Ferdinand Marcos was elected President in 1965 and re-elected in 1969. Neither he nor his wife Imelda came from the powerful landed oligarchy that controlled the Philippines. He was dependent on powerful and wealthy patrons for financing his electoral machine. Marcos was openly unimpressed with the democratic system, arguing that it should be replaced by what he called ‘constitutional authoritarianism’, a system he saw as more in keeping with Filipino political culture.
In 1972 Marcos proclaimed Martial Law. Many explanations have been advanced for this decisive break with Philippine political history. First, Marcos was constitutionally barred from standing for a third term as President. Determined to hold on to power he was prepared to destroy the Constitution. Second, the halcyon days of the 1950s and 1960s had turned sour. The Philippine economy was stagnant, per capita income was falling, foreign indebtedness had grown to serious levels and there was growing middle class discontent about political corruption and the inability of the political system to solve the country’s social and economic problems. Third, the military leadership was willing to become more directly involved in running the country. Military leaders welcomed the suspension of democratic processes and the increased power that flowed to them as a consequence.
Many Filipinos also initially welcomed Marcos’ move. The New Society promoted by Marcos was attractive to many of the urban middle class and intellectuals. It promised ‘law and order’ in a hitherto insecure society; it promised to provide the infrastructure and stability needed to attract the foreign investment essential to revive the economy; it promised land reform and an end to the corruption that had bedevilled the Philippines since independence. Martial Law was also welcomed by outsiders, including foreign investors, the United States government and other Southeast Asian governments, most of which were themselves in various degrees military-dominated regimes.
Initially, the Marcos dictatorship did stimulate increased foreign investment and a return to economic growth. However, by the early 1980s new economic and political weaknesses had become obvious. Under the guise of creating a New Society, Marcos systematically undercut the political power of the landed elite at both national and local levels. Businesses of his political opponents were confiscated, licenses withdrawn and state enterprises became part of the Marcos personal fiefdom. He was able to do all of this because he had the support of the military leadership.
The beneficiaries, apart from the Marcos’ themselves and favoured military leaders, were a small group of friends and relatives who were provided with lucrative monopolies, government contracts and cheap finance. ‘Crony capitalism’ was taken to spectacular heights by the late 1970s. Through all of this Marcos and his family acquired enormous personal wealth, with the removal of the boundary between state finances and personal income. Corruption and nepotism were practiced on an unprecedented scale.
While the landed oligarchy lost their political power Marcos ensured that their economic interests were protected. Land reform and an end to rural impoverishment remained mere rhetoric.
Marcos centralised state power but did not create an institutionally strong state. The power of the state depended on personal loyalties, primarily from army commanders to Marcos. By the 1980s the Philippines was a society in danger of falling apart. The Moro Nationalist Liberation Front (MNLF) in the south had 50–60,000 guerrillas fighting for an independent Muslim state. More than half of the Philippines army was engaged in fighting it. The remainder was engaged against the New People’s Army (NPA), the communist-controlled front organisation which by the mid-1980s had about 15,000 guerrillas and was able to launch commando style raids in towns and cities, including Manila. Opposition to Marcos became more public and more strident.
In August 1983, Benigno Aquino, Marcos’ most prominent and popular political opponent, returned to the Philippines from his exile in the United States. He failed to set foot on Philippine soil. As he descended the steps from his aircraft at Manila airport one of the accompanying soldiers assassinated him. The military leadership denied involvement, as did Marcos. The death of Aquino began a process of open resistance to Marcos, a resistance led by the Manila middle class.
Under pressure from the United States and still supremely confident of his ability to fix elections, Marcos called a snap Presidential election for early 1986. Despite the vote rigging he lost. In a few chaotic months in Manila, Cory Aquino, the widow of Benigno Aquino, claimed victory and prepared for an inauguration organised by her supporters. Marcos continued to claim victory, despite all the evidence to the contrary, and moved towards his own inauguration. The imminent danger of serious bloodshed, if not outright civil war, was averted when a number of significant army leaders deserted Marcos and moved over to support Aquino. Marcos fled the Philippines. Cory Aquino became President. ‘People power’ had won.
With the end of Martial Law, the exile of Marcos and the inauguration of Cory Aquino, Philippines politics returned to its pre–1972 Constitutional form. The continuities of Philippines political life remained. The landed gentry retained their wealth and restored their political power. Many of those who lost out under Marcos have restored their fortunes. The great families still dominate the Philippines. Despite Aquino’s promise of land reform the interests of the landed elite have prevailed. Land reform has been negligible. Political loyalties remain personal rather than institutional. Electoral success continues to depend on wealthy people funding corruption, nepotism and bribery. The state remains relatively weak, as compared to many of the neighbouring ASEAN countries.
There have been, however, major achievements since 1986. Not least were the peaceful and constitutionally correct elections in 1992 which brought Fidel Ramos to power as President. On the economic front, the first four or five years of the Aquino government saw an impressive economic turn-around from the negative growth of the last years of Marcos to a positive growth which peaked at 6.7 per cent in 1988. The growth fell away after 1990, in part because of the deteriorating world economy and the economic dislocation caused by the Gulf War, but in part also because of the failure of basic infrastructure such as power to keep up with demand. By the mid 1990s the Philippines had been restored to economic growth levels approaching those achieved elsewhere in ASEAN. But it has a long way to go before it is seen by foreign investors as competitive with other ASEAN countries.
The threats from the NPA and the Moro Nationalist Liberation Front have receded considerably, if not disappeared altogether. With the end of Marcos rule much of the discontent that fuelled support for the NPA dissipated. Clever political accommodation by the Aquino government, together with more effective army action, has for the moment ended any NPA threat. The Moro Nationalist Liberation Front has been handled equally skillfully, though it remains to be seen whether the present agreements have staying power. Much depends on whether Muslims in the south can be persuaded to feel part of the Philippines which, in turn, depends on central concessions to regional, cultural and religious differences as much as continued economic growth.
