The early republic

Roxas, as expected, extended amnesty to all major collaborators with Japan. In the campaign for the election of 1949 there was an attempt to raise the collaboration issue against José Laurel, the Nacionalista presidential candidate, but it was not effective. In the fluidity of Philippine politics, “guerrillas” and “collaborators” were by that time to be found on both sides of all political fences.

The Philippines had gained independence in the “ashes of victory.” Intense fighting, especially around Manila in the last days of the Japanese retreat (February–March 1945), had nearly destroyed the capital. The economy generally was in disarray. Rehabilitation aid was obviously needed, and President Roxas was willing to accept some onerous conditions placed implicitly and explicitly by the U.S. Congress. The Bell Act in the United States extended free trade with the Philippines for 8 years, to be followed by 20 years of gradually increasing tariffs. The United States demanded and received a 99-year lease on a number of Philippine military and naval bases in which U.S. authorities had virtual territorial rights. And finally, as a specific requirement for release of U.S. war-damage payments, the Philippines had to amend its constitution to give U.S. citizens equal rights with Filipinos in the exploitation of natural resources—the so-called Parity Amendment.

The changing character of Philippine–U.S. relations was a major theme in Philippine history for the first several decades after the war. The trend was toward weakening of the link, achieved partly by diversifying Philippine external ties and partly by more articulate anti-American feeling. Economic nationalism, though first directed against the local Chinese community’s dominance of retail trade, by the 1950s was focused on the special status of American business firms.

At independence the military ties with the United States were as strong as the economic ones. Filipino troops fought against communist forces in Korea, and noncombatant engineers augmented U.S. forces in the Vietnam War. Crucial to U.S. military action in Vietnam were bases in the Philippines. The Military Bases Agreement was the greatest single cause of friction in relations between the United States and the Philippines. Beginning in 1965, however, a series of agreements between the two countries reduced the size and number of the U.S. bases and shortened base leases. In 1979 formal jurisdiction over the base areas passed to the Philippine government; and the constitution of 1987 formalized the process by which the bases agreement could be extended beyond the expiration in 1991 of base leases. Extension of the agreement was ultimately rejected by the Philippine Senate, however, and U.S. forces were pulled from the Philippine bases in 1992.

The nature and effectiveness of Filipino political institutions since independence has been a special concern of the former colonial power that helped establish them. For Filipinos, those institutions have determined the ability or inability to maintain domestic social order. Clumsy repression of dissent and the fraudulent election of the country’s second president, Elpidio Quirino, in 1949 set the stage for an intensification of the communist-led Hukbalahap (Huk) Rebellion, which had begun in 1946. The rebellion also reflected a growing sense of social injustice among tenant farmers, especially in central Luzon. Suppression of the rebellion five years later, however, was attributable to American military aid as well as to the opening of the political process to greater mass participation, particularly during the campaign of Ramon Magsaysay, a uniquely charismatic figure in Filipino politics who was elected president in 1953. Magsaysay’s attempts at social and economic reform failed largely because of the conservative outlook of the legislature and the bureaucracy. When Magsaysay died in a plane crash in 1957, leadership of the country fell to his vice president, Carlos P. Garcia. During Garcia’s presidential term and that of his reform-minded successor, Diosdado Macapagal (1961–65), unrest was usually channeled through the electoral process and peaceful protest.

The Marcos and early post-Marcos era

In November 1965, Ferdinand E. Marcos was elected to the presidency. His administration faced grave economic problems that were exacerbated by corruption, tax evasion, and smuggling.

In 1969 Marcos became the first elected president of the Philippines to win reelection. His campaign platform included the renegotiation of major treaties with the United States and trade with communist countries. These promises reflected a change in the self-concept of the country during the 1960s. The idea of the Philippines as an Asian outpost of Christianity was increasingly supplanted by a desire to develop an Asian cultural identity. Artists, musicians, and writers began to look to pre-Spanish themes for inspiration. More important was the trend toward seeking cultural identity through the national language, Pilipino. English, however, remained the language of business, of most government documents, and of the greater part of higher education. Demands that the government meet the social and economic needs of its citizenry continued.

A short-lived sign that the Filipino political system was again attempting to respond constructively to those needs was the choosing in 1970 of a widely representative Constitutional Convention in one of the most honest and peaceful elections in Philippine history. Large student demonstrations urged the convention to undertake a fundamental restructuring of political power.

Marcos, who was approaching the end of his constitutionally delimited eight years in office, had narrower goals: he pressed for the adoption of a parliamentary style of government, which would allow him to remain in power. He feared that the new constitution would not come into force before he lost the advantages of incumbency. At the same time, foreign investors, predominantly American, felt increased pressure from economic nationalists in the legislature.