BUMPS (6)

HALAW ang mga sumusunod sa aking pangalawang aklat “BUMPS: Fifty Years of Dictatorship and Democracy in the Philippines (1972-2022).” Bahagi ito ng unang tsapter kung saan tinalakay ko kung paano idineklara ni Ferdinand Marcos ang batas militar noon 1972. Pakibasa:

CRONY CAPITALISTS
FERDINAND Marcos did not immediately possess a stable of entrepreneurs, who would give him the economic support when he took over in 1966. But he had two friends to count: Roberto Benedicto, a fraternity brother at Upsilon Sigma Phi, and classmate at the law school in the University of the Philippines (UP), and Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr., another friend whom he came to know during the campaign period. Benedicto emerged as his chosen leader of the sugar monopoly; Cojuangco, leader of the coconut monopoly. Sugar and coconut monopolies were two agricultural monopolies the technocrats could not touch in the Marcos coalition. Those days, coconut and sugar were the main agricultural export products of the Philippines.

Roberto Benedicto, a lawyer and entrepreneur, was one of the people, who was instrumental in the political victory of Marcos in the 1965 elections. Although he did not become a member of the Marcos Cabinet, he belonged to the small group, who had direct access to Marcos in his quarters. They had a special bond that dated back to being classmates in the law school in the 1930s. Incidentally, Benedicto took a low profile. He was known in the mass media sector to have established Kanlaon Broadcasting Network, a television firm, and the Daily Express newspaper. They were part of the propaganda arm of the martial law government.

Benedicto headed the Nacionalista Party for Western Visayas, when Marcos first ran in 1965. He delivered votes for the future dictator. Marcos issued Benedicto the power-of-attorney to deal with business firms on his behalf. Benedicto was said to have helped the Marcoses in their first Swiss bank accounts, William Saunders for Ferdinand and Jane Ryan for Imelda, where Marcos transferred their reputed loot. Marcos named Benedicto as chair of the Philippine National Bank, the biggest state-owned bank at that time. He used PNB funds for crony-owned businesses, including his own. Benedicto controlled several banks. By 1972, Marcos named Benedicto the ambassador to Japan, through which Benedicto entered into treaties like the Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation between the Philippines and Japan. The post allowed Benedicto to invest with Japanese firms. He was described to have close ties with Marubeni Corporation, one of Japan’s leading sogo shoshas (trading houses).

Danding Cojuangco was a small town politician in the idyllic town of Paniqui in Tarlac, but his fortune changed when Marcos visited him there in 1965. When Marcos was looking for a pointman in Tarlac, Eliodoro Castro, mayor of Paniqui and a law school friend and classmate, suggested he should get Danding Cojuangco. Marcos acceded to his proposal and met 30-year-old Danding in Paniqui. Marcos convinced Danding to run against cousin Jose “Peping” Cojuangco, Jr., the incumbent of that congressional district. They faced expensive congressional elections. Although Danding lost to Peping because of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr., who was the governor of Tarlac, the fateful meeting led to Danding’s rise. The Cojuangco clan was divided between brothers Jose Sr., popularly aka Tio Pepe, and Eduardo Sr, aka Endeng.

Their relationship did not end when Marcos won and Danding lost in 1965. It evolved to include business. Danding focused on his business – plywood manufacturing, veneer making, and cement manufacturing. But Marcos convinced him to return to politics. Marcos understood the Cojuangco clan was divided and he capitalized on this feud. Danding took his new role with gusto since he knew he was allied with the president. In 1967, Danding ran for governor because Ninoy Aquino was vacating the post since he was running for senator. Marcos supported Danding’s political decision and he won.

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ANTECEDENTS TO MARTIAL LAW
The intention and direction toward authoritarianism slowly but surely manifested in his second term. The euphoria in his political victory camouflaged intention to stay in Malacanang beyond 1973. Several intervening events took place and his intentions only showed a year or two after his reelection. By that time, the situation had altered significantly and the Philippines fell into the crest of dissent and intellectual ferment. It was no picnic for Marcos. Neither was it for the youth, which became the vanguard of dissent and calls for changes.

His first term that covered the period 1966 to 1969 was described as fairly successful as it had some degree of industrialization, infrastructure build-up, and a marked increase in rice production. Consumed to win a second term, which would cover 1970-1973, . Marcos pursued a spending spree unparalleled in its economy and the amount was said to involve $50 million, which he spent freely on infrastructure projects to entice voters to elect him. This unabashed spending triggered a balance of payments crisis, which pushed him to borrow a structural adjustment program, the first for the Philippines, from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Philippines pursued a reduction of selected tariff rates, which led to lower revenue collections, and a devaluation of the peso to almost P6 from the exchange rate of P3.90 for every US dollar. It led to inflation, and eventually, general unrest.

Ferdinand Marcos started his second four-year term, experiencing the onslaughts of the “First Quarter Storm,” or the series of violent student protest demonstrations in the first three months of 1970. It was an inauspicious start because it highlighted his inadequacy to meet dissent. Since then, the urban- based protest movement became his staple, as protests took place inordinately. Students linked up with workers, farmers, teachers, and other professionals to create urban unrest. Students led in the insurrectionary activities even as workers and farmers were organizing a broader front against the Marcos government.

Marcos used the unparalleled rise of the student movement and urban unrest as a basis to declare martial law in 1972. Two main developments influenced the political environment of those days: first, the Second Vatican Council, which Pope John XXIII convened in the early 1960s to reform the Roman Catholic Church; and second, the emergence of the Maoist-oriented Communist Party of the Philippines from the remnants of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) in the late 1960s. The teachings of the Second Vatican Council influenced many religious clerics and Filipino youth to constitute the moderate faction of the emerging anti-Marcos forces. Vatican Two essentially identified the Church as the “Church of the Poor” to atone for its posture toward Adolf Hitler in the Second World War. The phrase “preferential option for the poor” has come to define the modern Church. Many youth leaders took it seriously to form their groups and factions, aptly called “soc-dems,” or social democrats [28] because they adhered to social democracy, an ideology reputedly formulated by Catholic clerics who belonged to the Jesuit order.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Jose Ma. Sison, a young intellectual and teacher, gathered disillusioned intellectuals, leading the official organization of the CPP on Dec. 26, 1968 and the creation on March 29, 1969 of the New People’s Army (NPA) from remnants of the peasant-based Hukbalahap to become its military arm.[22] In 1973, the CPP formed the National Democratic Front (NDF) as the CPP political arm and recruit non-CPP members, or the so-called middle elements to its fold. The CPP-NPA-NDF have adhered to armed struggle as the means to struggle, although they did not forsake the legal arena.[30] Sison and his followers formulated national democracy to serve as its ideological mooring. This was their way to counter social democracy, which was gathering momentum among the youth in some elite schools like Ateneo College, De La Salle College, University of Sto Tomas, among others.

The State of the Nation Address (SONA) of Marcos before the joint session of Congress on January 26, 1970 turned violent as thousands of student activists clashed with police. It signaled the start of the First Quarter Storm, where student activists in a series of violent demonstrations stormed Malacanang to protest the perceived social inequities. Although the student protest actions subsided when classes ended by end-March, it did not deter students from staging more protests. Mass protest actions by student activists of leftwing groups, on the one side, and moderate groups, on the other side, became common. Marcos was getting alarmed by the evolving anti-Marcos political forces, but he did not take moves, as he weighed his options.