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Opinion

The truth about the economy under the Marcos

regime

Posted on November 16, 2015

Introspective
Nearly three decades after it ended, still no proper account has been written Emmanuel S. de
of the economy under authoritarian rule, which is a big reason that Millennials Dios
have only an inkling of what transpired during those years. It is also why one
now hears the mind-blowing judgement that Marcos was the best president the country ever
had. And if you ask Millennials today who in their mind was the countrys worst president, their
likely answer is Gloria Arroyo. (Sigh.)

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M. A. P. Insights -- Jaime S. de los Santos:

"A Professional Army: The Best Defense Against
Destabilization"
To Take A Stand -- Rafael M. Alunan III:
"Alignment"
Corporate Watch -- Amelia H. C. Ylagan:
"A continued hope in ASEAN"
This is obviously no place to write an economic history (hanc columnis exiguitas non caperet). But there
may be enough room to correct a few bad habits when thinking about the Marcos period. My Cup Of Liberty -- Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr.:
"Open-pit mines and the DENR Secretary"
A common foible is selectivity: Marcos-admirers wax nostalgic about the earlier years of martial law but Introspective -- Calixto V. Chikiamco:
forget its later consequences. Ah, yes... remember when order and discipline seemed to reign, grand "From the political offensive to the defensive"
industrial and infrastructure plans were in the works, governance was discharged by a simple snappy Streetwise -- Carol Pagaduan-Araullo:
salute, newspapers carried no muckraking reports about corruption, spanking new hotels were on the rise, "High stakes confirmation hearing"
a glittery cultural scene was on display, and foreign celebrities, bankers, and business people regularly
Fence Sitter -- A. R. Samson:
came in and out -- not to mention the beauty pageants! What was not to love?
"Developing a deeper bench"
The customary counterpoint to this has been to cite the gloomy human rights record: arbitrary arrests, Yellow Pad -- Ma. Inez Feria and Patrick Angeles:
disappearances, suppression of dissent and civil rights, and the brutal war on Muslim rebels in the south. "The Portuguese Experience:
But all this is typically swept aside by the regimes lovers as being the necessary cost of all that economic What makes for good drug policy?"
progress -- and in any case, it is argued, these were just the concern of a few Leftist activists and some Trade Tripper -- Jemy Gatdula:
collateral victims. "Defend your country, not just your thesis"
Vantage Point -- Luis V. Teodoro:
That argument might hold some plausibility if the economic record was brilliant to begin with. But it was "Class act"
not. And here one needs to underscore the importance of assessing the entire period of authoritarian rule,
from late 1972 to early 1986.
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Take gross domestic product (GDP) for instance: the average GDP growth rate from 1972 to 1985
1. GDP outlook turns more sanguine
(Marcoss last full year) was all of 3.4% per annum. Per-capita GDP grew annually at less than 1% average
over the period -- more precisely 0.82%. Hardly a roaring-tiger performance. At that rate it would have taken 2. North Korea bigger threat than human rights --
85 years for per capita income just to double. White House

For comparison, the average GDP growth from 2003 to 2014 -- even under a bumbling and quarrelsome 3. Alfamart to open 120 Philippine branches this
year
democracy -- has been 5.4% per annum -- with a rising trend. On a per capita basis, GDP today is rising 3.5%
annually, more than four times the growth rate under the dictatorship. 4. Century Properties, Indonesias Bakrie team up
for projects
The reason for the dismal performance under martial law is well understood. The economy suffered its
worst post-war recession under the Marcos regime because of the huge debt hole it had dug, from which it 5. Rollout of free public Wi-Fi gathers momentum,
could not get out. In fact, all of the good times the admirers of the regime fondly remember were built on DICT says
a flimsy sand-mountain of debt that began to erode from around 1982, collapsing completely in 1984-1985
when the country could no longer pay its obligations, precipitating a debt crisis, loss of livelihood, extreme
poverty, and ushering in two lost decades of development.

The economys record under Marcos is identical to that of a person who lives it up on credit briefly,
becomes bankrupt, and then descends into extreme hardship indefinitely. It would then be foolish to say
that person managed his affairs marvelously, citing as evidence the opulent lifestyle he enjoyed before the
bankruptcy. But that is exactly what admirers of the Marcos regime are wont to do.

It is instructive that neither Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, nor any major Asian country catastrophically
experienced negative growth in the early 1980s. The Philippines was the exception, following instead the
example of protectionist and over-borrowed Latin American countries. This suggests that there was
nothing unavoidable about the crisis the Philippines suffered, and that it was the result instead of failed
policies. In 1977 the Philippines total debt was all of $8.2 billion. Only five years later, in 1982, this had
risen to $24.4 billion. Thailands debt in 1982 was still only half that amount. Thailand and other countries
of the region thus avoided a debt crisis and ultimately went on to attract foreign direct investments in
export-oriented industries in the now-familiar East Asian pattern. But no such thing happened under
Ferdinand E. Marcos, notwithstanding the arguments and exhortations of people like Gerardo P. Sicat (who
would cease to be active in the regime by 1980). By the early 1980s, the pattern would be set where foreign
direct investments in neighboring countries regularly outstripped those in the Philippines. (The intermittent
coups detat post-Marcos did us no favors either.)

All this should correct the common misconception that the countrys troubles stemmed entirely from
conjunctural political factors, notably that it was caused by ex-Senator Benigno Ninoy S. Aquino, Jr.s
assassination. One might not even entirely blame the mere fact of authoritarianism itself -- after all
Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia at the time were also ruled by despots of some sort or other, yet suffered
no crisis. Rather the Philippine debacle was linked to the misguided policies that were structurally linked
and specific to Marcos-style authoritarianism. For all its technocratic rhetoric and rationale, the Marcos
regime never took economic reform, liberalization, and export-oriented industrialization seriously; it
remained a heavily protectionist and preferential regime (think the cronies and the failed major industrial
projects). The availability of easy loans was well suited to the priorities of a regime that thought it could
stoke growth without deep reform and slake the greed of Marcos and his cronies at the same time. In the
end a corrupt regime fell victim to its own hubris.

In three decades more, the whole Marcos episode will probably be regarded as no more than an avoidable
nightmare; a wasted opportunity; a bump on the road on the countrys ultimate march to development.

But this narrative, for different reasons, is unpalatable to many of the regimes lovers.

Indeed, one of the alternative truths propounded by some otherwise respectable people is that the fatal
flaw of the Marcos period was really just the fact that Marcos failed to provide for a proper succession -- as
if the regimes logic of patronage would have allowed it to behave otherwise.

A more pedestrian version of it, however, simply says Marcos gave Imelda too much power. The story runs
as follows.

There were really two Marcoses: Marcos B.C. and Marcos A.D., i.e. before concubinage and after Dovie
(kids, you can ask your grandparents what this refers to).

Marcos B.C. was a statesman, out for greatness for himself, brooking no deviation from his vision of the
nations future.

But Marcos A.D. was a weakling hostage to his vengeful wife, who exacted inordinate power as the price of
the discovery of her husbands indiscretion. It was she and her obscene taste for extravagant projects that
caused the country to run huge debts; she and her ambition and greed that skewed policy making and
ruined the chances of an orderly political succession. Imelda in short was the real villainess; Marcos by
contrast was little more than a hapless victim of spousal politics, a tragic hero ruined by guilt, having falling
victim to that all-too human weakness -- the need for love! Its an almost Shakespearean story (think
Antonius and Cleopatra) of an entire nations fate being determined by human passions and foibles.

For some, this alternative truth will continue to be more riveting than any dry economic history based on
real facts and hard economics. (Sigh.)

Emmanuel S. de Dios is an Oscar M. Lopez professor at the University of the Philippines School of
Economics and a fellow of Institute for Development and Econometric Analysis (IDEA).

ededios@gmail.com

www.idea.org.ph

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