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Philippines - The early republic

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Roxas, as expected, extended amnesty to all major collaborators

with Japan. In the campaign for the election of 1949 there was an
attempt to raise the collaboration issue against José Laurel, the
Nacionalista presidential candidate, but it was not effective. In the
fluidity of Philippine politics, “guerrillas” and “collaborators” were by
that time to be found on both sides of all political fences.

The Philippines had gained independence in the “ashes of victory.”

Intense fighting, especially around Manila in the last days of the
Japanese retreat (February–March 1945), had nearly destroyed the
capital. The economy generally was in disarray. Rehabilitation aid
was obviously needed, and President Roxas was willing to accept
some onerous conditions placed implicitly and explicitly by the U.S.
Congress. The Bell Act in the United States extended free trade
with the Philippines for 8 years, to be followed by 20 years of
gradually increasing tariffs. The United States demanded and
received a 99-year lease on a number of Philippine military and
naval bases in which U.S. authorities had virtual territorial rights.
And finally, as a specific requirement for release of U.S. war-
damage payments, the Philippines had to amend its constitution to
give U.S. citizens equal rights with Filipinos in the exploitation of
natural resources—the so-called Parity Amendment.

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World War II: Allied forces recaptured Manila,

PhilippinesManila, Philippines, in the aftermath of its recapture by
Allied forces in early 1945.U.S. Navy

The changing character of Philippine–U.S. relations was a major

theme in Philippine history for the first several decades after the
war. The trend was toward weakening of the link, achieved partly by
diversifying Philippine external ties and partly by more articulate
anti-American feeling. Economic nationalism, though first directed
against the local Chinese community’s dominance of retail trade, by
the 1950s was focused on the special status of American business
firms.

At independence the military ties with the United States were as

strong as the economic ones. Filipino troops fought against
communist forces in Korea, and noncombatant engineers
augmented U.S. forces in the Vietnam War. Crucial to U.S. military
action in Vietnam were bases in the Philippines. The Military Bases
Agreement was the greatest single cause of friction in relations
between the United States and the Philippines. Beginning in 1965,
however, a series of agreements between the two countries
reduced the size and number of the U.S. bases and shortened
base leases. In 1979 formal jurisdiction over the base areas passed
to the Philippine government; and the constitution of 1987
formalized the process by which the bases agreement could be
extended beyond the expiration in 1991 of base leases. Extension
of the agreement was ultimately rejected by the Philippine Senate,
however, and U.S. forces were pulled from the Philippine bases in
1992.

The nature and effectiveness of Filipino political institutions since

independence has been a special concern of the former colonial
power that helped establish them. For Filipinos, those institutions
have determined the ability or inability to maintain domestic social
order. Clumsy repression of dissent and the fraudulent election of
the country’s second president, Elpidio Quirino, in 1949 set the
stage for an intensification of the communist-led Hukbalahap (Huk)
Rebellion, which had begun in 1946. The rebellion also reflected a
growing sense of social injustice among tenant farmers, especially
in central Luzon. Suppression of the rebellion five years later,
however, was attributable to American military aid as well as to the

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opening of the political process to greater mass participation,

particularly during the campaign of Ramon Magsaysay, a uniquely
charismatic figure in Filipino politics who was elected president in
1953. Magsaysay’s attempts at social and economic reform failed
largely because of the conservative outlook of the legislature and
the bureaucracy. When Magsaysay died in a plane crash in 1957,
leadership of the country fell to his vice president, Carlos P. Garcia.
During Garcia’s presidential term and that of his reform-minded
successor, Diosdado Macapagal (1961–65), unrest was usually
channeled through the electoral process and peaceful protest.

The Marcos and early post-Marcos era

In November 1965, Ferdinand E. Marcos was elected to the

presidency. His administration faced grave economic problems that
were exacerbated by corruption, tax evasion, and smuggling.

In 1969 Marcos became the first elected president of the

Philippines to win reelection. His campaign platform included the
renegotiation of major treaties with the United States and trade with
communist countries. These promises reflected a change in the
self-concept of the country during the 1960s. The idea of the
Philippines as an Asian outpost of Christianity was increasingly
supplanted by a desire to develop an Asian cultural identity. Artists,
musicians, and writers began to look to pre-Spanish themes for
inspiration. More important was the trend toward seeking cultural
identity through the national language, Pilipino. English, however,
remained the language of business, of most government
documents, and of the greater part of higher education. Demands
that the government meet the social and economic needs of its
citizenry continued.

A short-lived sign that the Filipino political system was again

attempting to respond constructively to those needs was the
choosing in 1970 of a widely representative Constitutional
Convention in one of the most honest and peaceful elections in
Philippine history. Large student demonstrations urged the
convention to undertake a fundamental restructuring of political
power.

Marcos, who was approaching the end of his constitutionally

delimited eight years in office, had narrower goals: he pressed for

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the adoption of a parliamentary style of government, which would

allow him to remain in power. He feared that the new constitution
would not come into force before he lost the advantages of
incumbency. At the same time, foreign investors, predominantly
American, felt increased pressure from economic nationalists in the
legislature.

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