Did the People Power Revolution only resulted to more corruption after kicking Marcos out of the presidential seat?

Alan C. Robles

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journalist, trainer, writes on history and politics 6y

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Did the People Power Revolution only resulted to more corruption after kicking Marcos out of the presidential seat?

First let’s straighten out your deplorable grammar. Your question should be: “Did the People Power uprising only result in more corruption after it chased the evil dictator out of the country?”

Second, let’s answer it: Of course there was corruption after Marcos was evicted. Corruption is a fact of life in this country, it’s one of the pillars of politics, economics and history.

But, here’s the point: NOBODY COULD MATCH THE MARCOS DICTATORSHIP IN CORRUPTION LEVELS. They were off the charts, astronomical, mind-bending, world class, national in scope.

What the Marcoses, their relatives and cronies did was to attach themselves like parasites directly to the Philippine economy, and they sucked. They mainlined directly on nearly every economic activity.

During the 14 years of the evil Marcos dictatorship no economic activity, no business transaction, no deal took place without the Marcoses and their friends getting a cut. Foreign aid? Marcoses not only took large chunks, they stole them directly? Central Bank dollar and gold reserves? Imelda treated those like her personal piggy bank, scooping up cash to bring along on her fabulous shopping trips to buy property, art, paintings, concert pianists, ageing Hollywood stars…

Construction? Real estate? Industrial projects? Development programs? Infrastructure? The Marcoses got percentages from all of those. Every member of the family had a racket, Marcos, Imelda, the kids, even Marcos’ ancient crone-like mother. He divided the economy, grabbing companies and distributing them to his relatives and friends. He “bought” ABS-CBN for a handful of dollars (after holding the son of its owner hostage) and gave it to a relative. No other administration, before or after the Marcos regime, achieved this level of plunder.

The Philippine economy all but collapsed, mired in debt (the Marcos policy was to borrow money, steal it and then borrow even more money to pay off the debt, and then steal that too). It was during the Marcos regime that thousands of Filipinos started going abroad, to the Middle East mainly, looking for better jobs, or for jobs period. One US diplomat stationed in Manila during that time estimated that the Marcoses must have stolen 20 to 25 percent of the ENTIRE PHILIPPINE ECONOMY EVERY YEAR. When the Marcoses fled, the wealth was partly there to see - they filled US military cargo planes with stolen jewelry, gold bars, dollars, even a tiara. These were itemized in Honolulu when the bandit supremo Marcos and his bedraggled family landed in 1986 after fleeing Malacañang. Investigators later calculated the Marcoses probably salted US$10 BILLION in 1986 values. But that was just a GUESSTIMATE, the real figure could be much higher. Somebody has calculated that US$10 billion would probably be worth US$23 billion now, and that isn’t counting interest.

All of this can be verified through a ton of books and documents. World Bank reports, news reports, economic analysis, plus of course the actual evidence that investigators turned up when they went abroad looking for the stolen wealth. They never found all the billions (they’ve recovered maybe $3 billion) but they found entire buildings, mansions, paintings, art objects, greedily amassed by Meldy the Hutt in her trips to the US. Most were seized and auctioned off.

Some of Imelda’s jewelry in Manila that she left when she scrambled away was allegedly stolen by people who occupied the Palace afterwards. Imelda has been known to whine about it. Can you imagine the concept? A thief complaining about being robbed.

So yes, there is corruption now, and it’s growing under Duterte. But it has never reached the corruption levels of Marcos. But who knows? Duterte appropriated PHP 12 billion as a non audited budget for the Palace without blinking an eye. His countless appointees have been linked to billions in corruption scandals. So stick a while, the Marcos record may yet be broken.