Present past
Who would have thought that our generation would survive a pandemic? Who would have even imagined that we would see the day when an ex-Philippine president will be arrested and made accountable for crimes against humanity in an impartial and international court? For someone used to seeing history seemingly repeating itself, it is amazing to note the few times that we see a break in the cycle.
In 1945, Jose P. Laurel was arrested at Osaka airport by Allied forces, imprisoned in Sugamo Prison in Tokyo, and brought back to stand trial for collaboration in 1946 before a people’s court. The process was cut short in 1948 when Manuel Roxas declared an amnesty, so we did not have closure. Joseph Estrada was undergoing impeachment in 2001 when people power II cut the proceedings and again, left us without closure. Our justice system works, but it does so very slowly and is affected by political winds, so let’s see how the Duterte trial in The Hague will play out.
As a historian, I have to wait two decades after the events to ensure that passions have cooled, and fashions have passed. More so, time provides a wider perspective, with secret documents declassified and all the actors having given their versions of the story for a historian to unravel or untangle. With the senatorial and congressional elections coming up, we are deluged by mugshots of candidates littering our streets and vistas. On air, we hear them promising financial aid and a better life for the poor even if their job description will be to craft laws and leave enforcement to the executive branch of government.
In the 1965 presidential elections between front-runners Diosdado Macapagal and Ferdinand Marcos Sr., there were a lot of declassified United States intelligence analyses that are not obsolete as some people might think, but reveal key aspects of what needed improvement then, what remains till our time, and how we can change rather than repeat history. A Central Intelligence Agency analysis, dated Oct. 27, 1965, titled “Too Close for Comfort,” predicted a close race with Macapagal winning by a slim margin. They might have been wrong on that point, but the painful part of the conclusion read:
“Regardless of a Macapagal or Marcos win, the Philippines as such, and specifically the Filipinos, stand to gain very little indeed. Interesting as the current elections may be, the principal fact which they point up is a continued deterioration in the Philippine situation. The elections serve to aggravate and perhaps make more readable that situation; there is little chance the results will improve it.”
On Nov. 26, 1965, the results were out. Marcos defeated Macapagal and the postelection scenario makes for close reading:
“Most basic consideration is probably that Marcos will be unknown quantity in lonely eminence of Presidency. Whereas both Macapagal and Marcos prize power, former sometimes appeared inept in its use and unsure what he wished to do with it. Marcos appears to measure it carefully and to be very sure of uses to which he puts it.”
By Feb. 17, 1966, the US Department of State, Central Intelligence Agency, and National Security Agency provided a National Intelligence Estimate for the Philippines to inform policy decisions in Washington:
“The Republic of the Philippines has many problems, though few are as immediately critical as those facing other Southeast Asian states. There is no present external threat to its independence. There is no serious internal subversion or insurgency … There is virtually no chance of an attempted coup; democratic elections are the accepted method of achieving political power …
“The key problem is a deep and growing economic cleavage between upper and lower classes, and the failure of successive administrations to carry out programs adequate to remedy this situation. The situation is aggravated by the prevalence of widespread violence and lawlessness in the cities and in the countryside, and longstanding and pervasive corruption in government.
“Discontent among the peasants, who comprise almost two-thirds of the Philippine population, stems primarily from a feudalistic system of land tenure and unsatisfactory landlord-tenant relations … In the urban areas, the major problem is unemployment … In the cities, the pressure of a large unproductive manpower pool is manifested in low wages, poor working and living conditions, high crime rates, and other serious social problems. Among the educated unemployed, radical causes tend to flourish.
“Philippine governments have been largely ineffective in efforts to ameliorate these basic problems.
“The Philippine political system does not lend itself to bold initiatives or sustained performance by the government in the fields of economic development and social welfare.
We see the present in these 60-year-old documents. When do we stop repeating the past? When we learn from the past.
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Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu
