The Atlantic Report on the World Today: The Philippines

WASHINGTON is becoming more and more disturbed over the fact that our special ward in Asia, the Philippine Republic, is slipping rapidly into a condition of social-economic distress. The peoples of South Asia, particularly in the newly independent countries — India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Burma — look to the Philippines for a rough index as to whether American ideas of political and economic organization can be successfully applied to their own countries. But even more searchingly these former colonial peoples look to American relations with the Philippines for evidence of the Soviet accusation that the Philippines constitute a demonstration of modern American imperialism.

The United States won high regard throughout Asia by granling independence to the Filipinos; some of this was seriously undermined by the lopsided provisions of the Philippine Trade Act of 1946. Equitable on the surface (the act established duty-free trade between the U.S. and the Philippines until 1954), this trade agreement allows American products to flood the Philippine market in unlimited quantities, whereas Philippine exports to the United States are rigidly restricted. American businessmen and American capital are given the same rights as Philippine businessmen and Philippine capital — which necessitated a change in the Philippine Constitution.

The economic advantage to American manufacturers and the necessity for United States military bases in the Islands gave the Communists ammunition in the propaganda war. A new and rapidly growing belief, fostered by the Communists, is that there is a parallel between American support of Chiang Kai-shek and our present support of what they feel is an undemocratic government in t he Philippines.

The flagrant violations of the democratic process in the last Philippine elections and President Truman’s statement of June 27 on Korea, in which he announced that the United States would build up its armed forces in the Philippines and give more military aid to the present government, have been cited in the propaganda which the Communisls have been spreading.

By far the most critical factor in the Philippine situation is the deep-seated, widespread discontent among the three quarters of the population which earns its living from agriculture. It is this that provides the Communists with the growing base upon which they are building up their power.

It is no accident that the chief center of Communist power lies in fertile but overcrowded central Luzon, the largest island and the one on which Manila is located. Here is found the highest rate of peasant tenancy in the archipelago, over 60 per cent. Here, despite legislation to the contrary, most tenants receive no more than half of what they produce on their miserable plots of land, and this amount is further diminished by the high interest they must pay on their hopeless and frequently inherited indebtedness to their landlords.

Since the days of Spanish rule this area has been the chief center of agrarian discontent and fitful peasant resistance to autocratic and feudalistic landowners. It was the peasantry of this district which formed the Hukbalahap, the chief guerrilla resistance against the Japanese. Originally nonCommunist, this organization was gradually penetrated by Communists until today its leadership is dominated by them.

The Communists and the Huks

Despite repeated government attempts to crush it, it has not only maintained its strength but has grown. At present numbering an estimated 10,000 armed men, the Hukbalahap controls considerable tracts of some of the richest rice lands of Luzon as well as much more extensive areas of hill country. During the summer it sent raiding partics to within twenty miles of Manila.

The amalgamation of the Constabulary with the Philippine Army may improve the situation. But offsetting this must be noted the resignation on August 13 of Ruperto Kangleon, the able Secretary of Defense, in protest against President Quirino’s refusal to remove four generals for gross incompetence in the Army’s own campaign against the Huks. His replacement by a man who advocates the use of blowpipe-toting Igorotes and bloodhounds to fight the Huks does not sound very promising.

The organized offensive power of the Hukbalahap is still only a fraction of that of the Philippine Army. However, continuance of the social conditions which now provide it with peasant backing will give it a defensive power against the Army that makes highly probable not only its survival but its growth to much more formidable proportions.

Who pays to run the country?

An inadequate and irresponsible fiscal policy, wherein the wealthy elements in control of the government avoid paying anywhere near their share of the cost of running the country, has resulted in a perennially heavily unbalanced budget, a huge national debt, an increasing inability to pay civil servants, and an inflationary pressure that is provoking serious unrest among an already underpaid labor force. Only 6 per cent of the national revenue in 1 he Philippines comes from taxation, compared with 20 per cent in the United States. Of this 6 per cent only 15 per cent comes from the income tax, the tax that bears on the wealthier elements. In the United States about 75 per cent of tax income is from the income tax.

Of the nearly one billion dollars in American post-war economic assistance to the Philippines, probably more than half has been spent recklessly and unfruit fully or has found its way into the pockets of prominent political leaders. Surplus property originally worth one billion dollars, with a resale value of between 200 and 300 million dollars, was turned over to the Philippine government by the United States, and brought in only some 43 million dollars to the Philippine treasury after its sale was managed by politicians or their favored friends.

Graft and corruption scandals involving high government officials have become commonplace. One of the most recent involved the sale of a large agricultural property to the government for nearly twice its value. A Philippine Senate investigating committee charged that for putting through this deal President Quirino’s brother received $250,000 and the Secretary of Justice an additional $125,000.

Not only do high government officials indulge in practices of graft and corruption, but minor civil servants, attempting to survive in a period of growing inflation, frequently have no alternative but to supplement their low salaries by resorting to the smallscale opportunities for graft that their own positions open up to them. Tax collectors can best compensate for their salaries by halving tax assessments for the many persons willing to pay them a substantial fee for such consideration. The declining level of probity among civil servants is undermining public faith in the government and is eating into what was an already unsound financial structure.

No trustworthy opposition

A further aid to the Communists in the Philippines is the absence of an effective non-Communist progressive movement. Thus, as in China, basically non-Communist peasants as well as a number of well-educated persons ordinarily disinclined to Communist methods are backing the Communists simply because there is no other effective, organized force which champions social change.

There is a grave danger that this phenomenon may become as important among the ranks of labor as it is becoming among the peasantry. One of the largest labor federations is now predominantly under Communist control. Other than the Communists, t he only effective champions of labor are the Jesuits. They are doing good work in labor’s behalf but need more support.

The blocking of constitutional political channels to pressure for social reform has been an important reason for the inability of Filipinos to develop an effective non-Communist, progressive political organization. The issue of collaboration with the Japanese, which was red-hot at the end of the war, gave the initial impetus to bipolarization. It was from the ranks of the great landowners who now dominate the government that the chief collaborationists came. Thus opposition to collaborationists as well as opposition to the agrarian social pattern meant opposition to the dominant element within the government.

The Communist claim that it was American policy to help collaborationists gain control of the government is certainly opposed to the facts. But General MacArthur’s intervention in political matters made it easy for them to spread this lie. His whitewashing of charges of collaboration against Manuel Roxas was undoubtedly of great help in getting Roxas elected President.

Once in that office, Roxas was able to stop the widespread movement to oust his collaborationist colleagues from the Senate and court positions which they had inherited from the pre-war period.

The failure to expel these advocates of the pre-war political and economic status quo brought a number of Filipinos to believe that it was useless to work for social reforms through constitutional channels. That belief has become more general since last year’s elections, when Quirino’s party had recourse to dishonesty, intimidation, and violence on a scale far greater than has ever before been recorded in Philippine elections.

Technically there is a two-party system in the Philippines, the Liberal Party controlling the government and the National Party in opposition. In practice, however, there is a oneparty system. The social tenets of these two parties, despite campaign platforms, are basically the same, Both parties are dominated by landlord and commercial interests among whom the incidence of collaboration was high.

There are some enlightened progressives such as Senator Tenada, who has recently broken away and attempted to form a party of his own, and some enlightened and realistic conservatives such as the economically self-sufficient Vice-President, Lopez. Such men constitute the chief hope but they are a small minority within the ruling group.

Self-help with our aid

There are still those in Washington who react to the political instability in the Philippines primarily in terms of containment by military force. But the application of military force alone cannot solve a problem that is created principally by unhealthy economic and social conditions.

However, many leaders of the Philippine government believe that since the United States cannot afford to see a Communist victory in their country, it has no alternative but to bolster their government with the necessary military and economic aid. This conviction has made them all the less disposed to contribute their share of the funds for the reforms required to correct the social discontent on which the Communists capitalize.

It is the difficult task of the American government to disabuse Philippine leaders of this dangerous belief and to convince them that we are genuinely interested in helping them maintain political stability by more realistic means. Though, in response to American pressure, they have imposed strict and reasonably efficient import and exchange controls and have dropped some of their more wasteful and graft-ridden economic development projects, they still must put their house in order.

Because of this and the increasing conviction in Washington that the Philippine government must make a real effort at self-help by means of basic social and economic reforms if American economic and military aid is to have any long-run effectiveness, President Truman late in June dispatched the Bell Mission to the Philippines at the request of President Quirino.

In its report made public October 28, this group of economists and technical experts emphasized the absolute necessity for a demonstration of the Filipinos’ willingness to help themselves before any American program of economic assistance can be carried out. American pressure to get the Philippine government to help itself must be applied in such a fashion as to win the backing of the majority of the Filipinos and not violate their nationalist sensitivities.

It is still not certain how far the Philippine government will go in carrying out its part of the bargain. But it is certain that unless it gives more than lip service to the principle of “government for the people,” American aid will not be effective. If the Philippine leaders continue to drift in the present direction the result will be either domination by the Communists or a totalitarianism of the Right, and will mean for South Asia a further dimming of the attraction of American ideas.