Republic of the Philippines

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5

Aquino Presidency

Aquino took office amid high expectations that she would undo all of the wrongs of the Marcos years. She quickly used her presidential powers to free all political prisoners, abolish censorship of the media, replace many officials installed under Marcos, and institute legal proceedings to try to recover Marcos’s ill-gotten wealth. Domestic support for Aquino was severely undermined in January 1987, however, when about 15,000 demonstrators gathered at Manila’s Mendiola Bridge to demand land reform. In what became known as the Mendiola Massacre, government security forces opened fire on the protesters and killed at least 20 people. The incident illustrated that the military was not under Aquino’s control. The public’s disillusionment only intensified after the incident when Aquino turned the issue of land reform over to the mostly conservative legislature.

A new constitution, endorsed by Aquino, was approved in a national referendum in February 1987. It provided for a bicameral legislature and a president as chief executive. It limited the president to one term of six years and gave Aquino a mandate to govern until June 1992. Aquino won a vote of confidence in the May 1987 legislative elections when parties allied with her Lagas ng Bayan (People’s Power Movement, an opposition party founded in 1978 by Benigno Aquino) won a majority of seats in both houses.

Meanwhile, the Philippines faced massive foreign debt accrued during the Marcos years. The Aquino government was obliged to seek debt relief from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which required severe austerity measures and structural reform. The government dismantled monopolies established under Marcos, eliminated a wide range of tax exemptions that had benefited Marcos’s associates, and sought to decentralize state participation in the economy in order to stimulate the private sector. However, the government failed to institute substantive reforms to alleviate the poverty in which most Filipinos continued to live. A land reform law approved by the legislature in 1988 was largely ineffectual due to loopholes and lack of enforcement.

Another initiative of the Aquino government was to negotiate a cease-fire with Muslim rebels who had been fighting a secessionist war in the southern Philippines since the 1970s. In August 1986 the government agreed to grant autonomy to four Muslim provinces on Mindanao as part of a cease-fire truce with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF); however, subsequent negotiations became deadlocked. The MNLF demanded autonomy in 23 provinces, while other Muslim guerrilla groups that were excluded from the negotiations continued to demand complete independence. In November 1989 the government arranged a plebiscite in 13 provinces to vote on the proposal of autonomy. The MNLF appealed to Muslims to boycott the vote. However, four of the provinces voted in favor of the government proposal for autonomy and became the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

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The Philippine military was hostile to Aquino’s policy initiative to negotiate with the rebels. Aquino survived several coup attempts, most of which were led by dissident factions in the armed forces. The unwavering loyalty of Aquino’s defense minister, Fidel Ramos, and continued United States support helped Aquino stay in power. In December 1989 U.S. Air Force jets assisted Philippine government forces in suppressing a coup attempt that included officers loyal to Marcos. Juan Ponce Enrile, whom Aquino had dismissed as minister of national defense after a 1986 coup attempt, was implicated in the abortive coup and arrested in February 1990. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court declared Benigno Aquino’s murder trial a mistrial and a new investigation was initiated. In September 1990 a special court convicted 16 military officials of the murder, as well as the murder of Benigno’s alleged assassin.

In June 1991 the unexpected eruption of Mount Pinatubo in central Luzon killed hundreds of people and caused massive, widespread damage. The United States evacuated nearby Clark Air Base, which the eruption had rendered unusable. In September the Philippine Senate adjudged the U.S. bases to be infringements of Philippine sovereignty and refused to renew the leases. United States forces departed from Subic Bay Naval Station in 1992, and Clark Air Base remained closed.

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Ramos Presidency

Aquino endorsed Fidel Ramos for the 1992 presidential elections. In the political maneuvering leading up to the election, Ramos failed to win the nomination of the ruling party, Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP), and registered a new political party, EDSA-LDP. His party then changed its name to Lakas ng EDSA (Power of EDSA) and became part of a multiparty electoral alliance called Lakas-NUCD (National Union of Christian Democrats). Ramos narrowly won the election against several candidates who were Marcos loyalists, including widowed Imelda Marcos.

Ramos was the first former professional military officer to become president of the Philippines. He used his knowledge of the Philippine military to reestablish a tradition of civilian control over the armed forces. He also built on the process of restoring democracy to the Philippines by addressing the nation’s most difficult economic and structural problems. Ramos pursued an ambitious economic reform program based on privatization and deregulation, opening banking and business to foreign investment and transferring government assets to private ownership. He moved quickly to resolve the country’s serious electric-power shortage, which had been a detriment to economic growth, by investing in the domestic power-generating infrastructure. His government improved tax-collection policies and practices, and this combined with the growing economy to generate higher tax revenues for the government. In 1994 and 1995 the country had its first consecutive government budget surpluses. Despite many improvements, however, unemployment remained a serious problem because population growth continued to outpace the creation of new jobs. Voters signaled their support of the largely successful economic reforms by electing a majority of Ramos-backed candidates to the legislature in 1995.

In the early 1990s, meanwhile, secessionist Muslim groups renewed their guerrilla war in Mindanao. Negotiations between the Ramos government and the MNLF formally began in 1993 and resulted in a lasting peace agreement, signed in September 1996. Other rebel groups, including the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Abu Sayyaf, continued guerrilla activities. The MILF demanded an expansion of the Muslim autonomous region, while the more radical Abu Sayyaf group demanded a separate Islamic state.

In 1997 supporters of Ramos explored the possibility of amending the constitutional stipulation that restricted the president to a single term in office. Corazon Aquino and Cardinal Sin organized a demonstration to protest the proposed amendment, leading Ramos and his supporters to drop the issue. For the 1998 elections, Ramos and the ruling coalition, Lakas-NUCD, gave their support to Jose de Venecia, the House speaker. Joseph Estrada, vice president under Ramos and a populist politician, entered the race as a candidate of his own party, the Partido ng Masang Pilipino (Party of the Filipino Masses), which entered a coalition with two leading opposition parties. Estrada campaigned on promises to work toward improving the lives of poor Filipinos. He won the election with the widest margin ever in Philippine politics. The office of vice president went to Lakas-NUCD candidate Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a former senator and daughter of former president Diosdado Macapagal. Although Lakas-NUCD won a majority of congressional seats, more than half of the members defected to Estrada’s coalition, Laban ng Masang Pilipino (LMP; Struggle for Filipino Masses), after the elections. Macapagal-Arroyo then represented the political opposition, led by Lakas-NUCD, which also drew support from Aquino and Cardinal Sin.

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Recent Developments

Ongoing peace negotiations with the MILF collapsed in 1999 when President Estrada adopted an all-out-war policy against all rebel groups. The military offensive displaced approximately 600,000 people in central Mindanao. By this time, more than 120,000 people were estimated to have died during the three decades of ongoing hostilities between Muslim rebels and the Philippine government.

Meanwhile, the Estrada government faced a downturn in the economy brought on by the Asian financial crisis of 1997. This was compounded by a drought that negatively impacted agricultural output. The government sought to take steps toward fulfilling its promises to alleviate poverty and undertake land reform and agricultural development. At the same time, it needed to reassure the business community that it would continue the economic reforms that the two preceding administrations had pursued.

A major focus of the Estrada administration was “food security,” which involved agricultural modernization and major infrastructure-development projects. Despite its rhetoric, however, the government did not make much progress in implementing its “pro-poor” platform. The opposition became more outspoken in its criticism of Estrada, and his administration became embroiled in allegations of cronyism and corruption. The corruption allegations led to Estrada’s impeachment by the House of Representatives in November 2000. His trial in the Senate was suspended in mid-January 2001, however, after the prosecution team resigned to protest the suppression of evidence. Thousands of Filipinos then took to the streets of Manila to demand Estrada’s resignation; however, Estrada retained strong support among the urban and rural poor.

Meanwhile, Vice President Macapagal-Arroyo formed a strong opposition alliance, the United Opposition, within the government. The massive demonstrations, resignation of most of the president’s cabinet, and loss of support among top military officials led to Estrada’s ouster on January 20, after the Supreme Court declared the presidency vacant. Macapagal-Arroyo was immediately sworn in as president.

Early in her presidency, Macapagal-Arroyo declared a suspension of offensive military operations against the MILF and pursued a policy of reconciliation with the group. In August 2001 the two sides signed a cease-fire agreement, and peace negotiations continued, with Malaysia acting as intermediary. The government, meanwhile, continued its military crackdown on the secessionist Abu Sayyaf group, which was linked to terrorist activities, such as kidnappings and bombings. In the 2001 legislative elections, Macapagal-Arroyo won a popular mandate to govern the country when candidates she had endorsed won control of the Senate. The people of the Philippines elected her to a full, six-year term in the presidential election of 2004.

In 2005 Macapagal-Arroyo survived an impeachment effort mounted by her political opposition. The opposition entered impeachment complaints against Macapagal-Arroyo, alleging that she had interfered in the 2004 elections to secure her own victory. Her administration also came under a cloud in a separate incident when her husband, son, and brother-in-law were accused of corruption. But in September 2005 the House of Representatives threw out the impeachment complaints. See also Filipino Americans.

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