Duterte Eyes Abolition Of Congress If Elected President In 2016

[Dave Hounddriver]

I don't think Marcos carried away the whole wealth of the country himself.

 

No, he had his wife to help him  :hystery:

[robert k]

 

I don't think Marcos carried away the whole wealth of the country himself.

 

No, he had his wife to help him  :hystery:

 

Oh, please Dave, you know very well there is a museum (shrine?) Dedicated to Imelda's shoes that she could not take with her. It's reported that when she viewed it she commented that a pair of shoes were missing! :hystery:

[brock]

 

 

I don't think Marcos carried away the whole wealth of the country himself.

 

No, he had his wife to help him  :hystery:

 

Oh, please Dave, you know very well there is a museum (shrine?) Dedicated to Imelda's shoes that she could not take with her. It's reported that when she viewed it she commented that a pair of shoes were missing! :hystery:

 

Could not take with her ?,,,She is still in the Philippines.

[robert k]

 

 

 

I don't think Marcos carried away the whole wealth of the country himself.

 

No, he had his wife to help him  :hystery:

 

Oh, please Dave, you know very well there is a museum (shrine?) Dedicated to Imelda's shoes that she could not take with her. It's reported that when she viewed it she commented that a pair of shoes were missing! :hystery:

 

Could not take with her ?,,,She is still in the Philippines.

 

ERM, she returned to the Philippines after Ferdinand's demise, she was gone for some time.

[Methersgate]

Quote from a movie. "A certain amount of corruption is the natural order of things. One gang I will tolerate but when I return in 2 days time with 20 rangers there will be one gang or when we leave there will be no gang. Do I make myself clear?"

I think the Philippines would be better off with one gang, a jealous gang that wouldn't tolerate any other gangs. As it is, with each looking the other way for the others looting, the common man can't catch a break. Maybe a dictator would be an answer. Certainly there is no national will to clean things up, you can probably find one man with the will, him getting elevated and surviving long enough to do what is needed would be problematical.

That has been tried. Ferdinand Marcos. It did not work out too well..

Are you saying that Marcos rooted out all corruption than what was to his personal benefit? If not it has no bearing on what I posted. It was the wrong man. I don't think Marcos carried away the whole wealth of the country himself.

What happens in the Philippines is not so different than what happens in the normal course of business for the US government, except its illegal to pick the nations pocket in the Philippines, but nobody enforces the law.

I can just remember the Philippines in the latter days of the Marcos era.

About five years after EDSA 1, I was in the Philippine Heart Center, chatting, as one does, to one's cardiologist, and he said something I will never forget - he said "I remember the

day that Martial Law was declared. We were all terrified. That day, nobody dropped litter, and nobody jaywalked.We all expected that the country would be like Singapore. But by the third day, we were all going back to normal - it was obvious that nothing had really changed."

For anyone who has not read it, I do recommend James Hamilton Paterson's "America's Boy" which is a serious attempt at a dispassionate history of the rise and fall of the Marcoses.

Marcos displaced most of the old elite, replacing them with his own people, who in due course became the "cronies", He did employ quite a number of capable technocrats, who, in their various fields, got things well organised (Blas Ople setting up the POEA is an example that comes to mind). But ultimately I agree with Hamilton Paterson - Marcos lacked a bigger vision - he was concerned to accumulate power and to accumulate wealth, but he had not really thought through what he wanted to do with the country, beyond controlling it and getting rich. He was, in the end, an old style datu.

So in response to your question - Marcos did seriously interfere with the "old style" patterns of corruption - right down to barangay level (Marcos set up the barangays). A lot of the flow of funds was diverted into his pockets and more into the pockets of the "new men" who rode on his coat tails. But eventually, he ran out of steam - he had no proper plan of succession, no group of Party loyalists to carry on his programme, and his reforms were only skin deep. Most of the money was wasted or frittered on prestige projects like the Bataan nuclear power station. And when the Housewife Superstar found herself in the Malacanang, the old elite came right back, accommodated themselves to the new men (mostly Chinese) and took up more or less where they left off.

All very unlike Singapore, where Lee Kuan Yew had a built a Party, the PAP, or even Taiwan, where Chiang Ching-Kuo was able to dismantle the dictatorship that his father had built because again there was a Party, the KMT, to carry things forward. Marcos never thought beyond the family.

I doubt if a new dictator would be different; Filipino conditions will impose a similar pattern.

Edited January 27, 2015 by Methersgate