The author reflects on the full circle in the Philippine presidency—from the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. to the election of his son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., as president in May 2022. Soon after the fall of the regime of President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1986, the author began reporting on the Philippines as a correspondent for the Business Times (The Straits Times Group of Singapore, a historic, storied newspaper of Southeast Asia). Traveling to Manila and the provinces, he interviewed President Corazon Aquino, Vice-President Salvador Laurel, as well as Defense Secretary Fidel Ramos (who passed away in July 2022), and Senator Joseph Estrada, both of whom later became president, and senior officials and media persons in Manila and in the barrios. His reporting resulted in his winning the Mitsubishi-Press Foundation of Asia “Journalist of the Year Award” in June 1989.
Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr’s landslide victory in the Philippine presidential election in May 2022 rolled back the storm of people’s power that had swept his father from the presidency thirty-six years ago, bringing the younger Marcos to restore the detritus of the dynasty. The EDSA Revolution (named for Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, where thousands had rebelled against the regime of President Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. leading to his overthrow in 1986) is an intrinsic part of Filipino political folklore, now relegated to a footnote. The return of Marcos Jr. to Malacañang Palace could only have happened because of the support of a new generation of young Filipinos lacking a lived memory of the excesses of his father, to an ever-expanding population of Marcos loyalists, and to mismanagement of some of the presidents that came after President Corazon Aquino.
I begin my story in October 1987. I had recently started a new job as a journalist on the Foreign Desk of the Business Times, a part of the Straits Times Group of Singapore, a storied and historic newspaper of Southeast Asia. One of the first conversations within our desk was to find ways of going beyond what the wire services, Reuters, et al, were feeding us about the new Philippines under President Aquino. Looking around the Southeast Asian region, one of the most captivating, indeed inspiring, stories was the Philippines, where a people’s power revolution had overthrown their tyrannical president, Ferdinand Marcos Sr., against whose corrupt twenty-year rule they had risen. A brief handed down by my senior editors was to investigate what was going on with the “sick man of Asia,” a most unfortunate moniker for the Philippines that rang true. I started with reading everything I could find on the history of the country, monitoring daily wire agency reports on the post-Marcos stability, meeting a stream of Filipino ministers and officials visiting Singapore, and writing editorials on the rapid changes in the country.
Corazon Aquino taking the oath of office before Chief Justice Claudio Teehankee Sr. in Club Filipino, San Juan on February 25, 1986. Photo by the courtesy of Malacañang Palace.
With the Aquino Administration approaching the half-way mark in power, the finance minister, Vicente Jayme, told me that there were two questions paramount in the minds of foreign investors: could there be another coup attempt by disgruntled military men, and would she run for a second term in 1992.[1] Despite coup rumors and threats by Lt. Col. Gregario Honasan to launch a coup, investments had poured in. Sagacious observers discounted the rumors as the economy turned out growth of 7 percent. Defence Secretary Fidel Ramos declared that the government had effectively neutralized the ultra-rightist threat of military rebel groups led by Honasan, by keeping those groups on the run and unable to threaten stability. Juan Ponce Enrile, leader of the Opposition in the Senate, who had been accused of backing earlier coup attempts, told me at the Senate building that he knew nothing about the origin of the latest coup rumors.[2]
To find answers to these knotty questions, I arrived by prior appointment at General Ramos’ headquarters at Camp Aguinaldo in February 1989 to find him lighting a cigar. The room filling with the pleasant aroma of a Cuban, the general looked at perfect ease in his office building, named after the Philippine revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo (1869-1964), the site of the General Headquarters of the Philippine Armed Forces in Quezon City in eastern Manila, located along the EDSA Road. The anti-colonial revolutionary Aguinaldo was a leader of the Katipunan, a resistance group that fought the Spanish colonialists that had occupied the country, and when Philippine independence was declared after the Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War of 1898, Aguinaldo became president. Soon afterwards, a defeated Spain signed a treaty ceding the Philippines to the United States. Aguinaldo and his forces now battled U.S. forces to rid the country of American imperialism and colonization until he was captured in 1901. Under pressure, he swore allegiance to the United States, and was persuaded to retire from political life. Still seeking the removal of the Americans from Philippine soil, he collaborated with the Japanese during the Second World War. At the end of the war, he was jailed, soon given amnesty, and appointed to the Council of State in 1950.
It was the first of four interviews that I would conduct with Ramos till 1991. Welcoming me as a young friend from “friendly Singapore,” he did not dodge a question, freely talking about the days when he headed the Philippine Constabulary when Marcos Sr., his second-cousin, imposed martial law.
Fidel V. Ramos as a cadet at West Point, NY (top left and right), as Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (bottom left), and as president (bottom right). Photo by the courtesy of https://www.facebook.com/pinoyhistory.
Ramos rated the most dangerous destabilizers on a scale of 10. “I would give ten points on a scale of ten to the [communist] insurgency problem. Ten points to the economic deterioration which can lead to economic collapse. Eight points to the secession movement of the Moro National Liberation Front in Mindanao. Seven points to street anarchy brought on by organized crime, and two points to the ultra-rightists.”[3]
When I probed him about the likelihood of a new coup attempt, he thoughtfully stated, “A coup is not likely because the capability of those who want to engineer a coup has been substantially reduced during the past eighteen months. Besides, there is a greater degree of unity and solidarity in the defense department and the Armed Forces of the Philippines.” Ramos had instilled stability just one year into his tenure as defense secretary, a period when his “major objective was to improve solidarity between the various components of the armed forces, the civil side of government, and the citizenry.” I asked if Honasan had been effectively contained. Ramos stated, “They have not been able to do anything like what they did in 1987 and it is very unlikely because they do not have the capability. Their capability has been reduced to hit and run affairs.”
Yet, he was somewhat worried about the communist threat. “Jose Sison [leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines] has been spending a lot of time abroad to garner support, both financial and logistical, for the Communist Party of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front [a coalition of revolutionary social organizations, agricultural and trade unions, indigenous rights groups, and leftist political parties]. Ramos admitted that sizeable funds were flowing to the Communist Party, but their main tactic was “extortion and coercion of Filipinos.” Asked to comment on the small-scale success that the armed forces had achieved against the communists, he explained, “It is not an easy thing to do. Marcos tried it for twenty years and he did not succeed.”
President Aquino’s warlike rhetoric that she would “break the back of the communist rebellion in a year’s time” employed not just a military strategy against the rebels but also economic weapons. Ramos admitted it was not going to be a cakewalk because the armed forces, thinly spread against communist rebels, Muslim secessionists, and coup plotters, received the lowest budget among the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.[4] Ramos spoke gravely about this matter, arguing that if counter-insurgency operations had been slow, it was because the number of regular Philippine Army soldiers for every one thousand citizens was the second-lowest in Asean, with three per thousand, compared to sixteen per thousand in Brunei, Malaysia (eight), Thailand (five), and Indonesia (two).[5] Philippine defense spending per soldier was also the lowest in Asean at US$ 3,500 per soldier in 1987, compared to Thailand’s US$ 5,000, Indonesia’s US$ 7,000, Malaysia’s US$ 9,300, and Brunei’s US$ 75,000 was 21 times that of the Philippines. In another yardstick, Philippine defense spending was also the lowest in Asean at 1.45 percent of gross national product on average between 1984-1987. Brunei’s was the highest at 6.16 percent of GNP, and Malaysia averaged 4.3 percent.
For these reasons, the communists posed the gravest threat of overthrowing or dismembering the Aquino Administration. Ramos had encountered resistance to his proposals for a budget increase for the defense department from politicians who believed such spending was money down the drain. Major General Manuel Cacanando, commander of the Southern Command of the armed forces, told me that the communist New People’s Army’s (NPA) hardcore members did not exceed three percent of their strength, and that most of their members were economically depressed and disgruntled. “Economic development can wipe out their ranks,” he stated, in a nod to Aquino’s policy of weaning them away by such means. The armed forces had scored “six firsts” in 1988: economic development had caused their ranks to decline by an unprecedented 8 percent in that year. Other breakthroughs were: reduction in the communist-influenced barangays (districts) by 7 percent, capture of many more weapons from the NPA, more effective military operations, the capture of the highest number of communist leaders in a single year, and the swing of combat fatality ratio in favor of the armed forces from 1:1.5 to 1:2.1.[6]
Since the Aquino Administration’s National Reconciliation Program began in 1987, 9,188 NPA regulars had surrendered with 407 firearms. The strength of the CPP/NPA had declined from 25,200 fighters in 1987 to 23,060 in 1988, and the number of influenced villages were reduced from 3,066 to 2,853 over the same period. The rebels were still deployed in 66 guerrilla fronts, but they were active in about 20 percent of the country’s 41,818 barangays.[7] General Ramos reminded me of the NPA’s own version of agricultural reforms consisting largely of “plain land-grabbing and coercion,” in their effort to impede the government’s efforts. Although President Aquino, on coming to power, had released the guerrillas’ top-ranking officials in a gesture of goodwill, the results were not encouraging as the NPA had intensified its activities. As a result, the army had rearrested top CPP/NPA leaders in breakthroughs with the capture of secretary-general Rafael Baylosis, and NPA commander-in-chief Romulo Kintanar.[8] Maj. Gen. Cacanando explained that the NPA’s numbers had come down in Mindanao. “One indicator is that while we faced thirty-two guerrilla fronts in Mindanao in 1988, they were reduced to eighteen in 1989.”
General Ramos had put in place a three-tiered defense system under his “total counterinsurgency approach” involving an interplay of military mobile forces, territorial forces (Philippine Constabulary, Integrated National Police, and the so-called Citizen Armed Forces Geographical Forces manned by low-paid reservists), and civilian volunteer organizations (committed Filipinos who were tired of the insurgency).[9] Ramos’ war against the heavily-armed and motivated NPA was waged on a four-phased operational strategy consisting of clearing, holding, consolidation, and development. He explained that a new breed of guerrilla, unlike their peasant counterparts of the 1950s, was tough, resourceful, and ruthless.[10]
The clearing operations involved the military in interdiction and combat against the guerrillas. In the holding phase, the territorial forces took over the task of securing the cleared area, insulating it from the enemy’s re-entry, and mopping up the political cells. The consolidation phase restored confidence among the people of the area by delivering urgently needed services. The development phase involved the full implementation of projects that struck at the root of insurgency by ensuring the delivery of services to the people of the area.[11]
What I witnessed that morning in his office was Ramos the career-soldier talking with great enthusiasm about his combat experience, having risen up the ranks from battalion staff officer, company commander, task force commander, special forces group commander, and brigade commander in various conflicts—the Huk campaign, Korean War, and in a non-combat role in the Vietnam War. In his refined speech, his education at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the University of Illinois was in evidence. In the Aquino Administration, Ramos first served as military chief of staff (1986-88), and then as secretary of national defense (1988-91), suppressing several military coup attempts against her government.
The Aquinos versus the Laurels: Early Cracks in the EDSA Team
For the briefest of periods following the EDSA Revolution, Salvador “Doy” Laurel became the only politician in Philippine history to hold the posts of vice-president, prime minister (for just four hours because Mrs. Aquino quickly abolished the position), and foreign minister concurrently in late-February 1986. An influential leader of the United Nationalist Democratic Organization, one of the political parties that helped engineer the EDSA Revolution, he was the fifth son of President Jose P. Laurel, under the Japanese-sponsored Second Philippine Republic.
There were early rumblings within the Aquino Administration in September 1987 when “Doy” Laurel, Aquino’s vice-president and running mate in the 1986 snap election, signaled his intention to quit the government.[12] Laurel’s bombshell resignation drove the eighteen-month-old Aquino Administration to carry out a cabinet reshuffle immediately, backtracking on her statement just days earlier that there would not be any cabinet changes. She promoted Deputy Foreign Secretary Manuel Yan, a retired general, as acting foreign secretary replacing Laurel. Aquino defended her administration against Laurel’s accusation that her government’s counterinsurgency program was failing at a time when a cabinet revamp was thought to be essential to averting another serious coup attempt by disgruntled military officers. The most significant change was the sacking of Finance Secretary Jaime Ongpin, one of Aquino’s supporters and financial backers, with whom she had grown unhappy owing to the terms of a debt-renegotiation agreement that Ongpin had reached with foreign banks on the nation’s US$ 28-billion debt. The trouble was that Ongpin had become a tough critic of Aquino’s closest aide, Executive Secretary Joker Arroyo, and he had urged her to replace him, arguing that the military viewed him as a leftist and that unless he was removed, the military may attempt to overthrow the government again. Aquino retained Joker in her pack, and instead replaced Ongpin with Vicente Jayme, who had been secretary for public works. I interviewed Jayme at his office on my first visit to Manila. He sketched for me a picture of an economy on the mend, of returning foreign investors, and surging confidence.
The Laurel resignation was another chapter in the saga of two of the country’s powerful political dynasties—the Laurels and Aquinos. In a press conference, Laurel claimed that he had reminded Aquino of a private conversation they had in December 1985, during which Laurel agreed to step aside and let Aquino run for president because: “You said if I would give way and I agree to run for vice president, you said you would let me run the government because you had no experience. You said you would allow me to be prime minister, and I believed you.” Laurel was appointed prime minister when Aquino hastily formed her government amid the February 1986 popular rebellion, but four hours afterwards, Aquino abolished the position, and ever since Laurel repeatedly stated, “I have been like a spare tire.”
In his letter of resignation to President Aquino, Laurel stated that he was stepping down because “fundamental differences” had grown between us that went “to the very roots of political beliefs and moral principles which determine our conduct and performance as servants of the people’s will and the people’s wellbeing.” He added, “Indeed, we seemed to stand on opposite sides of the ideological conflict. But seeing the possible harm that our sudden separation then could inflict upon the nation, I decided at my own expense, to mute these differences and to hold my peace. I did not join the opposition.”[13] Laurel argued that a “new moral order” that the Aquino Administration was committed to had been perverted. “It has become a haven for assassins and a den of thieves. Corruption, betrayal of the public trust and other high crimes have been laid at your door, including a complaint for impeachment.” Laurel neglected the fact that the deep-rooted problems of corruption, economic decline, and general instability were legacies of the Marcos years, and that Aquino’s amnesty for communist insurgents was a way of bringing them back into the social mainstream. The events of the EDSA Revolution were still fresh in the minds of people I interviewed across the islands in February 1989: senior minister-level officials, jeepney drivers, street food vendors, and students. They remembered the main event that made EDSA end with the downfall of Marcos Sr.—the defection of Marcos’ military supporters, but the fossil of the feudal structure remained, with large tracts of lands owned by the elite, to which belonged the Cojuangco family of Corazon Aquino, whose great-grandfather—reliably believed to be named Ko Hwan Ko that was turned into Cojuangco—had come down from China.
In expediting the end of the Marcos regime, even more important than Laurel were Juan Ponce Enrile, Cardinal Jaime Sin, and Fidel Ramos. Enrile had at the age of sixty-two abandoned his friend Marcos Sr. The act of Cardinal Jaime Sin (1928-2005) of calling upon the people to gather en masse to protect the military mutineers, unleased a human tsunami. And when the Army Chief, General Fidel Ramos, deployed troops of the Philippine Constabulary, the mutiny received a great fillip. Corazon, affectionately known as Cory, was not present at EDSA when the regime began to fall apart on February 22, 1986, being in Cebu at a rally of her yellow forces, the colour yellow signifying the political candidacy of her husband, Ninoy Aquino. Soon, she emerged as St. Corazon, blessed by adoring masses, a Filipina without political ambition who would become president, a housewife that held out hope for the poor, in whose likeness street vendors hawked little Cory dolls.
From Manila, I traveled to Zamboanga City on the Philippine island of Mindanao in February 1989 to explore the demand of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) for a separate homeland for Filipino Muslims, known as Moros, since the group’s establishment in 1972. There, Major General Manuel Cacanando, commander of the Philippine Army’s Southern Command, told me that the Philippine Army had stopped attacking Muslim guerrillas in Mindanao in the hope that the war would wind down after a bill granting autonomy to the long-troubled region was passed in Congress.[14]
Dismissing the general’s belief, the spokesman for the MNLF, Sharif Zain Jali, told me at his residence, “There’s no solution to the problem.” At the time, events were moving fast towards the passage of a bill granting autonomy to thirteen provinces and nine cities in Mindanao over which the MNLF had been waging full-scale war against the Philippine Army. Under the law, a plebiscite would be held in the thirteen provinces to determine whether or not autonomy should be granted. At Southern Command headquarters, Maj. Gen. Cacanando said, “The MNLF problem will just whittle down and become merely academic” once the autonomy bill was passed and implemented. “Out of the thirteen provinces, the Muslims dominate only in six,” he stated.[15]
Zain Jali spelt out the MNLF’s position. “The MNLF cannot accept the plebiscite for autonomy because we believe that Mindanao already belongs to us. So we are not going to accept any provision of the autonomy bill.”[16] Several thousand MNLF guerrillas had, however, abandoned their movement, or surrendered to the Philippine Army which had absorbed them. Zain Jali ruled out a solution saying that MNLF chairman Nur Misuari, who divided his time between Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Syria, “is not politically ambitious and he will not run for elections after the plebiscite. He is a true rebel.” According to Zain Jali, the MNLF had lost more than 60,000 fighters and civilians since 1969, hinting that the armed struggle would continue. The 1986 Constitution provided for a plebiscite in Mindanao, which was rich in rubber, gold, timber, rice, corn, and cassava, and only those areas that voted in favor of autonomy would make up Muslim Mindanao.
The Aquino Administration at its Half-way Mark
On a subsequent visit to Manila in May 1991, I made a propitious beginning by interviewing Aquino for an hour at Malacañang Palace at the midpoint of her presidency, finding her still full of spirit after five years at the helm.[17] She was still adored by most Filipinos, except her political detractors and Marcos loyalists. When I met her, I was stunned by the fact that after six coup attempts and a stack of economic challenges and natural crises like earthquakes and typhoons, the enthusiasm of the Great Survivor had not flagged. With a year left in power, Mrs. Aquino was in a hurry to stay on the fast track and complete her economic projects. Her political opponents had, however, pooh-poohed her claims that she would not run again in the elections in May 1992. Mrs. Aquino declared that she would plough a new career-groove and work in non-governmental organizations. In the interview, she looked back and looked ahead at what was in store for her country.
I asked if a gap was widening between her self-perception and the Filipinos’ perception of her performance. Dismissing the suggestion, Mrs. Aquino stated, “Critics will always look for the negative, and it’s unfortunate. I always keep saying that I wish we could look at the half-full glass instead of the half-empty glass. But that is the way we humans are. And whatever it is we do will always fall short of the expectations.” She added that when she ran for office, “all I promised was that we would restore democracy, and certainly we have done that, and that we would work in order to alleviate poverty. We have also been able to alleviate poverty. But then, all of these things take time, and what we have done is just a start.” In her presidential tenure so far, “we have been able to accomplish a lot, I am proud to say. But it will probably take the next administration to see a further improvement in the lives of our people.”
When she became president, what did she expect, what did she hope to achieve, and had most of it been realized? President Aquino explained, “Let me go back to what we were expecting before I became president. You must remember that for fourteen years, we were being ruled under a dictatorship. And people were beginning to lose hope that perhaps we Filipinos would not be able to restore democracy in this country.” She added that her husband [the political leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino] had come back hoping to rally the people and prepare for elections with a view to restoring democracy. “Unfortunately, he was killed upon his return. And then, I for my part was just ready to help the Opposition. I had no ambition of succeeding in my husband’s place, but I was ready to offer whatever support I could muster for the sake of the restoration of democracy.”
“First and foremost,” she explained, “all we were thinking about was restoring democracy and we felt that with democracy in place, we would be able to address the other problems, principally, the economic problems. We have been able to do that because from negative growth of the two years before I assumed office, we were able to have an economic turnaround.” She had set definite goals for herself for the remaining months of her presidency. “I have instructed all the Cabinet members to give priority to the do-able projects and programs. And to finish what we have started out to do, and make sure that the programs for alleviating poverty are getting top priority. Especially in infrastructure, we are attending to the rehabilitation of the earthquake affected areas, and secondly, to finish those projects that we believe can be finished within the remainder of my term.” The president was referring to a massive 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck Luzon Island on July 16, 1990, wreaking havoc across a large swath of the country’s largest island, with Baguio City suffering its most devastating effects.
Reacting to the infamous label of ‘basketcase’ that media often pinned on the Philippines, President Aquino said it was not a fair comment. “Definitely we are much better off than we were before my administration, because at that time people were feeling so helpless, so hopeless,” she said.[18] “In fact we could not expect the international community to help us because they did not see any future in our country. Well, that is no longer the case because they have pledged assistance under the Philippines Assistance Plan (PAP).” President Aquino noted that the International Monetary Fund had approved the country’s Economic Stabilization Program, and this had the effect of encouraging foreign investors to come to the Philippines.[19]
Did she believe that the root of all financial problems was the legacy of the Marcos debt that the dictator had accumulated? Mrs. Aquino explained, “That is a part of the problem. Unfortunately, because of two very serious coup attempts—one in August 1987 and the other in December 1989—those coup attempts really and truly caused us enormous damage insofar as the economy is concerned because investors who were already scheduled to come and invest here had second thoughts and went to other countries.” She added, “It took time again to institute the political stability that investors look for—both domestic and foreign investors. Fortunately, we have the political stability again and I am sure, as we have witnessed during this last quarter, that investors will again, and in fact they have done so, invest in our country.”
What sort of a career would she pursue after the end of her term? Would she stay in politics and in her party? “First of all, I do not belong to any party. I am in that very unique situation where I am the president of a country and not officially belonging to a particular party because I was elected by a coalition of parties and I felt it best for me to be above these political machines and just make myself available to all the people.”[20] Therefore, she saw herself as helping the non-governmental organizations, because under her administration, she had encouraged partnership between government and non-governmental organizations. “So I plan to work hand in hand with the non-governmental organizations and hopefully we will continue to do what I have started out to do.” Leaders of the principal party backing Mrs. Aquino, the Laban Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP), had repeatedly urged the president to seek another term in the May 1992 election. But Mrs. Aquino reaffirmed her intention to step down. “I really cannot think of any situation where I will change my position of not running for re-election,” she said.[21]
She had not endorsed anyone as a presidential candidate. The incumbent’s endorsement was expected to carry a lot of weight. Among those who had announced their intentions to run for the presidency was Defence Secretary Fidel Ramos. Asked if his bid for the presidency would increase the role of the military in national politics, Mrs. Aquino replied, “During the past five years, Secretary Ramos has shown his dedication and support for the democratic process. I believe his record speaks for itself.”
Would the people and the power structure accept another woman as president, for example the lawyer-scholar Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s bid for the presidency? Mrs. Aquino explained, “Even in my case, I don’t think being a woman, or not being a man, was the main issue. The main issue was credibility. The people believed that I would be the one who would unite the opposition; and be able to bring down the dictator. It just so happened that I was the widow of a man who had been killed, and was seen as a martyr by the majority of our people.”[22] She added a clarification, “My situation is unique in the sense that I don’t know if it will happen again where the same circumstances that attended my election, would again happen. But I think that Filipinos are not really guided by whether you are a man or a woman. But it is the character of a person which is the most important.”
To her mind, democracy was the most suitable model for a country like the Philippines, whereas many Southeast Asian countries exhibited shades of authoritarianism. Mrs. Aquino explained, “We already had our experience, where we had an authoritarian form of government, where one man decided everything for the Filipino people and look at where it got us. It’s not as if we have not tried what it is to be ruled by one man, or for the people not to have any say. So, I sincerely believe that democracy, with all its difficulties, is still what is best for the Filipino people.”[23]
What did she believe ought to be the characteristics of the next president of the Philippines? Mrs. Aquino declared, “First, one that will, of course, have the mandate of the majority of the Filipino people, because being president is a very difficult thing and if you do not have the support of the majority of the people, then it’s going to be even more complex. Secondly, one who is honest, one who is competent and one who is able to work with the people around him. And, one who firmly believes in democracy and will ensure that democracy continues.”
Needing to build a historical record of her presidency and to preserve the legacy of her contribution to nation building, Mrs. Aquino wrote her seminal book The Aquino Administration: Record and Legacy, 1986-1992, published by the University of the Philippines Press in 1992, having written The State of the Nation, 1991: A Report to the Filipino People, the previous year. In 1995, she published her views on her country’s experience from dictatorship to freedom in Democracy in Asia: Its Problems and Prospects, with two co-authors, this time with a press in Seoul.[24] Her co-authors/editors were Costa Rica’s President Oscar Arias, and South Korean politician Kim Dae-Jung, who became president in 1998, both of whom had helped to end civil conflict in their countries. She had felt it necessary to produce these books because she had endured endless pillorying by political opponents throughout her presidency.
The day after my interview with the president, I received a message at my hotel in downtown Makati that the principal opponent to Mrs. Aquino’s Administration, Vice-President Laurel, had asked me to visit his home. Laurel’s office at his residence was humming with activity. I was told that he was running late. It was not his fault if a publisher and a politician who had early morning appointments with Laurel turned up late. It was not their fault either. Blame the Manila Water Department. Taps in some parts of the city ran dry that morning, and the publisher and the politician could not have their baths until much later. Laurel, however, had no such problems. He just dipped into his private swimming pool, a vice-presidential aide said, who herself came to work late because of the water problem. A little later, I interviewed Laurel. We ran through a gamut of national concerns and crises. Laurel, sometimes called a ‘presidential spare tyre,’ believed he was the best man to run his country in those troubled times. In his younger days, he liked nothing better than donning boxing gloves and sparring a few rounds. At sixty-two, he was a presidential candidate who had lost none of the jab and thrust of a political pugilist. In his country’s politics, this helped. His detractors, however, claimed that he had gone to pasture after he fell out with President Aquino in 1986. Laurel’s business was not pasturage, though. He had some interest in the fruit business. He revealed that he liked to potter around in his fruit orchards on top of a hill in Laguna, where he had planted thousands of trees. “I like trees,” he added.[25] He may have been busy planting trees but he was certainly not neglecting the task of cultivating his constituency of Batangas.
Nothing was on Laurel’s backburner. Too many presidential aspirants were jumping the gun and filing their nominations. They risked being disqualified, he warned. “The election is still a year away and the law is clear.” And while the lawyer, judge, and politician, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, had announced her candidacy, Laurel was playing safe. He was keeping his nose clean, preferring to rise early to meditate on certain passages from the Bible. “That is why I have not even announced that I am running,” he added. “What Mrs. Santiago is doing is questionable. As a lawyer, I wouldn’t risk that. You can probably campaign for your party’s nomination but you are not supposed to be a candidate yet,” he explained. Laurel, a Yale-educated lawyer, stated that he was “being careful,” adding, “Let the others do it if they want to. But I think there’s nothing wrong in working to get your party’s nomination.” Neither did his rival Juan Ponce Enrile, who was just as eager to get the Nacionalista Party’s presidential nomination as Laurel was. There was already an open rift between Laurel and Enrile over who would be the party’s flag-bearer.
Salvador H. Laurel, Philippine Vice-President. Photo by the courtesy of the Office of the Vice President of the Philippines.
The Philippine election was rich in candidates, with at least ten in the running, compared to just a few faces in the last election that brought Aquino to power. Laurel explained that in 1985, Mrs. Aquino had told him “thirty-three times” that she was not running. “And she ended up running. So much so that in order to prevent a split Opposition, I gave way to her.” Laurel was already nominated by the party but he sacrificed his personal ambition. He declared this had something to do with his father’s influence who had acted in the same way during his time. In 1953, his father was drafted to be the presidential candidate of the Opposition, but to ensure party unity and to have one strong candidate, he turned around and nominated Ramon Magsaysay.
He poured vitriol on Aquino. “She fragmented the country by dividing it into loyalists and Corystas, who are now mostly sorrystas. Sorrystas are people who are for Cory but who are now sorry,” he explained. The Laurel-Aquino standoff continued. Laurel was the vice-president of the Philippines, who was at the same time an Opposition leader against Mrs. Aquino. His relationship with Mrs. Aquino was troubled. They parted ways when he resigned from the Cabinet in 1988. The Philippine system allowed such a curious situation. In the United States, the president and vice-president were elected as a team. In the Philippines, the vice-president was elected separately. It had happened before that a president and a vice-president came from different parties. For instance, President Carlos Garcia was a Nacionalista and Vice-President Diosgado Macapagal was from the Liberal party. Macapagal was, like Laurel, not given any position, nor was any job assigned to him. Future vice-presidents like Laurel may end up with the same problem as him, unless the Constitution was amended to ensure that they were given official work. “If she wants, she can give me a job, or she can withhold it. Right now, I have no assignment except to succeed her automatically when she dies, gets impeached and is removed from office, becomes permanently incapacitated or resigns,” he added matter-of-factly. “In those four cases, I am supposed to take over as president. Other than that, I don’t have any assignment,” he declared. When Aquino abolished the Constitution and, with it, his position as prime minister in 1986, Laurel had to be content with advising her when he could. He had come out with recommendations on the Gulf crisis, the oil crisis, the food shortage, peace and order, and insurgency. President Aquino had, on at least one occasion, expressed her appreciation and formally thanked him for some of his recommendations. Laurel, who first ran for political office in 1967, and was the lone voice of the Opposition in the parliament that was controlled by Marcos during the martial law years, now had a good chance of winning the presidency, if opinion polls were true reflectors of reality.
Openly airing his presidential ambitions, Laurel told me that if he became president in 1992 his top priority would be to set up a brains’ trust in his cabinet and launch economic reconstruction. Laurel outlined his blueprint for national rebuilding. “My top priority would be to end this senseless vengeance and vindictiveness, and unite the nation. The only way to unite the nation is to tap the best brains, regardless of party labels, and put the best minds in the Cabinet,” he stated.[26] The second step was to “live within our means and stop this overspending. We are building new palaces when we don’t need them; we are spending on new cars when we don’t need them.” Laurel, along with Defence Secretary Fidel Ramos, House Speaker Ramon Mitra, and Executive Secretary Oscar Orbos, was a leading contender for the presidency.
Laurel wore his erudition lightly. I learned about his dissertation on the Philippine Labor Law, written when he was a student at the Yale Law School in 1960, and of his other books on the Philippine Constitutional Convention, Penal Reforms, Land Reforms, as well as the country’s emergence from dictatorship and its development challenges.[27]
The following week, I received word from the office of the Secretary of Defense, General Fidel Ramos, actually an invitation to lunch at the Szechuan Restaurant in Quezon City, not far from his office at Camp Aguinaldo. The Ramos public relations engine was ticking over. On this day, he was throwing a lunch for Congress reporters. But General Ramos was nowhere in sight. He was late. Stuck, predictably, in a Manila traffic jam. He might be late for lunch, but he was certainly not missing the presidential race. Soon after he arrived, he greeted me effusively as “our friend from Singapore,” and introduced me to the gathered reporters.[28] Self-effacingly, he began talking, pausing to contemplate his cigar. “I am a new member of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino party, and I am looking for useful, friendly and helpful tips,” he told us reporters. Then, biting his cigar, he added playfully, “I think you are the ones who can give me a lot of the inside dope.” Indeed, he would need the inside information if he must retain his lead which was reflected in popularity polls. General Ramos’ strength was his rapport with the people in the provinces that he had built up over the five years as a hands-on defence secretary, who enjoyed sharing a few cans of San Miguel beer and a few Cubans with the troops in the jungles as much as drafting defence policy.
I learned that the packaging and selling of Ramos was a marketing exercise that had the retired general appearing suddenly all over town and barangay. He was learning to sing, which was always a political asset in a country of music lovers. He was cooking for journalists at the National Press Club. And he would inevitably be kissing his fair share of babies when he resigned as defence secretary and hit the presidential campaign trail. The West Point-trained general was now realizing that the roughness of politics was quite a different profession from running a disciplined army. And he had adopted a more consensus-oriented style, finding that his military demeanor was jarring on the people. He was widely viewed as the man from Camp Aguinaldo but few knew that politics ran in his blood.
His father, a traditional politician, had remained undefeated in the Philippine Congress elections for five terms. “I grew up in that environment,” he said, but added, “Those politicians did not practise what today’s politicians are practising. Now they put the voters under their thumbs and make them beholden for every little thing that a family needs.”
Ramos deflected my question on what he considered his most serious handicap, with the rejoinder, “I consider myself fairly well grounded in the dynamics of the Philippine political culture because my work as secretary of national defence is not purely military. We do a lot of interagency coordination as well as coordination with the private sector because that is our formula for attaining a better condition of peace and order.” Suddenly his political opponents were realizing that he was no stranger to the grassroots political leaders, having worked with mayors and governors in the politically crucial barangays. He now confessed that when it came to “a deeper sophistication of political tactics and strategy, I still have to learn a lot.” And he wanted to revisit all the seventy-three provinces in the country with his political agenda in mind. But his power base as defence secretary, which had been an asset until now, could become a political liability if he continued to spend all his time on matters of national defence.
The military was his constituency. He declared that he had “many friends and supporters in the armed forces,” but he did not expect them to be campaigning for him. General Ramos was proud that he was the one who wrote into the Constitution the armed forces’ non-partisan role in politics, which had insulated it from politics. “I have assured everybody that I will not mix the armed forces with my political agenda. I hope the armed forces will maintain its non-partisan posture, and that it will only work to ensure Honest, Orderly and Peaceful Elections,” which spelled HOPE, he pointed out. The time had come for this hero of the People’s Power Revolution of 1986 to resign his ministerial post, and go for broke. Ever since he became a member of the LDP, he said he was convinced that sooner or later he should ask the president to let him go from his position. “This is not to say that I am the only one who can hold the job well. But I just want to make sure that the hard work that went into developing this teamwork and collaboration, does not go to waste at a very critical time in our history.”
The retired general had chosen to enter politics on the LDP bandwagon, aware of the danger that he could be lured into the LDP den, and lose the party’s nomination to another presidential aspirant, House Speaker Ramon Mitra, who controlled the party but was not as popular as General Ramos. He was confident that he would prevail over Ramon Mitra in the LDP’s nomination for the presidential election. “This is not based on any empty boast. It is based on what I have seen on the ground,” he added. General Ramos was not defenceless, though he had been compared to Daniel entering the LDP lion’s den. A number of organizations had been formed to serve as his parachute if his bid to win the LDP’s presidential nomination crash-landed. Organizations backing his candidacy were the United People Power Movement (UPPM), Friends of Ramos, Walk with Ramos, and the Ka Eddie Movement, after his nickname, Eddie. The UPPM was not a political party yet, and the question was whether it could quickly be transformed into one. At any rate, the UPPM had strongly urged General Ramos to run for president, believing it would be a waste if he did not because a March 1991 survey showed that both General Ramos and Vice-President Salvador Laurel had an awareness rating of 99 percent each. Among the other presidential hopefuls, Executive Secretary Oscar Orbos, also known as the “Little President,” garnered 94 percent, Senate President Jovito Salonga (97 percent), and Speaker Ramon Mitra (98 percent). Perhaps the most popular of them remained Miriam Defensor-Santiago, with Cebu Governor Emilio Osmena emerging as a strong contender. Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Joseph “Erap” Estrada, and Aquilino Pimentel were less popular. Also in the race was Marcos crony and former San Miguel Corp Chairman, Eduardo Cojuangco.
Not without some trepidation, General Ramos acknowledged, “The decision to enter politics through the LDP is the riskiest thing I have ever done in my entire career. As a principal player during the People Power revolution, there is one more duty I must fulfil. That is to carry on the legacy of EDSA, which is the moving force behind President Aquino’s own system of governance. And that is to let the power really reside with the people.” He did not see too much evidence of that. “Our people continue to be beholden to sponsors. There should be a big, big piece of cake for everybody to divide. We are producing only a small piece of cake, and that has to be divided 61 million times.” But at the time, at least ten candidates were hankering for the presidential cake. And the elections were expected to be fought with tremendous money power. General Ramos stated, “Within the party we have agreed that we must minimize expenses, so that the party will have as much resources as possible in the presidential campaign itself. We hope that it will not be as expensive as the media is saying it will be.” Many in the media believed that for a presidential candidate to mount a winnable bid for the presidency, he or she would have to spend at least 2 billion pesos.
But there were bigger worries than campaign funds. If President Aquino ran again, what would General Ramos do? “There are too many ifs there. We will cross that bridge when we get there,” he said. “There were two schools of thought on whether she could run again. It is very possible that the legal and constitutional questions can be evaded if the Supreme Court throws it back to the petitioners and says that they will not act on it because it is a political question. But on the other hand there are enough legal and constitutional arguments that would militate against her running again.” Mrs. Aquino had said at least “eighty-eight times” that she would not run again. And General Ramos had said at least “a hundred times” that his national program was to “empower the people.” He added, “There are two kinds of empowerments that I am espousing. Most others are talking about empowering local government. Unless the local people in our barangays are given the ability to be more efficient, productive and self-reliant, which is their right, then even the program to decentralize local government authority will not work.”
If he became president, would he consider amnesty for the communist guerrillas and the army rebels? The question drew him out. “The present policy offers peace and reconciliation to all those from the extreme left and extreme right. But it should not be any kind of peace or the mere absence of violence. It must be a peace that will continue to protect this democratic system of ours. Otherwise, what kind of a peace will it be if the next moment we are endangered again and go back to violence.”
General Ramos had been described as pro-American and pro-U.S. military bases, which he would like to phase out, but gradually. This is because “how can you immediately replace the jobs of 70,000 Filipino base workers? How can you make up for the loss of US$ 500 million worth of aid, unless there is a credible conversion plan?” General Ramos’ own conversion from military to civil life had been remarkably trouble-free. The man on the street in Manila remembered him as the hero of the revolution; General Ramos, however, wanted to be remembered for bigger things.
Even before they took office, the two men tipped to be the next president and vice-president of the Philippines were expected to fall out over America’s military and economic role in the country.[29] One wanted the Americans in. The other wanted them out. If they did clash over this issue, it would be a replay of the total breakdown that marked the relationship between President Aquino and her estranged Vice-President Laurel. Even as votes in the presidential election were being counted, Fidel Ramos, the pro-America frontrunner, announced he was willing to grant the American forces access to Philippine military bases after they pulled out of the country in 1992. But the leading vice-presidential candidate, matinee idol Joseph Estrada, had campaigned relentlessly against American military and economic presence on Philippine soil.
The two men also nursed other differences because they belonged to rival political parties. In 1992, Estrada initially ran for president under the Partido ng Masang Pilipino (PMP), with Vicente Rivera Jr. as his running mate. Estrada soon withdrew his presidential bid because of financial problems and instead became the running mate of Eduardo Cojuango Jr, under the Nationalist People’s Coalition. Although Cojuangco lost his presidential bid to Ramos, Estrada won the vice-presidency.
Estrada, who had somehow juggled a dual career as film star and as a senator, had gone to great lengths to campaign against the United States. Most recently, he had acted in a film, Sa Kuko ng Agila (Under the Claws of the Eagle). “The eagle,” he told me during the making of the film, “is the American eagle.” He hoped the film would “counteract the growing American propaganda in the barrios (villages).” He declared that the film exposed the “American monopoly” of the Philippine economy. Estrada, who played the lead role of a jeepney driver in the film, explained: “For example, medicines in the Philippines are very expensive because 90 percent of the medicine-manufacturing firms are controlled by Americans. It is a very sad fact that our own people cannot afford to buy the expensive medicines produced by Americans.” Because Estrada was a matinee idol, such arguments had grabbed the popular imagination of ordinary Filipinos. But if he persisted with his anti-America tack, he could harm the country which badly needed American investments. Fortunately, regardless of Estrada’s films and persistent anti-American campaigning, successive Filipino administrations had appealed to American corporations for investments.
There were widespread worries that if the Ramos-Estrada partnership split up, the country would once again be stuck with an ineffective administration. The split between Aquino and Laurel, who belonged to rival parties, had extracted its toll on the country right from the time their regime took office. As a result, Laurel was given no job in the Aquino regime, and he effectively functioned in opposition to the president. The same danger surfaced again. Filipino politicians had always allowed themselves to get worked up over the U.S. hand, ever since it gained independence from the United States in 1946. On the one side were the likes of Estrada who were bitterly anti-American. On the other were people like Ramos who viewed American influence with fondness.
Ramos had once remarked: “America has influenced our way of life, our love of freedom, our passion for work, our concept of education, our way of thinking and even the manner of our speech. Among Filipinos there is a feeling of personal acquaintance and familiarity with things American—the people, the views, the sounds, the smells, the sights and the feel of America.” The former general also recalled how Filipinos and Americans fought shoulder to shoulder against the Japanese in the Second World War. Estrada, however, had no time for such sentimentality about America. But for those concerned about the prospects for the Philippine economy and who knew that the country badly needed foreign investments, especially from the United States, it would be to Ramos that they would look. To be sure, the masses would yearn after their matinee idol. Building a consensus between the two groups was expected to shake stability.
Ramos was popularly elected as president to succeed Aquino in May 1992, his raft of reforms such as weeding out corrupt police officers, halting population growth, opening up the country to external investments, and stabilizing the economy to kickstart growth, reinforced his longstanding nickname of “Steady” Eddie. Ramos further consolidated political power when his governing coalition won a decisive victory in Congressional elections in 1995, midway through his six-year term as president. The victory allowed Ramos to reach peace agreements with the communist NPA and the MNLF. He memorably pushed hard to deregulate industries dominated by a few large companies, allowing the economy to emerge from sloth to grow rapidly in 1994-97. Ramos’ reforms strengthened the economy to stave off a financial crisis that rocked Southeast Asia in 1998, the year his presidency ended.
Ramos, a disciplined writer, recorded his presidential experiences in several books and texts, covering present and future economic development, the story of peace negotiations with the MNLF under his watch, the country’s struggle against dictatorship, and the challenges of poverty removal. The most impressive of his works was Developing as a Democracy: Reform and Recovery in the Philippines, 1992-1998, published in New York by St. Martin’s Press, in 1998.[30]
During the Ramos administration, a diplomatic breakthrough enabled the MNLF to hold peace talks with the Philippine government, mediated by the Organization of Islamic Countries, the Libyan government of Muammar el-Qaddafi, and the Indonesian government of Suharto.[31] The Philippine government and the MNLF signed Statements of Understanding and Interim Agreements between 1992 and 1996. As a result, the two parties and the OIC signed a Final Peace Agreement on September 2, 1996, ending the MNLF’s war against the government. The agreement established a Special Zone of Peace and Development in southern Philippines, to be developed with investments over three years, and it expanded the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). The agreement began a dribs and drabs process of integrating MNLF members into the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
As trust grew, the MNLF allied itself with President Ramos’ political party, Lakas (Strength). Soon afterwards, MNLF leader Nur Misuari ran in the elections for the ARMM’s regional governorship—despite Zain Jali’s insistence to me in 1989 that Misuari was not “politically ambitious,” and would never seek office.[32] Misuari won easily with the Philippine government’s support.
Yet, the MNLF was unhappy with the way the 1996 agreement was panning out, especially over control of mineral resources. The MNLF broke into new factions that sprouted in opposition to a faction still loyal to, and led by, Misuari. All of a sudden, the MNLF returned to violent ways. Just prior to ARMM elections in November 2001, Misuari’s grouses with the 1996 agreement’s implementation and his own declining influence drove him to lead an armed attack in Sulu and Zamboanga City.[33] The attack intended to disrupt the ARMM elections that Misuari feared losing, and he escaped to Malaysia after the abortive rebellion, only to be arrested and deported to the Philippines, where he was jailed. Placed under house arrest in 2006, Misuari was released in 2008 after prosecutors could not find enough evidence to connect him to the 2001 rebellion in Sulu.
After Misuari went into limbo, his followers launched attacks in Sulu in 2005. The following year, the MNLF and the Philippine government got together to repair their relationship and finds ways of making the 1996 peace agreement work. Under President Benigno Aquino III, who assumed office in 2010, the government began talks with the MNLF’s rival, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The core of these negotiations was to replace the ARMM with a new autonomous region known as the Bangsamoro. The MILF and the Philippine government signed a Framework Agreement to establish a new independent region of Bangsamoro in October 2012.
Expectedly, Misuari and his MNLF followers thumbed their noses at the negotiations with the MILF and the so-called Bangsamoro region. In August 2013, Misuari unilaterally declared the independence of the Bangsamoro Republik at a gathering in Sulu. The following month, MNLF guerrillas fought Philippine government forces in Zamboanga City, taking hundreds of hostages in a crisis lasting about three weeks. Evading an arrest warrant, Misuari allegedly fled the country and returned to stay in southern Philippines until 2018. In July 2018, the Philippine House of Representatives passed the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), creating a Muslim regional entity in Mindanao, to which MILF representatives declared their support.
Turning a new leaf, the MILF now stated that 30,000 to 40,000 fighters would be demobilized, but the Misuari faction of the MNLF remained opposed to the BOL. They urged the government to honor the 1996 ARMM agreement and to elevate Misuari as governor of the autonomous region. At a meeting with President Duterte in March 2019, Misuari is believed to have threatened to wage war against the government if the Moros were not given their own form of federal system. In March 2022, the Philippine Government held its first confidence building meeting with the MNLF at General Santos City to fulfil its commitments under the 1996 peace agreement.[34]
Descent into Chaos and Tentative Recovery
The pencil-moustachioed, America-hating film star, Joseph Estrada, was elected president in 1998, succeeding Fidel Ramos, with an impressive margin of votes over his presidential challengers. One of his first significant acts was to declare an “all-out-war” against the Muslim separatist MILF in 2000, undoing the good work of the past to arrive at a reconciliation. Estrada soon drove the country into new instability as allegations of corruption against him led to an impeachment trial in the Senate, clearing the way for his removal by a People Power movement known as EDSA 2, hallmarked by serial protests from January 17–20, 2001, that peacefully overthrew the Estrada regime. At a public event in front of crowds at EDSA, Estrada’s deputy, Vice-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was sworn in as president. For his part, Estrada was sentenced in 2007 under the charge of plunder for embezzling US$ 80 million from government coffers, but he was later pardoned by the president. The pardon emboldened him to again run for president in 2010 to a resounding defeat by Senator Benigno Aquino III, the son of Benigno and Corazon Aquino. The politically ambitious Estrada remained in public life, and served as mayor of Manila for two terms from 2013 to 2019.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo set a record as the longest-serving president of the country from 2001-2010, since Marcos Sr., after having served as the first female vice president, and a senator from 1992 to 1998. Welcomed with hosannas of great expectations owing to having studied economics at Georgetown University, and for being the daughter of former president Diosdado Macapagal, her presidency drifted amid controversy and dishonor. In protest against alleged corruption in her regime, a squad of armed soldiers staged a so-called Oakwood Mutiny by taking over the Oakwood Premier Ayala Center in the tony Makati area of Manila in 2003. She was nonetheless elected to a full six-year term in a controversial election in 2004. She was arrested in November 2011 on charges of electoral sabotage, but released on bail in July 2012. For lack of evidence, the charges were dropped, but she was rearrested in October 2012 for allegedly misusing US$ 8.8 million in state lottery funds, and later acquitted.
The next actor to occupy Malacañang Palace, Benigno Aquino III, announced his presidential candidacy shortly after the death of his mother, former president Corazon Aquino, and went on to become the president in June 2010, succeeding Macapagal-Arroyo. Under the presidency of this former member of the House of Representatives and Senate, the national economy grew at rates that soared to the highest in decades, causing the country to be praised as a Rising Tiger. Most memorably, Benigno pursued a confrontational foreign policy when his administration filed an arbitration case, Philippines v. China, at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in order to nullify China’s claim to the South China Sea islands, and to assert the Philippines’ claims in the area. His administration gained global attention when the court ruled in favor of the Philippines. Like Estrada, Benigno used force against Muslim separatists, allowing the crisis to drift. After leaving office in June 2016, he faced legal charges over his role in the action by security forces against Muslim separatists and for his approval of a controversial project, but was later acquitted of all charges.
After the high-flying Benigno Aquino III presidency, the country was put through a wringer under the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte from 2016 to 2022. A lawyer-politician, Duterte had won seven terms as mayor of Davao for over twenty-two years, turning a once crime-ridden city into a peaceful and investor-friendly enclave. Yet, his presidency was tarnished by his extra-judicial measures, empowering the security forces to shoot drug cartel members and known criminals, an ilk Duterte claimed to have personally killed earlier in his career.
The actions of Duterte opened the way for the return of the Marcos family by offering respect to the disgraced former dictator, and overseeing the controversial burial of Marcos Sr. The Supreme Court in a 9-5 vote in November 2016 dismissed petitions filed by leftist activists and victims of human rights abuses, and ruled that President Duterte was within his powers to order Marcos be buried in the heroes’ cemetery south of Manila, finally resolving an issue that had divided the nation since his death in 1989.[35] His son, Bongbong, who had narrowly lost an election in May for vice-president, described the decision as “magnanimous,” and hoped it would “lead the nation towards healing.” Thousands of Marcos loyalists cheered, and others were deeply disappointed that the highest court had neglected the lessons of history.
The Coming of Ferdinand Romualdez “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.
In his presidential election campaign, Marcos Jr. sought to rebrand his family’s brutal image, but that exercise was not even necessary because for a large section of the voting public, the memory of his father’s corrupt and violent dictatorship did not even exist. More than half the voters, aged between 18 and 41, had no recollection of that period because they were either not born or were too young to remember the Marcos Sr. era of extreme poverty, unemployment, debt crisis, arbitrary arrests, disappearances, torture and killings. To the young voters, the People’s Power that dethroned Marcos Sr. had no resonance.
President-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. being sworn in as the 17th president of the Philippines. The oath-taking was administered by Supreme Court Chief Justice Alexander Gesmudo, and witnessed by Marcos’s wife, Liza, and their three sons. Photo by the courtesy of the Presidential Communications Operations Group.
Through his campaign, Marcos Jr. claimed that he “never possessed or even benefitted from ill-gotten wealth,” campaigning on a promise to improve the response to the pandemic, and to carry forward the Duterte administration’s anti-insurgency campaign with its war against illegal drugs, by focusing on prevention, education, and rehabilitation.[36] With his running mate, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, the daughter of former president Duterte, Marcos Jr. was formally endorsed and enjoyed the backing of the families of former Presidents Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Joseph Estrada.
Marcos Jr. became president in a landslide election in May 2022, his triumph stage-managed by a pro-Marcos press and social media, some of it directly under his control. His ascent to power occurred under the aegis of a “post-democratic” global polity, that the scholar Colin Crouch describes as a society “that continues to have and to use all the institutions of democracy, but in which they increasingly become a formal shell. The energy and innovative drive pass away from the democratic arena and into small circles of a politico-economic elite.”[37] Post-Democracy implies states that employ democratic systems, where elections are held, governments fall, and there is press freedom, but whose application is progressively limited. In such states a small governing elite takes the decisions and co-opts the democratic institutions. Alongside post-democracy was the arrival of fake news, under whose numbing sway a press partisan to the Marcos family painted the former dictatorship as a “golden age” of peace and prosperity, instead of the violent and corrupt regime that it was.
A large section of Philippine social media served as a willing vehicle to promote and whitewash the Marcos image. A Facebook page loyal to the Marcos family claimed in March 2020 that the Philippines was the second-richest country after Japan during the Marcos regime.[38] On the contrary, Philippine gross domestic product dropped from being fifth in Asia at the start of the dictator’s rule to sixth by 1985, as the country was mired in a deep recession. Another claim, just as bizarre, declared on Face Book in October 2020 that the elder Marcos and Filipino nationalist Jose Rizal had set up the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Both institutions were created in 1944 under U.S. tutelage.
“No Philippine court had ever ruled that the Marcoses had stolen money from the treasury,” was the gist of a Facebook page in 2018. In reality, the Philippines’ highest court had declared in 2003 that Marcos Sr. and Imelda had a legitimately earned income during their 20 years in power of US$ 304,372. More than US$ 658 million was discovered, however, in their Swiss bank accounts, which the court ordered to be given back to the government, and which was just a small fraction of the US$ 10 billion estimated to have been plundered from state coffers during the regime. Posts on Facebook during the election campaign in 2022 regularly downplayed human rights abuses under the Marcos regime. These claims jarringly subverted the reality of Amnesty International’s estimates that Marcos’ security forces either killed, tortured, sexually abused, mutilated or arbitrarily detained about 70,000 political opponents.
As independent media in the Philippines began reporting in the run-up to the 2022 elections, independent journalists were targeted through 2021. For instance, the online Rappler newspaper led by the Nobel Prize winning journalist, Maria Ressa, produced an analysis of the data showing a sharp increase in social media posts describing journalists derogatorily as “bayaran” (paid hacks) and “presstitute” (an amalgam of “press” and “prostitute”) in the second-half of 2021.[39] Rappler argues that the repetitive push of narratives on social media that painted the free press as “biased” against political figures, particularly the Marcos family and the Duterte administration, were devised craftily to undermine the public’s trust in the media. Such attacks often contained false information that aimed to tarnish the media’s credibility and shame them for doing their job.
To be fair, it can only be hoped that “Bongbong” Marcos will work hard to improve the lives of his countrymen and women, but it is unlikely that he will accept the past atrocities committed by his father, as his political machine has worked even harder to whitewash or deny them all.
The better Philippine presidents live in the public memory, but barely. Fidel Ramos was the oldest living former president, and far removed from the political world, until his death at the age of 94 in July 2022. Corazon Aquino died at the age of 76 in 2009. Vice President Laurel died aged 76 in 2004. Among other leaders, Enrile is 98 and inactive, but Estrada, at 85, is still influential. It is unlikely that the sixty-four-year-old Bongbong Marcos will consult the archives of dead presidents or read their books and memoirs for desperately needed lessons (I have cited in this article the books by Aquino, Ramos and Laurel). Given the Philippines’ inclination for sudden surges of People’s Power, no government in power should neglect those lessons. We will maintain our storm watch for incoming bad political weather over Malacañang Palace.
Harish C. Mehta has taught History at McMaster University, University of Toronto, and Trent University in Canada, courses such as the Vietnam Wars, U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1898, World History up to 1800, World History from 1800 to the Present, History of Southeast Asia, and Human Rights in History. He obtained a PhD degree from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada in the history of American foreign relations and Vietnam, with specializations in the twentieth-century history of China, and Christian-Muslim Encounters in the Early Modern World (Ottoman Empire). He did graduate studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after a Bachelors’ degree from the University of Lucknow, and a post-graduate diploma from St. Xavier’s College, Bombay. He is the author of Cambodia Silenced: The Press Under Six Regimes (White Lotus, Bangkok and Cheney, 1997); Warrior Prince: Norodom Ranariddh, Son of King Sihanouk of Cambodia (Graham Brash, Singapore, 2001); Strongman: The Extraordinary Life of Hun Sen (Marshall Cavendish, Singapore, 2013); and People’s Diplomacy of Vietnam: Soft Power in the Resistance War, 1965-1972 (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2019). His articles on Vietnamese diplomacy have appeared in the academic journals International History Review, Diplomatic History, Peace and Change, The Historian, and History Compass, and his review articles have appeared in H-Diplo. His major awards are: (a) the Samuel Flagg Bemis research award (twice) from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, (b) the “Asian Print Media Write Award” in 1997 by the Asian Media Information and Communication Center, Singapore for his research paper entitled “The Chilling Fields: Cambodia’s Press Under Six Regimes” that was published in Media Asia, (c) the “Freedom Forum Fellowship” awarded in 1995 by the Freedom Forum of Washington, DC, and (d) the Mitsubishi-Press Foundation of Asia “Journalist of the Year Prize” awarded in 1989 for excellence in reporting economic and political developments in Southeast Asia.
[1] Harish Mehta, “The Philippines: The State of Affairs,” Business Times, March 10, 1989. Searchable at National Library Board, Singapore, https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Harish Mehta, “Philippine Defense Department to ask for Bigger Budget,” Business Times, Page 1, February 8, 1989. Searchable at National Library Board, Singapore, https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/.
[4] Harish Mehta, “Manila’s Long Haul against Insurgency,” Business Times, Page 9, March 13, 1989. Searchable at National Library Board, Singapore, https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Mark Fineman, “Laurel Breaks with Aquino, Quits Key Post,” Los Angeles Times, September 17, 1987, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-09-17-mn-8587-story.html.
[13] Letter Salvador Laurel to Cory Aquino, The Kahimyang Project, August 13,1988, https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/general-blogs/1739/for-the-sake-of-truth-justice-freedom-and-democracy-letter-of-doy-laurel-to-cory-aquino-on-leaving-her-administration.
[14] Harish Mehta, “Govt, Rebels still Differ on Autonomy for Mindanao,” Business Times, page 3, February 16, 1989. Searchable at National Library Board, Singapore, https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Harish Mehta, “Still Full of Spirit After Five Years at the Helm,” Business Times, page 10, May 27, 1991. Searchable at National Library Board, Singapore, https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/.
[18] Harish Mehta, “Administration racing to complete all feasible economic projects,” Business Times, page 1, May 20, 1991. Searchable at National Library Board, Singapore. https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/.
[19] Mehta, “Still Full of Spirit After Five Years at the Helm.”
[20] Ibid.
[21] Harish Mehta, “I won’t run for re-election, says Aquino again,” Business Times, page 1, May 18, 1991. Searchable at National Library Board, Singapore, https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/.
[22] Mehta, “Still Full of Spirit After Five Years at the Helm.”
[23] Ibid.
[24] Books and texts by Corazon Aquino include: The State of the Nation, 1991: A Report to the Filipino People (Manila, 1991); The Aquino Administration: Record and Legacy, 1986-1992 (Quezon City, Philippines: University of the Philippines Press, 1992); In the Name of Democracy and Prayer: Selected Speeches of Corazon C. Aquino (Pasig City, Philippines: Anvil, 1995); Democracy in Asia: Its Problems and Prospects, with Oscar Arias, and Kim Dae Jung (Seoul: Asia Pacific Peace Press, 1995). Cory Aquino’s thoughts and ideas can be found in her speeches at: https://www.coryaquino.ph/.
[25] Mehta, “Laurel: Hardy Political Heavyweight,” Business Times, June 27, 1991. Searchable at National Library Board, Singapore. https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/.
[26] Harish Mehta, “A Brains Trust in Cabinet if I’m President: Laurel,” Business Times, page 6, May 25, 1991. Searchable at National Library Board, Singapore, https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/.
[27] Salvador Laurel’s books and texts include: “The Labour Injunction as an Instrument of Policy in Philippine Labor Relations,” dissertation, Yale Law School, 1960; Proceedings of the Philippine Constitutional Convention (Manila: Lyceum Press, 1969); Laurel Report on Penal Reforms: The State of Philippine Penal Institutions and Penology (Manila, 1969); To Build Upon a Rock: Excerpts from Public Discourses, 1967-1987 (Manila, 1987); Resilience and Realism (Manila, 1989); A Child’s Footnote to History (Manila, 1989); Laurel Report: Mission to China, March 1972 (Manila, 1972); This Land is Mine: A Primer on the New Land Reform Code (Manila, 1972); Sworn to Serve (Manila, 1990); Neither Trumpets Nor Drums: Summing up the Cory Government (Manila: PDM Press, 1992); Through Ordeal and Turmoil (Manila, 2002); and After 100 Years—What Next? (Manila: Celia Diaz-Laurel, 2010).
[28] Harish Mehta, “The Marketing of Ramos,” Business Times, page 11, June 11, 1991. Searchable at National Library Board, Singapore, https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/.
[29] Harish Mehta, “Can the General and the Film Star Get Their Act Together?” Business Times, May 29, 1992. Searchable at National Library Board, Singapore, https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/.
[30] Books and texts by Fidel Ramos include, To Win the Future; From Growth to Modernization; A Call to Duty; and Time for Takeoff, 4 Volumes (Manila: The Friends of Steady Eddie, TFSE, 1993); Our Time Has Come (Manila: TFSE, 1996); Break Not the Peace: The Story of GRP and MNLF Peace Negotiations, 1992-1996 (Manila: TFSE, 1996); Leadership for the 21st Century (Manila: TFSE, 1997); Developing as a Democracy: Reform and Recovery in the Philippines, 1992-1998 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998); The Continuity of Freedom (Manila, TFSE, 1998); The Continuing Revolution: Meeting the Challenges of Development and Poverty Reduction (Manila: RPDEV and SGV Foundation, 2001); Bulletin of FVR (Manila: RPDEV, 2007); and Responsible Citizenship, Responsible Governance (Manila: Ramos Peace and Development Foundation, 2007).
[31] “Moro National Liberation Front,” Center for International Security and Cooperation,” Stanford University, https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/moro-national-liberation-front#text_block_20212.
[32] Mehta, “Govt, Rebels still Differ on Autonomy for Mindanao.”
[33] “Moro National Liberation Front,” Center for International Security and Cooperation,” Stanford University, https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/moro-national-liberation-front
[34] “GPH-MNLF Confidence Building Committee Holds First Meeting,” Office of the Presidential Advisor on Peace, Reconciliation, and Unity, March 28, 2022, https://peace.gov.ph/2022/03/gph-mnlf-confidence-building-subcommittee-holds-first-meeting-underscores-trust-confidence-and-cooperation/.
[35] Karen Lima, “Former Philippine Dictator Marcos to Get Hero’s Burial Three Decades After Death,” Reuters, November 8, 2016.
[36] Vote Pilipinas, https://votepilipinas.com/candidate/marcos-ferdinand.html.
[37] Colin Crouch, Post-Democracy (Malden: MA, Polity, 2004).
[38] “’Golden Age:’ Marcos Myths on Social Media,” France 24, May 8, 2022.
[39] Pauline Macaraeg, “Pro-Marcos, Duterte accounts step up attacks on journalists as 2022 polls near,” Rappler, January 31, 2022.
