What the Marcos victory heralds

Image courtesy of PNA, June 2022.

The New Society under Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos sought to break with the Commonwealth era, by dispossessing the old aristocracy who were in charge of that order and replacing them with his own cronies and political acolytes. State-led development using financial leverage supplied by the West was its economic growth model. This was made possible by various policy settings prevalent at the time.

The Marcos regime operated state owned enterprises in nearly every sector of the economy. It had a fixed exchange rate with the peso pegged to the US dollar. It sought to develop industries behind protectionist trade walls. It had a central wage fixing system that was politically manipulable. Foreign investment was confined to a short positive list, set by his government. The tax regime was highly irrational and regressive.

This was reformed by the EDSA regime, which subscribed to Washington’s neoliberal agenda. State-led development gave way to market-centrism. State-owned enterprises were privatised. Crony capitalists were left to fend for themselves. A flexible foreign exchange rate regime was introduced. Quantitative trade restrictions were converted into tariffs, which were then lowered at an accelerated pace. Foreign investment was restricted by an ever dwindling negative list. The tax regime was gradually made more progressive and rational. 

In the political arena, regular “free” elections were restored. This led to the revival of the old Commonwealth political clans that went into hiatus under Marcos. The regime increasingly tolerated many of Marcos’ political allies, at first in local bailiwicks, then eventually at the national stage. This included the Marcoses and Romualdezes themselves who were allowed to return from exile, after Marcos, Sr. passed away in Hawaii.

Some of the EDSA stalwarts who had fought the dictator survived, for a time. But in the end, they either lost to more traditional political clans, former Marcos loyalists and new dynasties, or got compromised by the system, so much so that the distinction between them and their former opponents was difficult to perceive.

Was it any wonder that after restoring the pre-Martial Law system of politics, the result would be the same old patrimonialism that thrived under that old order? Allegiances were feigned towards whoever was the occupant of Malacanang by members of congress and local governments, to gain maximum advantage. No permanent alliances, only permanent interests.

The political class realised that it was better to collude by forging “unity” - the path of least resistance - to remain in power. Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. despite claiming that the post-EDSA regime had disrupted his father’s grand plan for first world status, had in fact accepted the tenets of its economic philosophy as the basis for his administration.

Having subscribed to it, he saw no need to debate policy with his opponents during his presidential campaign. They were advocating mostly the same things, anyway. His rivals would only use the debate stage as an opportunity to raise the issue of his father’s dark past, which he needed to avoid at all cost. 

At his first address to the joint-sitting of Congress, he surprised many by simply sticking to the policy line of his economic managers. The same high priests who had advised his father, but whose prescriptions went unheeded. Marcos, Jr., for fear of upsetting markets at a precarious post-pandemic period, towed their line.

Neither did he signal any structural break with the past by way of revising the 1987 charter. This was despite hinting that he was for amending it, up until he got elected. Then, he suddenly switched gears and said it was not a priority, dousing the fervour of those who were expecting something more radical from him.

Unlike 1986 when the difference between the Marcos and EDSA regimes were as stark as light and darkness, good and evil, the main differences now had to do with the extent to which three lettered acronyms like PPP ought to be relied on to boost infrastructure spending. They were  marginal, because both sides had actually gravitated towards the middle.

In the end all that Bongbong Marcos could offer was more of the same, only better. In truth, this was all the Filipino public had bargained for. They simply wanted more effective governance than what they had been shown in the past. Better conditions on the ground, rather than lofty ideals based on such abstractions as “democracy” or “people empowerment”. The EDSA regime had offered these in spades, but seemed inept, unable to translate them into reality. 

The Aquinos, having fallen from political grace, were now seen as the enemy. And so as the logic goes, the enemy of my enemy becomes my friend. These were the Marcoses who were able to spin the yarn that things had been better under their watch. Substituting “unity” for “discipline” the mantra of his father, Marcos Jr., was able to provide an antidote to the perennially argumentative, critically divisive and deconstructive attitude of the EDSA forces. Unity required discipline after all.

And in so doing, he was able to foist his own counter-narrative that would explain the past. It was all a lie, the attacks on our family. We hold these hidden truths that the EDSA forces don’t want you to hear. And yet, despite the success of his propaganda, and his victory at the polls, what did the second coming of Marcos herald? Not a break with the previous dispensation.

Though the rejuvenation of the Marcos dynasty signalled a rejection of the formerly ascendant Aquinos and their allies, it didn’t represent a repudiation of the constitutional, political and economic norms they had put in place. Quite the opposite. 

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness, so Oscar Wilde said. Maggie Thatcher when asked what her single, greatest achievement was, replied, “Tony Blair and New Labour. We forced our opponents to change their minds.”. So it became with the EDSA regime. Its crowning glory, its finest hour, came not at the apotheosis of the Aquinos, but with the measured return of another Marcos into Malacanang.