From Wiki: Legacy[edit source] Marcos' family and cronies looted so much wealth from the country that to this day investigators have difficulty determining precisely how many billions of dollars were stolen. However, it is estimated that Marcos alone stole at least $5 billion from the Filipino treasury.[69][70] The Swiss government, initially reluctant to respond to allegations that stolen funds were held in Swiss accounts,[71] has returned US$684 million of Marcos’ wealth.[72][73][74] According to Jovito Salonga, monopolies in several vital industries have been created and placed under the control of Marcos cronies, such as the coconut industries (under Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr. and Juan Ponce Enrile), the tobacco (under Lucio Tan), the banana (under Antonio Floirendo), the sugar industry (under Roberto Benedicto) and manufacturing (under Herminio Disini and Ricardo Silverio). The Marcos and Romualdez families became owners, directly or indirectly, of the nation's largest corporations, such as the Philippine Long Distance Company (PLDC), of which the present name is Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT), the Philippine Airlines (PAL), Meralco (an electric company), Fortune Tobacco, the San Miguel Corporation (Asia's largest beer and bottling company), numerous newspapers, radio and TV broadcasting companies (such as ABS-CBN), several banks( most notably the Philippine Commercial and Industrial Bank; PCIBank of the Lopezes now BDO after merging with Equitable Bank and after BDO acquired the merged Equitable PCI), and real estate properties in New York, California and Hawaii.[75] The Aquino government also accused them of skimming off foreign aid and international assistance.[citation needed] Many laws written by Marcos are still in force and in effect. Out of thousands of proclamations, decrees and executive orders, only a few were repealed, revoked, modified or amended.[76] Few credit Marcos for promoting Filipino culture and nationalism. His 21 years in power with the help of U.S. massive economic aid and foreign loans enabled Marcos to build more schools, hospitals and infrastructure than any of his predecessors combined.[77] In the 2004 Global Transparency Report, Marcos appeared in the list of the World's Most Corrupt Leaders. He was listed second behind the late President of Indonesia, Suharto and he was said to have amassed between $5 billion to $10 billion in his 21 years as president of the Philippines.[78][79] During the ICIJ's (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) expose of Offshore leaks in April 2013, the name of her eldest daughter, Imee Marcos appeared on the list of wealthy people involved in offshore financial secrecy. It was revealed that she is hiding parts her father's ill-gotten wealth in tax havens in the British Virgin Islands. [80][81]
According to Blas Ople, when Marcos came to power, 15% of households were connected to an electric power grid. When he left power, the figure was 86%. Blas Ople himself was a Marcos technocrat, of course, but on the basis of my knowledge of the institutions that he left behind, such as the Labor Code and the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, he was a very good one.
If he was that good, why are filipino taxpayers still paying of foreign debts 27 years after he was kicked out of office? He borrowed large amounts of money that succeeding administrations have had to endure. Less than half of that money was used for social or infrastructure projects. Wonder where the rest went
Never said Marcos was good; I was just pointing out that he was not all bad, either, and a couple of the Presidents since then have been less than wonderful. Blas Ople was, and is after his death, very much respected for improving the lot of the ordinary Filipino.
On a more jovial note, I must ask myself how many in the 86% do actually pay for their electricity and don't extract it illegally from overhead wires... I don't have much experience of teh Philippines, but what I saw in Cebu City and Talisay made me cringe.
Elsa's family are die-hard Romualdez supporters, and they truly believe Imelda, BongBong or Imee can save the Philippines. They even told me that Marcos himself built the San Juanico bridge linking Samar and Leyte. They just can't see what a monster Marcos was. The truth is, the whole of the Philippines is corrupt. There is corruption at all levels of government; from the Barangays right up to the Presidents. Whats so funny and so tragic at the same time, the people just can't see it. Estrada becoming Mayor of Manila is an example.
Sadly, there is no "golden age" of clean politics to look back to. The "pork barrel" was in operation by 1925. The 1949 election was the most corrupt and most violent in Philippines history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_general_election,_1949 The Harry Stonehill affair showed corruption at all levels of Philippines politics - http://fyumul.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/harry-stonehill-case.html and ... so things have gone on. Lets hope that the public outrage at the levels of greed and corruption suggested by the "whistleblowers" in the JVN scandal ha a positive effect.
Also from Wiki: The Philippine government today is still paying interest in public debts incurred during Marcos' administration. It was reported that, when Marcos fled, U.S. Customs agents discovered 24 suitcases of gold bricks and diamond jewelry hidden in diaper bags and in addition, certificates for gold bullion valued in the billions of dollars were allegedly among the personal properties he, his family, his cronies and business partners surreptitiously took with them when the Reagan administration provided them safe passage to Hawaii. When the presidential mansion was seized, it was discovered that Imelda Marcos had over 2700 pairs of shoes in her closet.
As a serious and impartial study of the rise, reign and fall of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos I recommend "America's Boy", by James Hamilton Paterson. http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Boy-Century-Colonialism-Philippines/dp/0805061185
