The Philippines also had its moments of glory.
- In 1950, the Korean War broke out, and the Philippines naturally became the logistics base of the United States in the Asian battlefield.
- After the Korean War, conflicts broke out again in the Vietnam battlefield, and the Philippines once again became the logistics and supply base of the US military.
With the economic support of the United States and the huge demand created by the war, the economy of the Philippines has developed by leaps and bounds.
In 1969, the per capita GDP of the Philippines reached US$262, second only to Japan in Asia. Manila, the capital of the Philippines, is known as the "Small New York of the East" because of its prosperity.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB), headquartered in Manila, predicted the total economic output of countries in the world in the next 50 years. In addition to predicting that Japan will surpass the United States to become the ‘world's largest economy’ in 50 years, it also predicted that "the Philippines will become the world's tenth largest power."
What were Koreans doing at that time? They rushed to the Philippines to work as foreign workers.
What makes the Philippines even more proud is that although Japan and the Philippines are both "little brothers" of the United States in Asia, the Liberal Democratic Party is the only dominant party in Japanese politics, and collusion between politicians and businessmen is common in Japan, with serious corruption, which is constantly criticized by Japanese and overseas media; however, the Philippines has copied the political system of the United States in its entirety, and the judiciary under the separation of powers is completely independent, and the democratic atmosphere is relatively strong.
Therefore, the United States is very happy to regard the Philippines as its "favorite student" and promote it as the "democratic showcase" of Asia.
In the words of Americans,
"Any country that was as poor as the Philippines in the past can immediately become a developed country as long as it changes to the American system and believes in American-style democracy."
In fact, in order to support this "democratic model", the United States gave the Philippines the market and technology at that time, not only gave a lot of benefits in terms of tariffs, but also assisted the Philippines' industrialization development.
The Philippines did live up to the expectations of the "United States". With the continuous "feeding" of the United States, the economic growth once reached more than 9%. In 1982, the Philippines was even listed as a "middle-income country" by the World Bank, which meant it had one foot into the ranks of developed countries.
It is worth mentioning that although both Japan and the Philippines are Asian countries supported by the United States, their development paths are completely different.
Japan originally had an advanced industrial base, and under the "care" of the United States, it gave priority to the development of the industrial system; while the Philippines, before and after independence, relied on the United States and adopted a unilateral trade system mainly based on the export of agricultural products and resources, and has not been able to establish a mature industrial system.
Although the Philippines has also noticed the problem and made some changes through strong national intervention, it has always been a lot of thunder and little rain, and has not been able to fundamentally solve the defect of its own insufficient industrial strength.
All the problems of the Philippines can actually be summarized in one sentence: Success is caused by the United States, and failure is also caused by the United States.
In the more than 20 years of being "favored" by the United States, the Philippines has been peacefully serving as an agricultural product base for the United States and doing various OEM industries transferred from the United States. There are so many businesses that they can't handle them themselves, and they have to subcontract them to Taiwan, Thailand and other places.
But such days will soon come to an end.
In the 1970s, under the impact of the oil crisis, the global economy was shaken. Western countries were busy saving themselves while upgrading their industries.
But at this time, the Philippines had formed "path dependence" and continued to be a "processor" and "agent" comfortably. They had no idea of transformation and did not develop any core industries.
At that time, the Philippines firmly believed that as long as they listened to the United States, the United States would continue to help.
However, the United States has never been a kind-hearted "philanthropist" or an omnipotent "savior".
Since the early 1980s, the Philippine economy has been in a state of continuous fluctuation, leading to constant domestic grievances.
With more grievances and economic downturns, social contradictions have risen sharply, and ordinary people often vent their dissatisfaction by protesting in the streets.
Faced with the strong public calls for economic improvement, the Philippine government was not unwilling, but was really powerless.
In 1983, the Philippine government, which was once again hit by a serious economic crisis, had to ask for help from the IMF (International Monetary Fund), hoping to obtain loans to ease the domestic crisis.
The IMF proposed that the Philippines must open up the market and achieve free trade before it can borrow money.
Although the Philippines was somewhat hesitant about this, it agreed without hesitation when it thought that the IMF was backed by the US government.
In order to get the loan, the Philippines not only implemented trade liberalization and lifted policy restrictions on imported products, but the government also sold all state-owned enterprise assets, privatized state-owned enterprises, and gave up control of important production departments, opening up domestic communications, transportation, and finance to foreign capital and implementing free competition.
Simply put, the "prescription" prescribed by the IMF was the "free economic model" believed by Western economists at the time, that is, privatization of state-owned enterprises, market liberalization, and government democratization, in order to enhance corporate competitiveness.
In fact, this set of ideas is correct from an Western economic point of view:
state-owned enterprises are inefficient, and economic efficiency can be improved through privatization; market liberalization and reduced government intervention can also improve economic efficiency; democratization not only supervises government integrity, but also promotes the enthusiasm of working people.
But unfortunately, the Philippine economy has fallen into the abyss, and has been declining all the way, and has never been better.
Objectively speaking, the Philippines is not "cheated" by the United States or the IMF. After all, the former sincerely hopes that the Philippines will get better and better, and the "democratic model" established by itself is convincing; the latter hopes that the Philippine economy will improve so that there is money to repay debts.
The crux of the problem is that neither the United States nor the IMF realizes that the Philippines, which has introduced American-style democracy and the Western market economy system, is actually playing "tricks".
Because these economic "antidotes" are only suitable for countries with truly democratic political systems, they are completely incompatible with the Philippines.
After independence, the Philippines has never carried out real wealth and land reforms. Under the "cloak" of American-style democracy, the interest groups in the Philippines are still big landlords, big plantation owners, Western compradors and aristocratic groups.
In the history of the Philippines, the Communist Party of the Philippines once attempted to overthrow the rule of big landlords, big plantation owners, Western compradors and aristocratic groups, but was suppressed by the United States and the Philippines. Therefore, the Philippines has been controlled by these forces from beginning to end, from top to bottom.
And we need to clarify a logical problem:
As we all know, Europe was also poor before the Age of Discovery, and they became rich and powerful through colonization and war.
European and American countries did not have ‘democracy’ first and then became ‘rich and strong’, but first became ‘rich and strong’ and then became ‘democracy’. Then, through ‘democracy’, they can continuously promote the development of economy and education, which in turn will influence politics and further promote the progress of social civilization.
In other words, wanting to grow "green and pollution-free" crops on a piece of poisoned land is itself an act of covering one's ears and stealing the bell.
The Philippines is such a country where all kinds of corruption have penetrated into its "bone marrow".
In 2023, a United Nations report stated that the highest-income group in the Philippines, accounting for only 1% of the country's population, holds 17% of the national income, while ordinary people, accounting for 50% of the country's population, only hold 14% of the national income, with a monthly salary of less than 12,026.7 Philippine pesos.
Today, in Manila, the most prosperous city in the Philippines, there are both modern high-rise buildings and slums with millions of poor people, many of whom can only rely on picking up restaurant waste to feed themselves.
Under the shadow of clan politics, corruption is rampant in the Philippines, gangs are rampant, and in diplomacy, they only follow the United States, and no longer have the style of "the second richest country in Asia" in the past.
Civilization and backwardness, poverty and wealth coexist, and eventually become the unchangeable fate of the Philippines.
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