How did a few change a nation’s course?

“Marcos is a product of the political system here, not the cause of that system.”

Opening with this observation, US Ambassador Henry Byroade began a detailed assessment of Ferdinand Marcos who had just entered his second term as president of the Philippines, the only one in our history ever reelected. Byroade wanted to give his assessment to President Nixon in person but since that was not possible, he wrote it out in a letter, dated May 13, 1970, instead of including it in his general report that would be seen by too many eyes in the White House and the State Department. Now declassified and published as part of the “Foreign Relations of the United States” series, it makes for engaging reading almost half a century after:

“As I see it, Marcos is a product of the political system here, and not the cause of that system. His training in that system here has been in fact nearly all of his adult life—through the Congress, the Senate and now the Presidency. The whole atmosphere has been one of public expectancy that anyone able to move through these ranks would capitalize financially on their positions—and anyone who did not would be considered naive indeed, if not downright incapable. This is one of the things that I predict will change, but we are only in the initial phases of this now.

“Politics is still the single biggest industry in the Philippines. Candidates for public office spend huge amounts of their personal wealth in campaigns. If elected, they usually recoup these amounts while in office. Marcos is no exception to this. Marcos, like other Filipino politicians, has always been corrupt by American standards, but by Filipino standards he is no better or no worse than other Filipino politicians. Some several persons close to the President say that during his first term in office he amassed a multimillion dollar fortune, although there is no absolute proof of this. Yet when you compare his performance with that of past Filipino Presidents, such as Garcia and Macapagal, Marcos has done more for the Filipino people than many of the Presidents combined. He built more roads, pushed through miracle rice, built school houses, etc. While the opponents dismiss this with the phrase “the more projects, the more kickbacks,” nevertheless there is material evidence to show that Marcos did carry through with his infrastructure program better than anyone before him had done.

“Marcos is a typical Filipino. While money normally is power anywhere in the world, in the Philippines it would seem, many times, that money is the only thing that counts. Marcos believes that to keep the feudal-like political barons from his throat, he must amass sufficient wealth to keep them in check. When you ask a Filipino who may have $20,000,000 why he continues to amass greater amounts of money, he will give you a simple but honest reply: “That’s the way the game is played in the Philippines.” Marcos also believes that anything can be bought in the Philippines and he may be right, at least for the time being—but as I say in my main report, I believe a beginning at least is being made in a change in the system.

“I have no doubt that Marcos will endeavor to recoup the private monies that he spent in getting reelected. Whether he will have the good sense to at least stop there, I just don’t know. He is not engaged in petty or small things such as the corruption around our bases. He is a very sophisticated operator and anything he does will be well concealed through others in such things as private investment, stock market manipulations, etc. ”

As a martial law baby, I grew up knowing no other president but Ferdinand Marcos. At one point I even thought Marcos came with the tacky, gilded, ridiculously-carved, high-back chairs he sat on in Malacañang. Then came Edsa I and my coming of age. Before 1986 almost everything, including the air we breathed, was pro-Marcos; after 1986 everything was yellow and anti-Marcos.

Reading up on the Marcos period in 2017 is as challenging as my previous work on the 19th-century Philippines; there are heroes and villains and people in between. How did a handful of people change the course of our nation’s history? Going beyond textbook history, we are confronted by a more complex narrative that may help us make sense of the present.

Comments are welcome at [email protected].