Chapter Seven All Politics Is Local, nineteen forty-six to nineteen sixty-four
Chapter Seven All Politics Is Local, nineteen forty-six to nineteen sixty-four
In this chapter, we discuss the tenure of the first five postwar Philippine presidents: Manuel Roxas, Elpidio Quirino, Ramon Magsaysay, Carlos Garcia, and Diosdado Macapagal. These presidents committed themselves to a national economic development plan based on close ties with the United States. Having encountered lower-class insurgencies in the past, they promised to "liberate" the peasantry from bondage but stopped short of destroying landlord power. Instead, they attempted to expand agricultural productivity through technological inputs, credits, and social welfare programs. Opening up the largest land frontier in Mindanao also provided a safety valve for the volatile countryside.
All five presidents adhered to the democratic rituals established in the Commonwealth era, despite occasional attempts to subvert the rules of the game. They were also practitioners of patronage, but were enjoined to steer the newly independent country toward full "modernization." In the regional context of the Cold War-Communist victory in China, the politics of non-alignment in Southeast Asia, and expanding nationalist-Communist revolution in Indochina-they wanted to prove "American-style" democracy superior to its radical rivals. These pressures and the challenge of a domestic Communist rebellion demanded attention to effective governance. "Islands of state strength" began to appear inside the postcolonial Philippine state. At the same time, however, the institutional and social limits on state building became abundantly clear.
The End of "Partyless Democracy"
The End of "Partyless Democracy"
Perhaps the most dramatic political change in the postcolonial period was the unraveling of Manuel Quezon's project of strengthening the presidency. It began almost as soon as the United States reaffirmed Filipino control of political and economic power. Although most former officials of the "Second Republic" were back in the political arena within a year or two, new actors were also set to join the game. These new "local strongmen" were without the landed wealth of the older generation; their power derived from education and professional talent, black market speculation, or arms and networks they acquired as guerrilla leaders during the war.
Ferdinand Marcos of Ilocos Norte and Salipada Pendatun of Cotabato are illustrative cases. Marcos and Pendatun were son and protégé, respectively, of colonial officials; they both earned degrees at the prestigious University of the Philippines College of Law, made their mark as lawyers, and joined the war. After independence, with their private armies and wartime prestige, they launched political careers in the legislature. Ramon Magsaysay of Zambales province did not complete his college education, but wartime exploits became his passport to provincial governorship and eventually the presidency.
Private armies were essential to these strongmen, because postwar economic difficulties and the limited resources available as they were entering politics meant vicious competition with equally ambitious rivals. But coercion was not enough: The most successful strongmen rose by establishing electoral and patronage alliances with older elites, families who had amassed their wealth and earned their political spurs during the American period. Many rising politicians therefore sought alliances with sugar barons like the Lopez family of Negros Oriental to win election to Congress and even the presidency. Together the allies had the money, connections, and force necessary to deliver votes from northern Luzon to frontier Mindanao. In Congress and the executive office, the new leaders worked to defend and promote local interests against attempts within the state or by reformist social forces to shift power away from the provinces and the localities to the central state. Eventually overcoming their limited political experience and carving out their own niches, some would challenge and overpower their old patrons.
After the formal grant of independence in nineteen forty-six, these factions of the postwar elite created a republic that was in important ways the antithesis of the Commonwealth. It put Congress on an equal footing with the presidency, restrained executive agencies by retaining the legislature's power to approve the national budget, and kept the military on a tight leash via congressional appointment and promotion. Four interrelated changes enabled this reversal: the marginalization of Quezon's allies; the end of virtual one-party rule; the expansion of the electorate by removal of the literacy qualification; and the subordination of state and party interests to the "scattered, particularistic" interests of political clans and family networks.
The unraveling of state centralization began when those who shared the late president's idea of "constitutional dictatorship" were eased from power. José P. Laurel and his allies in the Second Republic had always been disliked by the United States for their anticolonial nationalism; when they were tried as "Japanese collaborators," the Americans remained cool, undermining their position within the Nacionalista party. Even President Sergio Osmeña who had succeeded upon Quezon's death was politically weakened by wartime exile and General Douglas MacArthur's patronage of other politicians. Moreover, in an attempt win popular support, Osmeña associated himself with the Democratic Alliance, a coalition of radical Nacionalistas and the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas. This drove away landed elites, who feared Osmeña would revive and implement Quezon's "Social Justice" program.
The battle was first joined within the Nacionalista party over the issues of collaboration, distribution of war damage compensation, "back pay" for government employees, and peasant mobilization in response to violent attacks by the Philippine Constabulary and landlords' private armies. Leading the assault on "old guard" centralizers was Manuel Roxas, a prewar senator and favorite of Quezon and MacArthur. Roxas was joined by provincial leaders who did not want the return of a powerful central state under Osmeña and by the new strongmen whose immediate concern was consolidating their provincial power. An intrusive central state was neither to their liking nor in their interest. The Nacionalistas eventually split; Roxas and his allies established the Liberal party, and the first postwar election became a hotly contested two-party battle. Roxas was endorsed by MacArthur and Quezon's widow, thereby gaining a slight edge over the aging Osmeña, who was snubbed by the popular general. That Osmeña was defeated by a mere two hundred three thousand votes suggests that many people still identified with the Nacionalistas and were suspicious of the new politicians.
Some observers welcomed the Liberal party victory as a "healthy development that tended to disperse the illusion of executive omnipotence." Campaigning was intense, as suffrage had been universalized and it was through the parties that votes were mobilized. Carl Landé explains the interdependence of votes, money, favors, and office:
Candidates for national offices need votes, which local leaders with their primary hold upon the loyalty of the rural electorate can deliver. Local leaders in turn need money to do favors for their followers, and this the candidate for high offices can supply. Local leaders also need a constant supply of public works projects and services for their localities. Holders of high elective offices such as senators and congressmen ... can affect the supply of projects and services.
Block voting had been retained from the Commonwealth to ensure that voters were mobilized for the whole party slate, not for individual candidates. So although the parties were driven mainly by patronage, they also tried to project an identity-Nacionalistas as the party of Quezon, Liberals as the party of the new republic-especially in urban areas. For a brief period, the two-party system represented different interests and generations and competed for voters as organizations, not simply as loose associations dominated by individuals.
From the perspective of creating an effective central authority, however, the "healthy development" of two-party competition was a step backward. While some argue that, from the beginning, there was no fundamental programmatic difference between the parties, Nacionalistas who served with Quezon or in the Second Republic knew the value of a strong executive and the power of nationalism to motivate service to the common good. Claro M. Recto, Laurel, and Osmeña were still committed to centralizing the capacities of the state to strengthen the nation. The Liberals, in contrast, had little use for nationalism once the Philippines was independent. With Roxas's election, power reverted almost entirely to their local bases. Henceforth, those who sought to use the presidency to govern would have to work through elaborate patronage networks of politicians whose main concern was strengthening their own power, not assisting in the construction of an effective national authority.