The Philippines

Citation preview

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TI-IE

MODERN

HISTORICAL

ROBIN

w.

WINKS,

NATIONS

IN

PERSPECTIVE

General Editor

The volumes in this series deal with individual nations or groups Of closely related nations throughout the world, summarizing the chief historical trends and influences that have contributed to each nation's present-day character, problems,

and behavior. Recent data are incorporated with established historical background to achieve a fresh synthesis and original interpretation.

The author of this volume,

ONOFRE D. CORPUZ,

is

Professor OE Political Science and Economics at

the University of the Philippines, where he also holds administrative positions. His Ph.D. is from Harvard University; he has also done research at the British Museum, the School or Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, and the Archivo General de las Indias in Seville. In addition to llis book The Bureaucracy in the Philippines, Dr. Corpuz has published numerous articles on Philippine politics.

l

THE PHILIPPINES

ONOFRE

D. Conruz

-~

I

1

ASPIEIRHIA nun:

Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Hersey I

-_.

Current printing (last digit) I 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

z

Copyright © 1965 by PRRNTICEHALL, ING., Englewood

Cliffs, New jersey. A SPECTRUM Book. Al] rights re~ served. No part of this book may be reproduced in any font, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 65-23299, Printed in the United States of America-C. P6zz16, C62217

PREFACE

This volume is primarily an effort at interpretation, rather than narration, of Philippine history. It therefore presents and dis» cusses longterm themes and trends instead of details of historical incidents. This approach enabled me to formulate a few quite interesting propositions, such as the crucial importance of the development of sedentary agriculture to the successful Christianization of the Philippines, and the role of early missionary Christianity as a vehicle of social and technological change rather than of spiritual enlightenment. The range of interpretation is broad. The timely containment in the Sixteenth century of the advance of Islam into the central Philippines is considered in relation to the iirrn establishment of Christianity in its strongest outpost in Asia. The origins of the upper class in Filipino society are traced to the Spanish conquest, the

emergence of land as a factor in the country's economic development is discussed, the factors that contributed to the conservative character of Filipino nationalism are analyzed; and the historical roots of the graft and corruption that afflicts so much of current Filipino politics are examined. Filipino culture is viewed throughout the discussion in terms of an accommodation between indigenous and imported eleincrits. The last two chapters are an analysis of recent and current Fi1ipino politics, still within the framework of the broad historical perspective, \fVhether the interpretations are new and valid is of course open to discussion, and wherever possible I have

referred to the evidence which other scholars may examine for a criticism of my views. For most of the data that do not raise points of

controversy, however, I have rather practiced economy with footnotes. v

vi

PREFACE

The background information for much of the historical discussion in Chapter Two came from material evadable in the reading room of the British Museum and in the Archive General de las Indies at Seville, to whose staffs I owe much. I am also indebted to Dr. Carlos P. Rornulo and Dr. Dioscoro Urnali, dent and vice-president, respectively, of the University of the Philippines, for forbearance from the former and hospitality from the latter while I was writing; for some time, likewise, the help of my colleagues on Dr. Rornulo's staff was critical. My graduate students in Political Science in the first semester of 1964 clarice it several points with their doubts and

questions. Finally, I record the great debt I owe to my wife Aurora, for patient prodding and constant encouragement, and to her there-

fore I gratefully dedicate this book. O.D.C.

CONTENTS

ONE

Contemporary Philippines

1

The New Nations of Southeast Asia, 1 ; The PhilipPines Today: Cultural Dualism, 3, The Landscape of Underdevelol:ment and Growth, 7 ; The Dual

Economy,

10,

Politics-A W/oricing Democracy,

13; Foreign Relations--Back to Asia, 77 TVVO

The Historical Background

2.1

Before the West: Barangays, 21 ; Spanish Rule:

Pueblos, 24; Principality, 27; Rise of Hacienda Agriculture, 29; Christianity and Filipino Society, 34;

The Colonial Equilibrium, 54; From Resistance to Nationalism, 56

THREE

The Transitional Society The "Co-Optation"

of Nationalism, 65; The

6s New

Nationalism, 72; Problems of Integration, 77; Graft and Corruption, 78; The Transitional Society, 87 FOUR

The Parties and Politics The Politics of the Iiustrados, 93; The Parties, 95; The Unrepresented Interests, 1o7, Recent De~ velopments, 1 1 2 ; The Voters: Their Impact on the Parties, 117; The Emergent Interests, 118

vii

93

viii FIVE

CONTENTS

Trends and Prospects

125

The Preblenu of Government, 125; The New Politics, 129; Epilogue, Suggested Readings

141

Index

145

ONE

CONTEMPORARY PHILIPPINES

The New Nations of Southeast Asia The region of Southeast Asia forms a fully opened fan, tilted, with its cur-ved outer rim starting north of Australia and continuing upward along the graceful northwesterly arc of the Indonesian archipelago, as far as Burma. Then, downward, North and South Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia on the mainland are hunched closely together, and the Malay peninsula points deep into the heart of the fan. At the northeastern part of the region, where the base of the fan would gather together, is the Philippine archipelago. . Southeast Asia today is one of the active centers in the s'lZirrnis°lhling of the cold war. It is a "hot spot" in the cold war not merely because its products of rubber, tin, rice, petroleum, and other raw materials are important to the world economy, and therefore to world politics. More significant, the crises in Vietnam, Indonesia's "Crush Malaysia"

policy, and the guerrilla war in Laos reflect what are probably the three most dynamic sources of danger for the free world: the instability of most of the new nations; aggressive nationalism; and the struggle for the whole of Southeast Asia itself, which indirectly engages the forces of world communism on the one hand and those of the Western powers and their allies on the other. lt is all too clear that these three problems will remain for a long time, for the situation of Southeast Asia in the 19603 owes much to the heritage of its colonial past, and to the divisive forces of the postwar world. Indeed, the liquidation of the colonial empires in the region after 1945, which at the time seemed to be the solution to the problem of peace in a war-weary world, only gave way to new and more serious 1

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CONTEMPORARY

PHILIPPINES

difdculties. The newly independent nations were confronted overnight with primary and pressing problems: mass poverty and illiteracy, inelhcient economic systems, rapidly growing populations; the pressure of their pe-ople's desires for expensive new government services and consumption goods; and graft and corruption in politics and administration, which reflected the irreversible weakening of traditions and social values under the impact of social and political change.

Compounding these problems, for many countries, there was added that of organized subversion from both within and without. The excolonialist Western nations, for their part, discovered that their own interests did not end with cutting off of colonial ties. And so the nations of Southeast Asia were never left alone to solve their problems by themselves. Each year of independence saw their limited resources taxed and their energies dissipated by the maneuvers of the cold war within their borders. It is instructive, for instance, to remember that in the hostilities in Laos and Vietnam, not only most of the arms and supplies of war, but the strategic decisions as well, came from outside Southeast sia. Many nationalists in Southeast Asia had looked forward to independencd as a sort of magic door to economic development, social prosperity, and national pride. For most, the 195os and the beginning of the 196o5 were disappointing. The day after independence found almost every new country rich in enthusiasm, but poor in resources and taxed by diliicnlties; the liquidation of colonialism had left a dubious legacy-of illiteracy, backward economic systems, administrative inexperience, and stifled growth in general, the after-

math of World War II and the ensuing guerrilla wars had released revolutionary social forces; and the dynamic politics of world and regional conflict more o f t e n thrust the new states into the arena of national survival rather than elevated them to honorable places in the rornanticizcd councils of the nations. The new states of Southeast Asia since then have had to learn how to live with internal tension, how to j e down expansive hopes to stubborn realities, and in their foreign affairs how to forge relationships with each other and with the other nations of a world in change.

It is not surprising that the eitorts to solve new and complex prob'Except Thailand, which was never colonized. It faced, however, essentially Sizniiar social and political problems.

CONTEMPORARY

PHILIPPINES

3

lens have led to innovations in ideology, political style, and even social institutions in some of the new nations. There is much misunderstanding in the \Vest about these innovations. \Vcstern leaders and scholars have often regarded the emerging sociopolitical ideas and institutions of Indonesia, Burma, or the Philippines as inadequate irritations or even perverse distortions of those in the 'West. This is of course a common error. It arises from the indiscriminate use of language and concepts from a vocabulary that has grown out of the experience of the West. The fact is that the peoples and leaders of the new nations have been seeking workable national ideologies, social forms, and political techniques to meet problems and to achieve goals that have arisen from their own specific, and nonVi/estern, circumstances. But for all these innovations in Southeast Asia the new states are not wholly new societies. There is mach that is new, but there is perhaps more that is old. Every step toward the future must be taken either along or against the channels cut by past events and the hounds of historical national circumstances. ' l i e emergent patterns

in Southeast Asia, as elsewhere, must therefore he seen against the background of history. The Pfiilippines Today: Cultural Dualism

The Republic of the Philippines is an archipelago with a land area of some 115,600 square miles. The northernmost offshore islands lie less than 15o miles south of Formosa. In the Pleistocene era the Philippines was connected by land bridges to Borneo, Java, Sumatra, and

mainland Asia; today the old land bridges are submerged, but their peaks survive as the Pala van and Solo island groups, which almost secure the archipelago to Borneo like a pair of broken anchor chains. Continental Australia is more than 25 times bigger in size, but the Philippines is almost three times larger in population. Onlyy Fifteen or sixteen other nations in the world in fact have bigger populations; the Philippines estimated 1963 population of 30.2 million places it below Poland and slightly above Turkey. The history of the Philippine nation is reflected in the general character of contemporary Filipino culture. The Islamic and Hindu cultural influences (trade and religion) that s'dll loom so large in present-clay Southeast Asia are relatively insignificant features of Filipino

CONT E M P O RARY PHILIP PINES 4 culture. This is because of the location of the archipelago, which lies at the northeastern terminus of the long route from Arabia and India. The peninsular countries of the mainland likewise effectively served as a protective screen against the southward expansion of political ambitions and migration from China. Although the Chinese population figures significantly in the Philippine economy, and although Chinese elements are notable in many Filipino families, the Chinese component of the population today is less than in the other countries

of the region. In the sixteenth century the archipelago received the vanguard of the European political and cultural expansion in Southeast Asia. Since Spain was in the forefront of this expansion, and as the Spanish thrust came from the east through the Americas, the Philippines this time was the point of entry into the region- The same route was followed by the United States in the closing phase of Western imperialism in the grand nineteenth»century style. Long before the arrival of the Europeans, however, Arabic and Asian cultural influences had been firmly assimilated in most of Southeast Asia. These historical and geographical circumstances greatly explain the unusual position of the culture of the Filipinos vis-&-vis their ncigh~ hors. Islam remains firmly established in southern Mindanao, and Sanskrit elements are found in Filipino languages. But the non-indigenous features of the basic institutions in Filipino society-religion and politics-carne from the YVest. The disunited communities that were scattered over the archipelago in the pre-\Vestern age were centralized into a political and administrative

entity during the

Spanish occupation. The overwhelming majority of Filipinos are professed Christians rather than Muslims, Buddhists, or Hindus. linported political structures, socioeconomic ideologies, and legal concepts are rooted in American and European sources. But in their search for their national identity the Filipinos now seen finally to have returned their perspectives to Asia. It is true that President Diosdado la/lacapagal's eiiorts at a confederation of Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia (MAPHILINDO, 1963) proved to be abortive, but it was a significant step, and the intellectual and emotional forces that sustained those efforts still remain. Still, the debate over their

search for identity has a long although interrupted history, going

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CONTEMPORARY

PHILIPPINES

5

back to as early as the io2os. The historical ties with the Vi/"est will certainly continue for some time to indigence fundamental Filipino perspectives, and thus sustain the East-\Vest dualism in Filipino ideology and political orientation. lt is necessary at this juncture to point out the perils involved in analyzing Filipino society and culture primarily in terms of conspicuous foreign influences. When these influences happen to have been introduced under the auspices of victorious colonizing sovereignties, their significance is grossly exaggerated. European and American cultural imports seen in tropical Asia never fail to draw attention to themselves. In the Philippines, the result has been a tendency to look at the indigenous culture as a passive and rather insignificant

eornponent, and to assign to the foreign elements the decisive role in the shaping of Filipino culture. The extreme extension of this view leads to the conclusion that there is in fact no Filipino culture per se. This view cannot he correct. The two most significant cultural imports into the Philippines from the Vv'est were Christianity from Spain, and republican democracy from the United States. But Filipino Christianity is different from that of Spain, as Filipino politics is

different from that of America. In both cases these great institutions from the West had to come to terms with a local culture that was strong enough to resist being replaced or swept away-and, in fact, strong enough to force modifications in the foreign institutions. The Filipinos were selective, reinterpreting and even rejecting Spanish re» ligious beliefs and American political values, Hispanic Christianity and American democracy were fundamentally

reshaped to lit pre-

Western spiritual notions and social processes. Thus, for instance, Filipino folk Christianity reconciles in one system the rigid monotheisrn of Christian dogma alongside of beliefs in a world of minor spirits that solicitously guard over dwellings, trees, rivers, trails, fields, and forests. In addition, the professedly Christian members of the Philip» pine Independent Church and the Iglesia no Kristo venerate Filipino heroes or spiritual leaders as saints; in the ___census these two sects had a total membership of almost 1.7 million. in politics, e Filipino legislator and his American counterpart cannot perceive and act out their roles in identical fashion; their constituencies are

conl»

rnunities of differing cultures, and the voters who elect diem regard

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CONTEMPORARY

PHILIPPINES

politics and government from different perspectives. The "borrowed" elements in Filipino culture, whatever their origin, were "1-Tilipinized" in the process, and are therefore distinctively Filipino. In any event, the vast majority of Filipinos live outside of the sphere of ,governrncnt and religion. Their basic concerns are making a living and maintaining a system of smooth interpersonal relationships. The search for a livelihood is still carried on with tools and methodscarabao-drawn plow and rain irrigation-in a world where nature, rather than technology, remains dominant. Social relationships revolve around a modified family-centered focus, which perforce leads to a highly personalized value system governing one's dealings with others. The Weltanschaiiung that emerges from such an environment is limited. The Filipino national community is essentially an aggregate of local communities where the vocabulary of ideas, the inventory of interests, the system of communications, and the order of values are local. Filipino society and culture as a whole present a snprastructure in which the local elements are integrated at the top through the formal institutions of government and organized religion, but the infrastructure is a vast base of locally and personally oriented systems. It is at this base where integration is least effective and visible. Were it otherwise, problems of tax collection, graft and corruption, loose discipline within the political parties, and inadequate execution of economic development plans would have been sharply reduced in the period since 1946. The cultural picture in the 196os consisted of two sectors. One was urban, with cities like Manila, modernized, exhibiting many of the

characteristics that are usually associated with modern technology and Western industrial societies. The other was rural, traditional in spirit and values, reflecting the durability of the indigenous pre~W'estern culture. The dichotomy was not rigid and clear-cut. National govcrnmental programs of technological innovation had begun seeping into the farming villages at an accelerated pace by the 19505, and the Filipinos who moved into the offices of business corporations and governmental agencies had not yet entirely divested themselves of the ethics and values of their traditional society. The nation communicated with the outside world through modern channels and with the voice of the modernized Filipino elite; the cultural atmosphere,

..--."'

CONTEMPORARY

PHILIPPINES

7

however, was domiuslfed at home by the Haver of the way of life of the Filipino masses, who lived in a balance with nature and the land. The Landscape of Underdevelopment and Growth

The face of the land is best seen from the air. The archipelago is cut up info more than 7,ooo islands of which, however, only about Soo are inhabited. The rest are rocks or beautiful coral formations that break the surface of the sea. Only O11 the biggest islands, Luzon and Mindanao, are there any points that are as much as 75 miles distant from the coast. The principal smaller islands comprise the Visayas group, between the larger two. From the air the view is tropical, and except for the striking insular pattern, it is unmistakably

a Southeast Asian landscape. lt is the face, over-all, of an underdeveloped but developing country. At one extreme the countryside is

marked by small communities where there has been little change over the last too years; at the other, stand centers of urban life and modern technology, in constant commerce with the outside world. The basic patterns of human settlement were set centuries ago: dwellings followed the lines of the coast or hugged the river banks. Today the lineal pattern persists, and the traveler by aircraft observes elongated settlements of houses strung thinly along the roads and highways that were laid out in modem times, The highways and rivers are slender ribbons, and branch roads quickly become trails. Most Philippine farming villages, called "barrios," are oft the road. The farmers' houses are clustered together by the fields that are planted to rice, corn, vegetables, and other crops of small-scale agriculture.

Here, life is lived today as it was half a century ago and is only beginning to be reached by modern influences: in the main a balance between man and nature prevails. The barrio population is larger

that that of any other sector; about 75 per cent of the total population dwell in nonurban areas. The presence of man is more visible in the poblaciOn, which is the center of the town or municipality, the administrative unit over the barrio. Here there is a municipal government building, grade schools and sometimes secondary schools, shops, and a public market where barrio produce is brought to be sold. The layout of the ,bobluciOn follows the pattern established by the Spaniards, with the church,

8

CONTEMPORARY

PHILIPPINES

town hall, school buildings, and residences of the chief citizens around

-broken

a public square; the streets regularly cross at right angles. Most Philippine municipalities, nevertheless, wear the aspect of rural towns. The capital of each province is usually an urban center sprawling over on both sides of the highway, and in the older provinces the capital sits at the site of the chief Pueblo, the poblacién of the old Spanish provincial divisions. Towns are still grouped into provinces tor administrative purposes. The Philippine town is supported chieHy by the agriculture around it. The largest plain is the Central Plain of Luzon, extending from Manila to the Gulf of Lingayen in the north, although even here the terrain is such that tlle mountains arc never out of sight. Rice and sugar are the chief crops of this "breadbasket." There are narrow strips of coastal plain in the Ilokos, facing the South China Sea, planted to small iielcls of rice and tobacco. Tobacco farming is more extensive in the Cagayan Valley, also in northern Luzon, but the gently rolling country is outside the main lines of road transport and is consequently awaiting development. Southern Luzon is coconut "J country, as well as the center of abaca farming, which produces the famous Manila hemp. In the Visayas, the northwestern part of Negros Island is covered with modern sugar plantations and sugar mills; in the less hilly portions of Panay much rice is grown; the island of Cebu, where Cebu City was founded in 1565, has few level areas, and is severely eroded owing to extensive timber cutting for the building of the old Spanish galleons on the historic Manila-Acapulco route. The large southern island of Mindanao is the "land of promise" to many Filipinos. Although the nation's population grew by no less than 42.7 per cent in the intercensal period between 1948 and 1960, that of Mindanao more than doubled in the same period. Its topography is varied, Chara cterized by mountains with thick forest cover currently cut by timber companies; upland plateaus planted to pineapple and coffee; open grassland and plains cultivated to rice and abaca; and great rivers and lakes. Other important agricultural crops are coconut and rubber. The predominant patterns of nature and a_grlilcuTture .are sharply as one approaches the capital city. The capitals of Southeast Asia are often referred to as "primate cities." The primate city is a dramatic feature of the Southeast Asian landscape, a great urban cen-

CONTEMPORARY

PHILIPPINES

9'

her set in the midst of a tropical rural scene. It is an inheritance from the age of V/estcrn colonialism, having been the seat of the colonial administration as well as the center of cosmopolitan culture, trade, and westernization. Today most of the capital cities in Southeast Asia pace the rest of the country in growth, and development literally spills over and into the areas around them. They have grown in size and become even more iirrnly established in the post-independence period, following the organization of new and expanded bureaucracies, and owing to migration from the countryside (often insecure due to un-disbanded guerrillas), the rise of light industry, the growth of foreign trade, and the attraction of employment opportunities, higher incomes, and varied consumption goods.

Manila, leading city of the Republic, has a long and rich history. Its founding by Spanish conquistadores in 1571 was just in time to destroy the Erst Muslim outpost on Luzon, and thereby halted the advance of Islam northward from Mindanao. Dutch fleets and Chi~ nose adventurers threatened it in the sixteenth and seventeenth centurics, and the British occupied it for a while in 1762. It passed from Spanish to American hands in 1898, signaling for the historians the end of the prolonged Spanish presence in Asia and the emergence of the United States as a power in the Pacific. The ancient and massive defensive walls of the old Spanish city are now battered ruins, casualties in the Japanese and American lighting of 'World War II. The influence of American public building architecture survives in the remassive government oirlice buildings, but Filipino stored statclf architects and builders have given their city a new and modern look since independence. Manila is a cosmopolitan, modem metropolis. Its avenues and streets are heavy with motor traffic, and hotels arid night clubs vie for locations along its elegant bay front from where is seen the justly famous sunset across Manila Bay. But its character is distinctively Filipino. The city leads the rest of the country in absorbing the cultural and technological imports that come into the Philippines. Here they are stamped with the mark of the local milieu and modified or

m

2 The official capital is neighboring Quezon City, a suburb in prewar days, with a population of 392900 in 1960- Nevertheless, the chief onces of the national government remain in Manila.

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CONTEMPORARY

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adjusted to the demands of local needs before they are assimilated

into the culture. Manila's population grew from 623,493 in 1939 to 983,996 in 1948 to 1,145,723 in 1969, The low increase in the 1948-1960 period indicates

that the limits of the capital's capacity to absorb population from the provinces were being reached. A new pattern was in fact emerging, for a ring of satellite cities had grown around Manila, and the population for this zone increased from 372,934 in 1948 to 985,496 in 1960. The Greater Manila area had an aggregate population of 2,131,219 in the latter year. Growth begets growth. The rise of this urban concentration provided the market which stimulated the growth of service industries in and around the area. At the same time, the technical skills that tend to develop in an urban center made possible the setting up of new establishments for light industry-textiles, chemical and related products, food, paper, fibers, metal, and medicinal and pharmaceutical products. The newer, more significant, manufacturing lines were as~ sernbly plants for a wide variety of electrical appliances; motor vehicles

-Bacon-od

under American, European, and Japanese licenses, and agricultural machinery. An increasing number of components for the new products were being made locally, with local skills and capital. In the nearby provinces, to take advantage of the lower provincial taxes and costs and still be near the Manila area, modern petroleum refineries were set up by Caltex, Shell, Esso, and Filoil--the last being an all-Filipino capitalized enterprise. Beyond the Greater Manila complex, as might be expected, the tempo of urban and economic growth was rather slower. In 1960 there were only seven other towns and cities w e in populations over 100,ooo: Cebu, San Carlos, Iloilo, and the Visayas; and Davao, Basilan, and Zambo in Mindanao. should be noted that city-status in the Philippines is formal and granted by legislative charter; a few chartered cities therefore have fewer than 10,ooo residents, and several are rather more rural than urban in physical characteristics. The Dual Economy

In the 19605, then, the Philippine economic system reflected the characteristics of the classic developing economy. The large rural

CONTEMPORARY

PHILIPPINES

11

sector, with its backward agriculture supporting a population living at or near subsistence levels, maintained a traditional way of lite and resisted the technological innovations that would bring it into the modern world. This sector was part of the colonial inheritance. The smaller urban sector was fairly prosperous, arid hospitable to rnodcrn _techniclues and new ideas. Its energy and tcnrperarnent represented the new illilles of social change that were at work with more or less revolutionary impact in the developing nations of the postwar world. As elsewhere, the tension posed by the existence of two disparate systems in a sing old, the other new--generated pressure and problems which seemed to require modern solutions. In the rilippines the problem was to expand the modern, monetized economy in order to bring into its sphere the ultimate integration of the backward rural economy. Before the 19605 there were in fact two economic systems in the Philippines: the modern monetized sector typified by Manila and its faetorysuburbs, and the traditional non-cash economy of the rural farming sector. The farmers in the barrios were usually shareeroppcrs working snrall plots for landlords. After harvest the individual farmer was left with a share that almost invariably made it impossible to put aside anything for savings. For the rest of the household needs he and his family grew vegetables around the house, trapped fish in the flooded rice paddies or nearby streams during the rainy season, and raised some chickens or pigs for the table during the fiestas or holidays. At this level of living the farm family did not participate in the money economy except occasionally to sell vegetables or fish in the II

11

J

town market, iN return for which the fanner's wife brought home a length of cheap cloth to sew, salt, and occasionally a tin or two of sardines for a festive family meal. The average farmer had no taxable income or property. The sophistics-ted fiscal and monetary policies of the national government did not reach him, and the statistics on national income and gross national product represented his contribution in the form of assigned accounting values. The Philippine government, predictably enough, approached the problem in the fashion common to almost all the new states-i.e., by planning. A series of three-year, jive~year, even ten-year development plans, a new one adopted by alrnost each new party in power, was formulated beginning soon after 1946 when independence was won.

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CONTEMPORARY

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The record has been unavoidably spotty. At a time when no Filipino economists had kept up with the developments in social and economic analysis during the war years, the earliest plans were drafted with considerable help from American advisors. 'lliese experts brought to the problem approaches and concepts inappropriate to local circumstances. Even today, with Filipino economists in charge, there is an inevitable artificiality in planned programs; such plans are based on an expectation that growth incentives and "pump priming" arrangements directed at the modern monetized sector of the economy will have "multiplier" or other expansionary effects upon the rural nonmonetized sector. By the 196os, wiser from experience, governmental planners aimed at socioeconomic development, with deliberate at-

tention given to education, skills training, health, and agricultural extension. In 1963 President Macapagal succeeded in pushing through the Philippine Congress an ambitious agricultural land reform law that would abolish sharecropping tenancy, create leasehold farmers who would eventually own "family-size" farms, and provide a wide

variety of government technical and credit assistance to the new farmer-owners.3 Planned economic development is further complicated by political opposition of vested interests, as well as by irnpondcrablcs of social psychology and of the processes of cultural change. Present attitudes in the Philippines about the modernization of the rural economy are therefore based on hopeful expectations rather than precise calculation. The record by the 1960s did in fact show some important gains.

The old colonial relationship-under which Philippine export agriculture developed only to supply raw materials for American factories, and in which the Philippines was no more than a market to absorb American manufactures, from safety pins and nails to shoes and corned beef-had been significantly altered. This change is reflected in the following figures. Seventy-one per cent of Philippine exports in 1949 went to the United States and 29 per cent to the rest of the world, in 1958, 56 per cent went to the U.S. market, 44 per cent to other countries. Philippine imports from the United States accounted for So per cent of their total imports in 1949; by 1958 this had fallen to 52 per cent, compared to 2.7 per cent and 14.5 per cent, espec» s

Republic Act No. 3844, passed in 1963.

CONTEMPORARY

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13

lively, from Japan in the same two years. Imports from Europe accounted for 3.5 per cent in 1949, and 13.3 per cent in 1958. Those LS m a r i gtqthat lilai'pillo producers and traders had to seek other markets, establish new trading channels, make ditlerent financing arrangements. The pattern of almost total dependency upon the vicissitudes of the U.S. market had been modified. At the same time the domestic market was growing, as indicated by a notable increase in the number of local manufacturing and processing establishments. Growth was also reiiected in the comparative contributions to the national income from the two sectors of agriculture and inanufacturingz 43.3 per cent and 7.9 per cent respectively in 1943, which were substantially revised in 1958 to 33.7 per cent for agriculture and 17.7 per cent for manufacturing. It is a well-known feature of economic development that manufacturing grows in relative importance as agriculture declilles. Local manufacture of formerly imported articles went hand i11 hand with the impressive emergence of a Filipino entrepreneurial and managerial class, the training of the most skilled and largest pool of workers and technicians in Southeast Asia, and the broadening of the growth base of the national economy as a whole. The over-all expansion of the economy well beyond the limits set during the colonial period, and its development along new directions-in just two decades--suggest how vital to national and economic development were the strains and challenges of political freedom and national independence. Politics: A Working Democracy

The Philippines became a fully recognized republic in 1946, the first of the new Asian nations to achieve independence after VVo1'ld "far H. For once, the colonial order was liquidated in friendship rather than in anger. The transfer of power from American to Philippine sovereignty was effected through constitutional procedures, and

in iaet followed the timetable that had been laid down by the U.S. legislature in the Philippine Independence Act of 1934. The constitution that the Filipinos drafted for themselves for commonwealth status under American sovereignty (19354946) required only minor modifications for the HCW Republic, so that potentially difficult problems of transition were avoided through the continuity of key political arrangements

and leadership. By the 19608, problems and all, the

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C()N'I'E8iPORARY

PHILIPPINES

Fliilippines ottered satisfying evidence of political maturity and sta bility along the lines of constitutional democracy. . ttqyernrncnt unitary in structure. A federal arrangement, considering the archipelagic fragmentation of the country, could have generated difficulties for National unification. The centralization is reflected also in the nature of the chief of state, a president elected every four years by direct suffrage of the national electorate. He is vested truth adequate constitutional powers that allow a virtual constitutional dictatorship during emergencies. Separate and coordinate status is enjoyed by the legislature and the judiciary, similar to the American system. The Congress is bicameral. The upper c h a m e r is a Senate with twenty-four members elected at large, eight of whom

are elected every two years for six-year terms. The constitution provides for a maximum membership of 120 for the lower chamber, the House of Representatives, the members are elected every four years from single-member districts. A supreme court Is at the apex of the judiciary; below it are a court of appeals, courts of agrarian and industrial relations, and district and municipal courts. The strength and prestige of the legal profession in the country have contributed greatly to the stability and independence of the courts as effective guardians of the constitutional order. A well-established iurisprudenee has invariably tended to resolve the tension between political and civic discipline on the one hand and private rights and political liberties on the other in favor of the latter. The Philippine press and radio are indeed uninhibited, and a government official or political leader almost never wins a case of slander or libel. The Filipino journalist, un-

like his colleagues in so many neighboring countries, goes about his profession without fear of arrest or harassment from the authorities. \Vitllin the framework of a recognizably `WVestcrn political structure, processes take place that are unmistakably of local inspiration and growth. Nowhere in the world is defection of political leaders

from one party to another so respectable and frequent. The late President Ramon Magsaysay (1953-1957) was a clefcctor from the Liberal to the Nacionalista Party. Wholesale defection transformed the Liberal minority in the congressional elections of 1961 into a legislative majority shortly after the new session started. High- and low-ranking political bosses earn newspaper photos, rather than eensure, upon their f.'al