Our Philippine colony
Morrell, Jim
KEEPING THE ECONOMY OPEN TO FOREIGNERS Our Philippine colony JIM...
...The 1979 State Department human criticized Philippine protectionism and the costs of the rowdy rights report on the Philippines said, "Only very limited steps Philippine elections as interfering with development...
...Congress cut $6.2 million in 1974-1978, and a confidential 1976 memorandum advocated a military aid and the Carter administration abstained on six further increase in the FY 1976-1980 lending program to industrial loans in voting within the World Bank and Asian $1850.5 million...
...Although Marcos was president and was populating government departments with 23 November 1979: 659 his U.S.-trained technocrats favoring foreign loans and in- cies leaves as the only people working effectively for the poor vestments, the Philippine constitution stood in the way of the church social action committees, labor unions, progressive authoritarian rule...
...Even though President Carter and World Bank's gratuitous intervention in Philippine politics, in Congress have reformed AID, it only provided 6 percent of the the U. S. government-sponsored return of the Bank of America total...
...of real wages for the poor...
...foreign aid program...
...Of course, Mayor Rizzo's impending retirement and ISIDORE SILVER is a professor of constitutional law and history at replacement by a presumably more enlightened politician may John Jay College of Criminal Justice...
...Aid to the Philippines since 1971 has been coordinated by an THE UNITED STATES bears a lot of the blame for this out- aid consortium chaired by the World Bank...
...If the main casualty purpose...
...The reformers whom Marcos suppresses are the only would advocate an activist role to support the Marcos ap- people who can lead the Philippines out of its colonized, pointees: impoverished state...
...pines for these protectionist policies the World Bank cut its -$116.7 million in IMF loans conditioned on a reduction loans to about $30 million a year...
...Just by taking the aid we had mobilized Philippine domestic resources even less effec- send there now and redirecting it to the needy, we could tively than the vacillating but independent economic policies quadruple its effectiveness without spending an additional of the previous decade...
...Inward-looking and heav-$644 million in Export-Import Bank loans and guarantees ily protected" Philippine industry and "a spurt in government for a nuclear power plant that may never be built...
...streets, paralyzing public transportation in a city of 6 million, Commonweal: 658 costing the country $3.2 billion for the cars and the gasoline This diversion of U.S...
...There is no other choice if the family is to survive...
...Government financial inpast hundreds of bamboo huts where life goes on almost stitutions such as the Export-Import Bank, the World Bank and unchanged since Western colonization began...
...Before 1972, a bill had been intro- This is the cruel logic of survival today for millions of Filipino duced in the Philippine Senate to require 60 percent Filipino families, after 80 years of close ties with the United States...
...Many of those arrested were working to help the poor...
...Diverse as these aid institutions are, they do act in concert...
...of the U.S...
...multinational corporations...
...officials and the international banks watched these -$900,000 in U.S...
...solve (or at least ameliorate) Philadelphia's problem for a 23 November 1979: 661...
...and multilat- precious billions for foreign oil to burn in foreign cars, in the eral aid to the Philippines...
...alists...
...The scene is the IMF have replaced the traditional bilateral aid programs as picturesque, but it costs the farmers 55 cents a bag to send their the chief sources of development capital for the Philippines...
...They culmithere now...
...They have been taken toward the restoration of democratic governoverlooked the fact that long-term indigenous development ment...
...Although some of the backgrounds, characteristics and role-perceptions of most brutality may be attributed to certain factors "left over" from policemen in a given "police culture" or (d) all of the above the sixties, suchI as the presence of organized rebels (MOVE in may be relevant, understanding of these factors offers no Philadelphia), much misconduct reflects longer-standing possible solutions...
...ownership of four foreign branch banks...
...cation...
...All are preventable...
...government...
...To punish the Philipworkers more than $1.76 a day...
...In 1970 a widely-quoted the other acronyms are finished dividing up the pie, aid to the World Bank meihorandum praised Marcos for his "comneedy amounts to less than a penny a person per day...
...difficult it will be to change police practices since social policy Again, questions of which departments at which times ex- can rarely uproot and modify relatively fundamental and stable hibit what kinds of patterns of brutality, and why, may be of background patterns of beliefs, attitudes and conduct...
...KEEPING THE ECONOMY OPEN TO FOREIGNERS Our Philippine colony JIM MORRELL million in new Manila offices, all insured against possible Philippine takeover by the U.S...
...While Marcos So now we are at 1979...
...equity and foreign branch banks restored to their former full The country has the resources to conquer both disease and privileges...
...over the Philippine authorities...
...own control of national economic policy...
...Among such "curtailments" it-reported abductions required that native industrial interests have confidence in their and murders of dissidents by the military...
...They run the eight self-sustaining, semi-autonomous ance criteria" that squeeze the poor, in the waste of $3.2 banks that now provide 88 percent of total U.S...
...dence...
...After declaring martial law and abolishing the Sen- schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease borne by an aquatic snail, ate, Marcos decreed Filipino banks open to 40 percent foreign is in the Eastern Visayas...
...Another tortured during interrogation at Camp Crame...
...aid advice Dewey in 1898 and proceeded to destroy the flows in through 12 separate bilateral and multilateral agenSpanish fleet in Manila Bay...
...Since 1975 the Bank of America, Continental Il- malnutrition, but its chaotic market economy squanders those linois and Security Pacific National Bank have invested $32.9 resources on convenience items for the rich and middle class...
...Military aid is the last thing the ernment is to resort as little as possible to outright coercion and Philippines needs...
...The tragic failure of this third devel- dime...
...U.S...
...It's time to give the Philippines its second indepenall hostile to American human rights policy actions...
...coconut products by water buffalo to the nearest road...
...Each of these institutions, however, has its own criteria for The government proclaims great reforms but never carries approving and monitoring loans...
...The infants and toddlers get banks have returned in force, backed by the full faith and credit what is left...
...SOU MAY FIRE when ready, Gridley," said Admiral The United States has got its colony back...
...He is still in jail...
...dum the World Bank also scored the pre-martial law "inap-$16.2 million for Asian Development Bank loans to propriate investment strategy" and "poor utilization of growwealthy Philippine factory-owners who refuse to pay their ing savings and large capital inflows...
...The bank has used come...
...The mother is next, With the Philippine economy reopened to foreigners, U.S...
...The result in 1979 is that the them out...
...Today the World Bank...
...It warned against "legislative or administrative action which would unduly restrict the scope for foreign investment in the country" even as important Philippine industrial interests pushed for policies to favor independent, domestically financed and controlled industrialization...
...followed by the older children...
...Such serious inadequacies cause permanent damage...
...In 1972 President This is a significant omission...
...executive director admitted during a recent board meeting: In 1946 the Philippines received its nominal independence...
...cials do not support police brutality...
...This activist posture placed the World Bank squarely in the vortex of Philippine domestic politics...
...While the question of just why the late seventies has become Thus, while it may well be true that (a) the social conditions (yet another) era of increased concern about police brutality of various municipalities or (b) the social, political and ecomay fascinate ;sociologists, the issue is both timeless and of nomic class interests of local influentials or (c) the personal great concern to the citizenry at large...
...tributed to the destruction of long-standing Philippine demo- The United States has its Philippine colony back indeed, cratic institutions and greatly increased the country's vulnera- complete with poverty, repression and military aid...
...scholarly concern, but the fundamental issue lies deeper...
...In a 1976 confidential memoranhopelessly out of reach of the rural poor...
...They are heard in the obstruct even a well-intentioned president from decisive re- 138 percent increase in military aid, in the IMF's "performforms...
...winner in a physically taxing occupation...
...The A few years ago I was asked by an earnest member of the problem of controlling police abuse is part of the general Pennsylvania Attorney-General's office about my views on question of making police power itself more accountable to the the "Philadelphia problem...
...Trinidad Herrera, a church activist in the Tondo slums, was I N 1972 MARCOS solved the problem of an uncooperative arrested and cruelly tortured in 1977 and was only released legislature by abolishing it and proceeded to muzzle the after pressure from Vice-President Walter Mondale and the press and courts...
...One statistic illustrates the priorities of U.S...
...mendable display of political courage" in forcing through currency devaluation and decontrol policies to encourage foreign investment against the will of domestic interests...
...A PROPOSAL FOR DEALING WITH POLICE BRUTALITY The Philadelphia story ISIDORE SILVER Indeed, just as "solutions" for at least some problems of criminality may have nothing to do with the (presumed) THE PROBLEM of police brutality-calculated and sys- causes-making premises secure by improved technology obtematic rather than random in nature-once thought to viously sheds no light on why burglars "burgle" -police be an artifact of the strife-ridden 1960's has arisen again, criminality may be abated by measures wholly independent of publicly and vividly...
...Ernesto Arellano, a labor lawyer workcapital gains taxes on foreigners, removed stock transfer taxes ing with the poor in Manila, was arrested in June 1979 and and lifted import duties for manufacturing equipment...
...Similarly, as only 64 percent and of older children aged four to nine only 69 the IMF's loans have increased, so has the influence of its staff percent...
...ble...
...The police'have substantial physical and legal power for reform of that benighted group was to restructure the and discretion...
...Indeed, the greater the harmony between problems of police lawlessness toward isolated individuals, these "background" factors and police misconduct, the more especially the poor and members of minority groups...
...There is no other target in sight...
...the au- lactating women only 46 percent...
...At mealtime basic commodities and services in return for a $189-million in a poor family, the father has priority because he is a breadloan...
...tried to become economically independent...
...it must be adequately overseen and controlled, department by removing it from mayoral control-was skeptiirrespective of whether a particular department abuses the cally received...
...Once in office, these bureaucrats shots that Dewey fired still reverberate...
...The World Bank, AID and the Rand Corporation law regime since 1972...
...In a few minutes the cies...
...The bureaucratic slot it occupies is in the area of repression...
...Other legislation Malnutrition leaves its victims easy prey to pneumonia, required Filipino ownership of all new financial institutions .tuberculosis and gastrointestinal infections-the three leading and an end to foreign investment in strategic areas of the killers in the Philippines...
...high tariffs, these measures gave Filipino-owned businesses -$82.5 million for tobacco loans by the Commodity Credit partial control of the domestic economy...
...Concerned bility to the treacherous international economy...
...Corporation to a country afflicted by malnutrition...
...The staff had obviously Pregnant women attained only 64 percent caloric adequacy, played an interesting part in the development of...
...Along with Pentagon says faces no external threat...
...In any event, "causes" tend to be complex-while major portion of the Justice Department's massive lawsuit the Philadelphia department's depredations may be "caused" against the Philadelphia police department, the civil rights suit in part by the twelve-year history of support given by former may presage other legal actions against police forces of cities police commissioner, now mayor Rizzo, it appears that quite (such as Houston) which are vulnerable to charges of systema- different causes are at work in Houston where political offitic civil rights violations...
...decree restored the position of foreign banks...
...In Manila magnificent new office buildings jut into the sky, and in their shadows miserable squatters' huts spill into the JIM MORRELL is an Associate of the Center for International Policy, a streets...
...could announce that the Philippine government was following Overall, the Asian Development Bank estimated 78 percent IMF-favored policies of raising regulated prices of a range of of preschool children have inadequate nutrition...
...The islands have their political and his high-living entourage are among the richest elites in independence, but are economically dependent as ever...
...The Pentagon stated, "The Philippines is to broaden popular support through the development of effec- neither perceived as a threat by other nations in the region nor tive economic and social programs...
...The World Bank, Asian Development Bank and IMF are to Manila...
...By insisting on the Open Door at all costs, by not this pivotal position to oppose Philippine economic letting progressive Filipino nationalists find their own way to nationalism-to keep the Philippines an economic colony...
...By mid-1979 Americans should push for an end and a redirection of the it was obvious that World Bank-prescribed economic policies remaining aid to reach the needy...
...Although a district judge dismissed the the causes...
...After martial law the World Bank increased Development Bank...
...A spate of presidential decrees abolished Canadian government...
...development, Washington has encouraged the kind of exter- Previous to 1972 pressures for militant economic nationalisnally pliant and internally ineffective government that exists tic policies were building up in the Philippines...
...Neither the Fund nor any other agency has yet provided During the 1950s and 1960s the fledgling Filipino industri- advice on how to achieve both progress and social justice at the alists set up high tariff walls, restricted foreign investment and same time...
...There is only one problem with the advice, as an IMF United States had its largest colony-the Philippines...
...In the absence of social Marcos declared martial law, abolished the Philippine Con- justice, lower-class poverty is increasing even faster than gress, exalted the technocrats and reopened the economy to upper-class wealth...
...appoint their representatives- men from the worlds of big The double default of the government and the aid agen- law, big business and big foundations-to run the State and Commonweal: 660 Treasury departments...
...Provide neutral humanitarian aid from afar, but let the Although the name of Dewey Boulevard in Manila has been people find their own way to develop their potentially bountichanged to Roxas Boulevard, to honor a Filipino patriot, the ful islands...
...Imported cars owned by the middle class jam the Washington-based project of the Fund for Peace...
...suggest to the World Bank and associated agencies a lesson in Opposing any such humanitarian reform will be a hard core humility, based on the fact that the half-billion dollars they of giant American multinational corporations who like the provide amounts to-only 2 percent of the Philippine GNP of privileges Marcos gives them...
...That, I was told, would be politically impossipower...
...investment spending for social impact projects" also drew the -$15.3 million for World Bank rural electrification priced bank's retroactive criticism...
...ately poor people than anytime in its history...
...These corporations have the $23 billion and so cannot even begin to substitute for effective inside track in Washington because presidents traditionally mobilization of domestic resources...
...Already the banks and foreign chambers of commerce By the time the IMF, the CCC, OPIC, PL-480 Title I and all looked to Marcos for salvation...
...With the object- In the Philippines, therefore, the issues of political human ing legislature, media and courts swept out of the way, the rights, of basic human needs and of national independence are World Bank's, policies could be carried out...
...By 1976 the bank one...
...Tax reform Philippines, the Eximbank, is also the agency least concerned has benefited no one at all...
...Aiding the needy is "AID's military spending in real terms while starving health and edu- job...
...aid program for 1980 found little cause for alarm...
...development capital for the benefited only 6 percent of the rural population...
...that required 60 percent Filipino equity in all businesses, The rest goes for a bureaucratic horror show: limited the right of foreigners to own large tracts of land and -$123.6 million for military aid to a country that the threatened confiscation of American property...
...In 1977 and 1978 the increase of the World Bank lending program from $157.6 Carter administration and Congress began to correct the earlier million during FY 1969-1973 to $1338.6 million during FY perfervid support of Marcos...
...of this process was Philippine democracy, the World Bank However, the main change in the U.S...
...An active Bank presence also has the effect of strengthen- To help this process along, the United States should adopt a ing the position of the highly capable technical leadership truly neutral role in Philippine domestic politics and press the in the Government and helping them to achieve policy international organizations it participates in to depoliticize objectives, which we endorse...
...Malaria is found in Mindanao and economy...
...For 1980 Carter is also eliminating a $10 its loans to the Philippines elevenfold, against a threefold million Food for Peace loan because it serves no development worldwide increase over the same period...
...Development Bank report complained of the "lack of legisla-$22 million for Title I Food for Peace loans used to tive support for even moderately progressive policies proposed subsidize the Philippine government central budget...
...Government is ineffective, except with aiding the needy...
...My rejoinder was simply to note that this proposal (or In this perspective, discovery of the "causes" of systematic something similar) was necessary since tinkering with the police brutality will not materially aid in discerning solutions...
...aid away from the needy results from they burn, while in the vast countryside 50 percent of the the very structure of a dozen disparate aid institutions, each villages have only dirt roads that are unusable half the year, created at a different time for a different purpose ranging from and another 20 percent have no roads at all, only footpaths disposal of U.S...
...their involvement and provide neutral project or economic aid, More eloquent than these expressions of approval was an sans gratuitous advice on grand strategy...
...policy:nated in the Quasha decision of the Philippine supreme court only 22 percent of our aid to the Philippines reaches the needy...
...Since 1972 Marcos has quadrupled labeled "export credit agency...
...finds Marcos "receptive to In four low-income communities studied, the caloric intake of World Bank advice, particularly when it is associated with adults was 81 percent of adequacy, of infants aged one to three project lending," an internal bank memo says...
...While the country is formally is a 138 percent increase, from $31.8 million to $75.7 milunder martial law," it contended, "the basic strategy of gov- lion, in military aid to Marcos...
...By last June the IMF tion...
...Land reform, promulgated in 1972, has so far largest source of de facto U.S...
...exports to insuring overseas investments of winding their way through miles of verdant coconut groves, U.S...
...They Asia, at the bottom the poorest 20 percent gets only 3.9 percent take their economic advice from the World Bank and Interna- of the national income...
...threatened by them...
...Those most afflicted by nialnutrition tional Monetary Fund, not from their own greedy industri- are the ones least capable of surviving it: infants and children...
...by the government" before 1972...
...problem would only make it worse-as apparently has happened...
...The Philippines today has more desperforeigners...
...If not against other nations, then against Pressure from the World Bank, as leader of the aid consor- whom will the arms be used...
...The nationalists succeeded in winning over opposition candidates and other struggling reformers and radilegislators, the mass media and the courts to their independent cals who have suffered most from Marcos's capricious martial strategy...
...We should depoliticize the aid by channeling it past the opment decade-obvious to anyone visiting the countryside or repressive government directly to local social action committhe urban slums where most of the people live-ought to tees or to uncorrupted officials and administrators...
...government insurance for the developments with growing alarm-an attitude reflected in California-based Security Pacific National Bank's luxuri- subsequent bank documents...
...My answer- that the only hope public...
...A 1975 confidential Asian ous new office in Manila...
...Most likely, against the Filipinos tium of seven countries and four international agencies, con- themselves...
...A survey of the Tondo slums thorities' thinking on the medium-term strategy," said one showed 87 percent of the children with some clinical malnutriIMF official at a closed-door meeting...
Vol. 106 • November 1979 • No. 21
