Diosdado Macapagal

Diosdado Macapagal, (born Sept. 28, 1910, Lubao, Phil.—died

April 21, 1997, Makati, Phil.), reformist President of
the Philippines from 1961 to 1965. After receiving his law
degree, Macapagal was admitted to the bar in 1936.
During World War II he practiced law in Manila and aided the
anti-Japanese resistance. After the war he worked in a law firm
and in 1948 served as second secretary to the Philippine
Embassy in Washington, D.C. The following year he was
elected to a seat in the Philippine House of Representatives,
serving until 1956. During this time he was Philippine representative to the United Nations
General Assembly three times. In the 1961 elections, however, he ran against Garcia,
forging a coalition of the Liberal and Progressive parties and making a crusade against
political corruption a principal element of his platform. He was elected by a wide margin.
While president, Macapagal worked to suppress graft and corruption and to stimulate the
Philippine economy. He placed the peso on the free currency-exchange market,
encouraged exports, passed the country’s first land-reform legislation, and sought to
curb income evasion, particularly by the wealthiest families, which cost the treasury
millions of pesos yearly. His reforms, however, were crippled by a House of
Representatives and Senate dominated by the Nacionalistas, and he was defeated in the
1965 presidential elections by Ferdinand Marcos. In 1972 he chaired the convention that
drafted the 1973 constitution, but in 1981 he questioned the validity of its ratification. In
1979 he organized the National Union for Liberation as an opposition party to the Marcos
regime.

Legacy

Diosdado Macapagal, the fifth President of the Republic, left a mark as the only social
reformist president we have had in the second half of this century. Macapagal was the
first truly "poor man" president we ever had, having been born into a peasant Pampanga
family, and his social background had a big influence on his policies, although the most
important thing to consider is that he decided to stay in the system and work out reforms
within its opportunities and limitations. Macapagal's decision defined the reformist
character of his political career. The system did not quash his talents and intellectual
assets, and yet it also frustrated his efforts when as president, he translated his social
equity programs into legislation and policy. But the most remarkable achievement of
Macapagal in the economic field is that when he was elected, he swam against the
powerful current of economic nationalism epitomized by Garcia's Filipino First policy -- a
catchword for protectionism, import substitution and economic controls (import as well as
foreign exchange). The policy sought to transfer control of the economy to indigenous
Filipinos from foreign hands. It did succeed on a large measure to shift control, but Filipino
First had low priority for equity or redistribution of wealth, and Macapagal on his first day
in office lifted exchange control, signalling the beginning of a long process of economic
liberalization accelerated by the Ramos administration.