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The Philippines: An Economic Diamond in the Political Rough
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17860 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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3 / 1990 |
1,600 Words |
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Richard Martin
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It has been four years since Corazon Aquino was swept into office as president of the Philippines, riding the yellow-bannered People Power revolution that deposed the 24-year dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.
In those giddy days of 1986, when the Filipino people seemed ready to unify at last and create a functioning prosperous democracy in the beleaguered island nation, not even the most pessimistic forecaster could have predicted the mess that the housewife-turned president now finds herself in.
Even before the December 1 coup attempt, which turned Manila's financial district into an urban battleground, Aquino's political fortunes were in decline. Her approval rating had fallen from 79 to under 60 percent for the first time in her presidency. Public confidence in her government had evaporated, for the same reasons that the mutineers of early December would cite: Aquino has failed to revive the decimated economy rapidly enough. Internally, her government is languishing from corruption and the threat of the Communist New People's Army. In some ways Aquino has been the victim of the jubilant expectations her peaceful takeover inspired; her greatest failure has been the inability to relieve the rural misery of Filipinos.
The ambitious land reform program, one of the cornerstones of the Aquino administration, has stalled completely in bureaucratic wrangling and financial scandal. The program, intended to break up the huge estates common in the rural Philippines and dilute the communists' recruiting base by increasing the standard of living, was delayed and watered down in Congress by the powerful landholders' lobby. Soon after its inception, it was revealed that the Agrarian Reform Ministry had paid close to $3 million for marginal land assessed at less than $150,000. Agrarian Reform Secretary Phillip Eila Juico was fired by Aquino and 24 officials resigned. For weeks, the Manila papers were filled with coverage of "Land-scam." Hacienda Luisita, Aquino's family estate in Tarlac Province, was not split into small holdings but taken public, issuing stock in the estate to tenant farmers gradually, over the next 20 years. Land reform turned into what opposition politician Blas Ople called "the supreme embarrassment of the Aquino government".
Growth amid decline
The economy grew at an impressive 6.7 percent in 1988, but the perception of pervasive corruption in Aquino's government and family led to charges that the profits were concentrated in a few hands. As in the Macros years, poor Filipinos found themselves cut off from the fruits of lucrative foreign investments. A consumer boom centered in metropolitan Manila in the past year has led to a ballooning trade deficit that could top $2.4 billion for 1989. The economic growth rate, in any case, is overshadowed by the country's 2.8 percent annual population growth, an issue that the devoutly Catholic Aquino has not addressed.
The long-awaited multilateral aid package established by the United States and Japan, expected to bring in at least $5 billion in development funds over the next five years, was slowed by reports that billions of dollars have yet to be spent by the government. The Philippines is still faced with a $28 billion foreign debt. Also embarrassing for Aquino, whose husband spent eight years in Macros' prisons and was assassinated on his 1983 return to Manila, were
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