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It's interesting reading 'between the lines'...the U.S. doesn't give the Phils as good as *stuff* as they give Afghanistan/Pakistan. What kind of partner is that?
Sounds like a one-directional relationship, the Philippines takes, but doesn't give anything back. Which I think is why there is a lot of American indifference about Duterte/Philippines wanting to sever the seemingly one-sided relationship.
When I say "beg" what made you think that we weren't paying for them? I'm not talking of freeloading, I'm talking about trust.
AFAIK, we have never asked or demanded anything from the US for free.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
I don't really see this. There are bases, but there wasn't conscription of Filipinos nor a tax imposed upon them--instead, the US pays to be there. There had rarely been, if ever, any foreign trade fall-out over the US military presence. The US presidency has criticized other country's, including allies, over the last several decades and it's usually much to do about nothing as it doesn't effect much internal change. I think it's ironic to point to Japan as a better aid giver than the US is given the similar starting situations Japan and the Philippines were in at the end of the second war and how potentially destabilizing it is for Japan to have the Philippines and the US actually break from each other.
I think it's pretty clear that it is virtually entirely domestic issues that have the Philippines in its current state since the last several decades. The unfortunate thing is if the government of the country ends up using foreign bogeymen to explain any deficiencies in its own administration. That's a pretty common thing to do--it's actually happening in the US as well now!
Obama ordered Duterte to show up then threatened to withdraw the pitiful USAID given to the Philippines. That's not "criticism", that's wielding power over a perceived underling. If you still don't get it, I'll ask you one question: where is the US condemnation of Saudi Arabia and the far more horrific human rights abuses they have committed over the decades?
As for the bases, you underestimate the worth of having a global military presence. Something China would dearly want. Not to mention we've been there in every war the US has fought. From WW2, to the Korean War, to Bush's Iraq War.
Thridly and most importantly: Marcos. The original reason for the souring of the US-Philippine relationship. Marcos, like most US-friendly dictators during this period (Noriega, Batista, Pinochet, Shah Pahlevi, etc.), was an American puppet. Kept in power because he was anti-communist. Like most CIA experiments, he ended up backfiring on the US in the long run (same thing happened with Iran, Iraq, the Taliban Mujahideen, Cuba, Vietnam, etc.).
Remember the Philippines was THE site of major US bases before Marcos got overthrown. Japanese and South Korean US bases only became more prominent when the Philippine Senate refused to renew the base contracts in 1992 after the Philippines became aware of the extent of CIA manipulation involved in Marcos' regime. We paid our fair share of the relationship... in blood.
And no, I'm most definitely NOT blaming the US for our problems. We brought our real problems on ourselves after decades of government mismanagement, education shortcomings, and the continued interference of the Catholic Church. These are our problems, no one else caused it. And I too do not want the rise of ultranationalists. They are never a good thing.
Heck I think Duterte's reactions were going overboard, and like most Filipinos I cringed at his courting of China and Russia in retaliation. I understand that he's doing it to defuse the tensions, but it still doesn't erase the distaste I feel at hearing him praise two bastions of totalitarianism. But again, neither do I want to remain under US control. The relationship needed to be reset. Friends, sure. Master, no. Again, a fair amount of my friends and family are American citizens. There are deep ties between both countries, regardless of the political atmosphere.
I like Duterte for a very different reason. The fact that he's the first president we have to truly challenge the status quo and the ingrained culture of corruption in our government. That and the fact that he's open to more ingenious ways of improving the country as a whole, and won't shy from stepping on a few toes to get them implemented. Most Filipinos are already sick of the routine pomp and ceremony of the past presidential terms. We don't need a figurehead, we need a leader.
What I resent is the continued impression by Americans that we owe the US anything. We don't.
Last edited by Existential Monkey; 01-24-2017 at 03:28 AM..
When I say "beg" what made you think that we weren't paying for them? I'm not talking of freeloading, I'm talking about trust.
AFAIK, we have never asked or demanded anything from the US for free.
Obama ordered Duterte to show up then threatened to withdraw the pitiful USAID given to the Philippines. That's not "criticism", that's wielding power over a perceived underling. If you still don't get it, I'll ask you one question: where is the US condemnation of Saudi Arabia and the far more horrific human rights abuses they have committed over the decades?
As for the bases, you underestimate the worth of having a global military presence. Something China would dearly want. Not to mention we've been there in every war the US has fought. From WW2, to the Korean War, to Bush's Iraq War.
Thridly and most importantly: Marcos. The original reason for the souring of the US-Philippine relationship. Marcos, like most US-friendly dictators during this period (Noriega, Batista, Pinochet, Shah Pahlevi, etc.), was an American puppet. Kept in power because he was anti-communist. Like most CIA experiments, he ended up backfiring on the US in the long run (same thing happened with Iran, Iraq, the Taliban Mujahideen, Cuba, Vietnam, etc.).
Remember the Philippines was THE site of major US bases before Marcos got overthrown. Japanese and South Korean US bases only became more prominent when the Philippine Senate refused to renew the base contracts in 1992 after the Philippines became aware of the extent of CIA manipulation involved in Marcos' regime. We paid our fair share of the relationship... in blood.
And no, I'm most definitely NOT blaming the US for our problems. We brought our real problems on ourselves after decades of government mismanagement, education shortcomings, and the continued interference of the Catholic Church. These are our problems, no one else caused it. And I too do not want the rise of ultranationalists. They are never a good thing.
Heck I think Duterte's reactions were going overboard, and like most Filipinos I cringed at his courting of China and Russia in retaliation. I understand that he's doing it to defuse the tensions, but it still doesn't erase the distaste I feel at hearing him praise two bastions of totalitarianism. But again, neither do I want to remain under US control. The relationship needed to be reset. Friends, sure. Master, no. Again, a fair amount of my friends and family are American citizens. There are deep ties between both countries, regardless of the political atmosphere.
I like Duterte for a very different reason. The fact that he's the first president we have to truly challenge the status quo and the ingrained culture of corruption in our government. That and the fact that he's open to more ingenious ways of improving the country as a whole, and won't shy from stepping on a few toes to get them implemented. Most Filipinos are already sick of the routine pomp and ceremony of the past presidential terms. We don't need a figurehead, we need a leader.
What I resent is the continued impression by Americans that we owe the US anything. We don't.
Obama ordered? I don't agree that the US should simply must give aid or that if it does that it should necessarily come without concomitant requests.
Marcos shouldn't have been in power as he was and the US has committed multiple foreign blunders though Marcos is an odd case where the US did not intervene in internal affairs. It did provide a lot of government aid to the Philippines as a country though which in a sense was supporting Marcos' regime, but it did not try to support his initiatives (it squarely falls on Marcos and his government that he embezzled from the aid rather than spend it on what it was earmarked for--the US did not make the decision internally for him), and when Marcos was in hot water, the US advised him to leave. This is vastly different from Cuba, Iran and Iraq which I agree were all horrendous blunders though in somewhat different ways.
I think I'd be leery of this foreign relations spectacle as a way to take eyes off of what's happening internally within the country. Quality of life issues have almost squarely been domestic policy issues (extrajudicial killings of journalists and intimidation of the general media establishment preventing transparency of government being a key one) and not foreign relations for the Philippines, so I guess that's basically what's getting worked out. It just seems like the country is trading in for different sets and parameters of quality of life issues. There's a lot of spectacle involved with his presidency--see the wonders of having a honorable burial of Marcos along with this spat with the US. The question is how are his actual policies going to go in respect to improving the life of most Filipinos as time goes on and his policies are put in place. Right now, after effects of the previous administration's governing are still mostly in place and their reforms are probably driving a lot of the growth in the Philippines. A couple of years from now, you'll have to see if there's a slowdown or an increasing rate of improvement.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 01-24-2017 at 06:39 PM..
Obama ordered? I don't agree that the US should simply must give aid or that if it does that it should necessarily come without concomitant requests.
Marcos shouldn't have been in power as he was and the US has committed multiple foreign blunders though Marcos is an odd case where the US did not intervene in internal affairs. It did provide a lot of government aid to the Philippines as a country though which in a sense was supporting Marcos' regime, but it did not try to support his initiatives (it squarely falls on Marcos and his government that he embezzled from the aid rather than spend it on what it was earmarked for--the US did not make the decision internally for him), and when Marcos was in hot water, the US advised him to leave. This is vastly different from Cuba, Iran and Iraq which I agree were all horrendous blunders though in somewhat different ways.
I think I'd be leery of this foreign relations spectacle as a way to take eyes off of what's happening internally within the country. Quality of life issues have almost squarely been domestic policy issues (extrajudicial killings of journalists and intimidation of the general media establishment preventing transparency of government being a key one) and not foreign relations for the Philippines, so I guess that's basically what's getting worked out. It just seems like the country is trading in for different sets and parameters of quality of life issues. There's a lot of spectacle involved with his presidency--see the wonders of having a honorable burial of Marcos along with this spat with the US. The question is how are his actual policies going to go in respect to improving the life of most Filipinos as time goes on and his policies are put in place. Right now, after effects of the previous administration's governing are still mostly in place and their reforms are probably driving a lot of the growth in the Philippines. A couple of years from now, you'll have to see if there's a slowdown or an increasing rate of improvement.
No one asked for the aid. No one expects them to give aid. That's the entire point. To use it as a bargaining chip, especially when it was never that large in the first place is insulting as heck.
Imagine a poor farmer struggling along with his small farm. A rich guy comes by and gives him some money out of the blue. The farmer is grateful and thinks the rich guy was so nice and kind. A month later the rich guy comes back and demands the farmer plant potatoes or else he won't give him money anymore. How do you think the farmer would feel?
As for Marcos, I argue they did. At least until martial law brought it all down. This was during the Vietnam War. Anti-communism was at its height. It's no secret that the Marcos regime was quite brutal on suspected communists, fully in line with American policies. The "aid" given then was more or less a bribe. The US government is not stupid. They fully expected Marcos to pocket the money.
As for media transparency, the Philippine media is quite free. At least on the national level (remember that the Philippine Constitution was inherited from and is virtually identical to the US Constitution). There is no true censorship (just the regular age filters for minors). Nor is there hesitation to criticize anyone they want (they're having a field day with Duterte at the moment). That has always been the case since after Marcos. The only time data got skewed was during the 2009 Maguindanao massacre when two feuding Muslim political clans killed several journalists in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (keyword: Autonomous), when foreign media somehow got this idea that the Philippine press were getting killed left and right. Seriously, open a Philippine news site right now and chances are you'll see one or more articles highly critical of Duterte.
I'm genuinely puzzled at how we're rated lower by RSF than neighboring countries like Malaysia or Indonesia where censorship laws are much much harsher, and criticism of leaders is likely to render you jobless, in jail, or worse.
But yes, whether Duterte pans out to be a good president remains to be seen. My hope is that he focuses more on his promised infrastructure development in other parts of the Philippines and anti-corruption polcies, rather than get embroiled in the political intrigue of Manila or the world. A railway network in the southern islands would be a very good start.
Sadly, so much focus at the moment is on the drug war, something frankly no one really places high on the "problems" list (although it IS still one of the major problems of the Philippines and closely tied with the corruption of the police force and local governments). No one mourns the drug pushers, but at the same time, no one really cared for them that much in the first place. What people care about instead are the drug lords and the government servants who are part of the drug trade.
What we really need is nation building again. Something Marcos was quite good at (though he ruined it all by also being a greedy bastard). There's a reason why Marcos remains quite popular outside of Manila - because he was the only president in the recent decades whose works and reforms are still benefiting the common people today.
The previous Aquino administration may have meant well, but was also pitifully ineffective, like all the other administrations post-Marcos. Aquino failed to implement any lasting reforms. He didn't fight hard enough for the Reproductive Health bill, bowing down to the Catholic Church like a puppy. And his response to the Haiyan disaster and the ensuing widespread corruption of foreign aid was infuriating. Not to mention the simple fact that he comes from one of the oldest political dynasties. His family owns one of the largest haciendas in the Philippines. Everything he does will always be suspect, given that he does have a glaring conflict of interest.
Last edited by Existential Monkey; 01-25-2017 at 06:47 AM..
No one asked for the aid. No one expects them to give aid. That's the entire point. To use it as a bargaining chip, especially when it was never that large in the first place is insulting as heck.
Imagine a poor farmer struggling along with his small farm. A rich guy comes by and gives him some money out of the blue. The farmer is grateful and thinks the rich guy was so nice and kind. A month later the rich guy comes back and demands the farmer plant potatoes or else he won't give him money anymore. How do you think the farmer would feel?
As for Marcos, I argue they did. At least until martial law brought it all down. This was during the Vietnam War. Anti-communism was at its height. It's no secret that the Marcos regime was quite brutal on suspected communists, fully in line with American policies. The "aid" given then was more or less a bribe. The US government is not stupid. They fully expected Marcos to pocket the money.
As for media transparency, the Philippine media is quite free. At least on the national level (remember that the Philippine Constitution was inherited from and is virtually identical to the US Constitution). There is no true censorship (just the regular age filters for minors). Nor is there hesitation to criticize anyone they want (they're having a field day with Duterte at the moment). That has always been the case since after Marcos. The only time data got skewed was during the 2009 Maguindanao massacre when two feuding Muslim political clans killed several journalists in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (keyword: Autonomous), when foreign media somehow got this idea that the Philippine press were getting killed left and right. Seriously, open a Philippine news site right now and chances are you'll see one or more articles highly critical of Duterte.
I'm genuinely puzzled at how we're rated lower by RSF than neighboring countries like Malaysia or Indonesia where censorship laws are much much harsher, and criticism of leaders is likely to render you jobless, in jail, or worse.
But yes, whether Duterte pans out to be a good president remains to be seen. My hope is that he focuses more on his promised infrastructure development in other parts of the Philippines and anti-corruption polcies, rather than get embroiled in the political intrigue of Manila or the world. A railway network in the southern islands would be a very good start.
Sadly, so much focus at the moment is on the drug war, something frankly no one really places high on the "problems" list (although it IS still one of the major problems of the Philippines and closely tied with the corruption of the police force and local governments). No one mourns the drug pushers, but at the same time, no one really cared for them that much in the first place. What people care about instead are the drug lords and the government servants who are part of the drug trade.
What we really need is nation building again. Something Marcos was quite good at (though he ruined it all by also being a greedy bastard). There's a reason why Marcos remains quite popular outside of Manila - because he was the only president in the recent decades whose works and reforms are still benefiting the common people today.
The previous Aquino administration may have meant well, but was also pitifully ineffective, like all the other administrations post-Marcos. Aquino failed to implement any lasting reforms. He didn't fight hard enough for the Reproductive Health bill, bowing down to the Catholic Church like a puppy. And his response to the Haiyan disaster and the ensuing widespread corruption of foreign aid was infuriating. Not to mention the simple fact that he comes from one of the oldest political dynasties. His family owns one of the largest haciendas in the Philippines. Everything he does will always be suspect, given that he does have a glaring conflict of interest.
Well, that was simple. No aid. Fantastic.
No government was aided by the idea that they must pocket the funds personally. Some did, some did not. The Philippines's government at the time did and countless others in the aftermath of WWII did not. Compare this with countless other countries who received funds from the US post-WWII on loan and direct giving bases--the Philippines did uncommonly bad overall and it was internal measures that laid those funds to waste.
I get the argument that the US probably should have cut off aid early on to some extent to not allow the Marcos regime to profit--and what were the alternatives at that point?
You're oddly confused on the issue of the Philippines having wonderful free speech laws and then having to rectify that against outsider (US and otherwise) observations that the media free speech allowances are worse in the Philippines. Does that strike you as more than a bit odd? Can it be that the media is actually more restricted among official and unofficial channels than you want it to seem even compared to what you think should be more restrictive countries? Have you thought maybe you being puzzled is more reflective of the truth given the different metrics used by different agencies or are you going to continue to believe that it must certainly be some kind of artifact of data or personal agenda that targets the Philippines unfairly?
Sure, there's always the off-chance Duterte might work out for the better. Wait and see, then. From what it seems at the point, it'll be similar to Marcos where the current halo effects of the circumstances means he'll be able to distribute bread and circus to some parts of the population to make it seem effective while the actual reasoned and intelligent work of creating a stable and operating government continues to be undermined without much thought to where that bread and circus money could have been better spent.
The Philippines, like the US now, are trading incredibly short-term potential gains that exist outside of what could have been short and long term gains. We're all dipwads in similar boats now apparently, so it's nice we have that solidarity. God bless! Just make sure you keep some critical eye on the government even as the inconsequential foreign bogeyman keeps being propped up over and over.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 01-25-2017 at 10:39 PM..
For the Philippines to improve would require a wholesale cultural change. Being a friendly people is not sufficient, per se, to be successful.
Cultural changes, yes! But the idea of starting from a tabula rasa blank slate is absolute nonsense because we are all shaped by our natural environment and centuries/millennia worth of historical experiences - and we always will be! And even if we were to change plenty of things in our culture, those things I mentioned will always find a way to influence how it comes about (even in subtle ways). Many of our more successful Asian neighbours like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore certainly didn't throw away all the above when they were developing into the First World countries they are now! They learned from the best, but they modified those traits to fit their natural setting, historical experience, and cultural environment in order to truly make it work. Adopting wholesale from abroad is just not gonna work, and I doubt they'd get as far as they did if they threw away everything they are.
True we have a long way to go towards building a culture of success, but getting rid of that subserviency to America is one of the most important first steps in pointing towards that direction. How on earth do you expect us to be able to succeed if we can't even think for ourselves and determine for ourselves what we truly want as a country in the first place? It just isn't going to happen if we remain absolutely (or at least heavily) dependent on the USA. And what Duterte is doing with his foreign policy is a step in the right direction, because he is basically saying to his people that it's okay to NOT seek America's approval in everything we do collectively, that we have every right to determine for ourselves who we want as friends or partners, and most importantly we have every right to chart our destiny as a people in a way that best suits us and not have to apologize for it! You'd truly understand how revolutionary this thinking is in our corridors of power if you lived in the Philippines long enough!
Last edited by mrconfusion87; 01-25-2017 at 11:44 PM..
I think it's more the refusal to expand birth control options doing to the massive church presence and the fairly intense levels of corruption. The US is a pretty weird bogeyman because a lot of the Philippines's issues are internal structural issues with domestic policy rather than any external trade or geopolitical policies. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have all fared pretty well in comparison, don't you think?
You obviously know nothing of how the US government operates abroad if you think it's that simple - and you may want to read books on this by Noam Chomsky or John Perkins for starters if you want to understand more where I am coming from. And you obviously never spent enough time in the country if you think our scapegoating the USA is a simple exercise in scapegoating. It's true that we as a nation are collectively at fault for a lot of the internal structural and issues that we had, but the US government is culpable also for fostering these conditions by propping up elites (read the major landowning families-turned-political dynasties, the Catholic Church, oligarch businessmen, etc) that benefited from this flawed internal structure that's been keeping the country down for decades.
On the other hand Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan were given the leeway to reform and industrialize and etc was because they were in such close proximity to the major communist nations (Soviet Union and China) during the Cold War, that they feared that if these countries weren't allowed/encouraged to do what they did, they probably would have fallen into the sphere of communist influence sooner or later! So it benefitted US geopolitical goals to let them reform and industrialize as these countries saw fit.
The US has nothing to do with the Philippines problems Duterte and Trump are going to get along anyway. Sometimes when people are poor they just need to find someone or something to blame in the case of the Philippines with certain people that's the US.
The US isn't the country trying to steal your islands and take over the whole South China Sea.
See my response above to see why I don't think scapegoating the USA is not without basis! The US government has had a hand in perpetuating the setup that has kept the country down, and propping up the elites that have benefited from this fatally flawed setup.
Duterte and Trump will get along fine partly because Trump is about fixing his backyard first and foremost, and he hasn't displayed much of an inclination to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries - which has long been a gripe of Duterte himself towards the USA! Trump said it himself during his inaugural speech that he respects other nations' rights to put their interest first!
No government was aided by the idea that they must pocket the funds personally. Some did, some did not. The Philippines's government at the time did and countless others in the aftermath of WWII did not. Compare this with countless other countries who received funds from the US post-WWII on loan and direct giving bases--the Philippines did uncommonly bad overall and it was internal measures that laid those funds to waste.
I get the argument that the US probably should have cut off aid early on to some extent to not allow the Marcos regime to profit--and what were the alternatives at that point?
You're oddly confused on the issue of the Philippines having wonderful free speech laws and then having to rectify that against outsider (US and otherwise) observations that the media free speech allowances are worse in the Philippines. Does that strike you as more than a bit odd? Can it be that the media is actually more restricted among official and unofficial channels than you want it to seem even compared to what you think should be more restrictive countries? Have you thought maybe you being puzzled is more reflective of the truth given the different metrics used by different agencies or are you going to continue to believe that it must certainly be some kind of artifact of data or personal agenda that targets the Philippines unfairly?
Sure, there's always the off-chance Duterte might work out for the better. Wait and see, then. From what it seems at the point, it'll be similar to Marcos where the current halo effects of the circumstances means he'll be able to distribute bread and circus to some parts of the population to make it seem effective while the actual reasoned and intelligent work of creating a stable and operating government continues to be undermined without much thought to where that bread and circus money could have been better spent.
The Philippines, like the US now, are trading incredibly short-term potential gains that exist outside of what could have been short and long term gains. We're all dipwads in similar boats now apparently, so it's nice we have that solidarity. God bless! Just make sure you keep some critical eye on the government even as the inconsequential foreign bogeyman keeps being propped up over and over.
Uncommonly bad? Were you somehow under the impression that we always were a backwater third world country? No. During the 1950s and 1960s the Philippines was the SECOND largest economy in East Asia. Second only to Japan. This was true pre-WW2 as well. Think on that for a bit. For the first 3 decades after WW2, the Philippine peso hovered at the exchange rates of 3 to 5 pesos per 1 US dollar.
The poverty we are now experiencing is a very recent thing. Only starting in the 1980s when the Marcos problems started to blossom. A culture of cronyism and corruption took root and everything went to crap. Most importantly during this period, foreign debt reached an all time high. Because of this, in the early 1980s, inflation ballooned, starting at doubling to 10 pesos per dollar in 1983 to 25 pesos by the start of the 1990s. And instead of recovering after ousting Marcos, it took an even worse turn, rapidly doubling again during the 1990s until it stabilized in the 2000s at around 40 to 50 pesos per 1 USD. I still strongly remember a time when 1 cent coins in the Philippines still existed and can still buy you things. Not today.
Note: DEBT not aid, since you're still somehow under the impression that everything we have now is only because America deigned to give us a few bucks. Aid was extremely irrelevant even then. Mere pennies really. The fact that we are still paying off our debts to the IMF is actually one of the major reasons we are still knee-deep in poverty right now.
As for free speech. No. It just strikes me as stupid. "Outsiders" have always been quite ignorant of our culture. I've met countless people outside the Philippines who aren't even aware that the majority of us speak English, or think we all live in shacks by garbage dumps and have no idea what the internet is. And no, I don't think it's anything to do with conspiracies or something stupid like that, just plain ignorance.
I am from Mindanao for example. The major southernmost island of the Philippines. As a foreigner, what are your first thoughts when you hear about that?
Because most people I know think: "warzone, religious conflict, terrorists, people living in abject poverty and dying left and right." It's on the travel advisories of most western countries. It's actually laughable reading news sites go on and on about it. In my entire life I have only seen one gun being fired, and it was my dad shooting a cobra in the backyard with a shotgun. We have malls, we have internet, we even have a friggin' McDonald's in our sleepy little town (which is NOT a major city).
Heck even now, news sites are giving the impression that the Philippines under Duterte has now become a reign of terror. With blood running down the streets or something. Most are going on about THOUSANDS dead, without bothering to clarify what that means for a country of 100 million people, or even comparing it to casualties of police actions in other states. In the US alone, suspects shot and killed by cops average at around a thousand per year. That's not counting the ones shot that survived. When you consider those statistics you begin to realize the truth that yep, a lot of these kinds of reports are hyperbole meant to sell views. From the way most foreign media are going on about it, most people I know outside of the country already think Duterte is a dictator.
Yes, there's a lot of vigilanteism, but that has always been true anyway, regardless of who was president. We even have term for it here in Philippine English: the verb "salvage". That's part of the problems we've always had, not something Duterte created. With the recent kidnapping case of the Korean businessman here, I am hopeful the government will finally start cleaning house with the corrupt cops here.
And please. Don't compare us to Trump. Duterte may speak in broken English and has no filters when it comes to swearing, but he is a lawyer with a long record of good governance. He's a far cry from that clown they have in the White House right now.
Last edited by Existential Monkey; 01-26-2017 at 05:11 AM..
You obviously know nothing of how the US government operates abroad if you think it's that simple - and you may want to read books on this by Noam Chomsky or John Perkins for starters if you want to understand more where I am coming from. And you obviously never spent enough time in the country if you think our scapegoating the USA is a simple exercise in scapegoating. It's true that we as a nation are collectively at fault for a lot of the internal structural and issues that we had, but the US government is culpable also for fostering these conditions by propping up elites (read the major landowning families-turned-political dynasties, the Catholic Church, oligarch businessmen, etc) that benefited from this flawed internal structure that's been keeping the country down for decades.
On the other hand Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan were given the leeway to reform and industrialize and etc was because they were in such close proximity to the major communist nations (Soviet Union and China) during the Cold War, that they feared that if these countries weren't allowed/encouraged to do what they did, they probably would have fallen into the sphere of communist influence sooner or later! So it benefitted US geopolitical goals to let them reform and industrialize as these countries saw fit.
You really feel that the Philippines had the US directing internal policies more so than Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan?
The US does do heinous things abroad--I was saying that it's a lot more complex of an issue and there was a lot of variation in how US foreign policy directed itself in different countries and regions. This is not me saying there was less complexity--this is me saying there was greater complexity that shifted from region to region and played out in very different ways.
By all means, I would love to read about how the US intervened in domestic issues post World War II in a way that's greater than what was done in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.
Many things have affected the Peso and subsequently the economy.
-Republic Act 265
-Making Illegal the currency that was being produced by the US and guerilla units (1944-1945). So I'd suppose that the US was shut out of the currency control situation by the independent nation. Leaving the RP gov in control, no?
-Diosdado Macapagal & floating the currency which equaled the poor sharing the debt but gaining nothing in wealth
-The Huks/CPP/NPA among others & their struggle using violence and terror to gain power from the US, Japanese and the mostly self serving Phil government itself (excluding Magsaysay and a few others)
AS of a few years ago the Peso has lost 99% of it's purchasing power that held steady from 1903 - 1949...
Certainly the US has had a hand in hurting the value of the Peso either directly or indirectly by policies and influence but I don't believe that the poverty in the Philippines has more to do with the US (behind the scenes or not) than it does with those families who've been plundering it for over 60 years.
*This is my opinioin based on what I understand. If I'm mistaken, please enlighten me. Salamat
Last edited by Who Dat; 01-26-2017 at 08:14 AM..
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