a few comments are needed simply to illustrate the point.
It is only under the Duterte administration that amendments have been made to the Retail Trade Liberalization Act. The amendments to the Public Service Act are still pending in Congress. It is only under Duterte that infrastructure development spending is pegged at 5% of GDP. Duterte has accomplished much in the five years of his administration despite constantly being hounded by the opposition.
It seems ominous that I stumbled upon this paper at the same time that Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is running for President.
The sins of the father are not the sins of the son. What is also true is that the son is not as brilliant as the father. Apo Lakay had the Presidency in mind when he realized his potential at an early age. Even Jose P. Laurel saw this in the young man who was being tried for the murder of Julio Nalundasan, which is why he made sure that Marcos’ path to the Presidency would not be derailed by a conviction, that would disqualify him from running for public office.
Thus the question is, is Ferdinand Marcos Jr., qualified to become the next President of the Republic of the Philippines on the basis of his accomplishments and competencies or simply on the basis of the realization of the Filipino people that Apo Lakay does not deserve all of blame heaped on him by the then opposition which ousted him?
F. Sionil Jose said that history will not judge the Marcos’. That falls on the Filipino people. A vote for Marcos on May 9, 2022 is a vote for the vindication of Apo Lakay and restoration for the Marcos’.
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