In Our Image: The United States and the Philippines; Second Interview with Claude Buss Part 1

Ready? Okay, go ahead. The situation in the Philippines was not comparable to the situation in Norway, for example, where there had been negotiations with the Japanese before the actual landings. And most of the Filipino government personnel that were left in Manila had been just as cooperative with the Americans as they could be. Three o'clock in the morning before the Japanese entered, I talked to my counterpart in the Philippine government, a guy named George Vargas, who was the secretary to Quezon. And his last words to me were, "Is there anything that either one of us ought to do before the Japanese come in? In order to hinder their progress, make things tough for them." And no, I said the only thing that you're just going to have to do is use your heads and

don't do anything that's going to bring retribution on the people of Manila. And you've got to remember it was a very hectic situation. The city was in flames and people were scared and you knew very well that the American protection had gone and that people were going to be thrown on their own resources to take care of themselves. And I think that it must have been all three or four days anyway, before these government officials emerged and announced that they had taken positions under Japanese control situation. And a lot of the people that stayed in Manila, sympathized with them, there was nothing they could do. They had no jobs, no paycheck coming in from the United States anymore. No relatives in the hills that they could go to, and the result was that when the Filipinos

were divided into collaborators and guerrillas, everybody that could go to the hills or had relatives in the countryside called himself a guerrilla. And those that had nowhere to go had no alternative, just had simply had to live by their wits under the Japanese. And I sympathized like anything with these people who were their protectors gone, which we Americans were, simply had to live and no love of the Japanese, no hatred of the Americans who simply had a real situation where you had to take care of yourself. Many more Filipinos were in the position of collaborators than were in the position of guerrillas. And when the war ended, those people were worried as the very [inaudible], they did not know if the Americans were going to punish them, criticize them, or where the Americans would

sympathize with them. And consequently, they were very eager when we came back to tell us their own side of the story and elicit sympathy where they could. And the result was that a lot of the Americans did take a very sympathetic attitude toward them. I, for one, I couldn't really see that I could blame a man like Recto or a man like Roxas, Roxas is the most noted example, as you know, Roxas was a Colonel in the American Army and was one of those who had to choose whether he was going to leave with Quezon, Quezon wanted him to go. And Rojas had said that no, he would prefer to stay behind. He was a man with great deal of ability.

And he said that he would be able to do more for his people if he stayed in Manila than if he left. And of course, his case became the most noted case of, I think, of all the collaborators. And probably set the stage for the treatment that they received at the hands of the government when the post-war period began. He was very strongly protected by MacArthur. I guess that's a fair way to put it. See, he... Sorry, would you stay at the end, I mean, MacArthur? Yeah. Roxas was a man that was respected by the Americans very much. Then Quezon left, Roxas chose not to go along. And then he was captured in Manila, I think.

And when he was captured, he agreed to become the minister of economics, whatever the position was in President Laurel's cabinet, under the Japanese. And there were a lot of Americans who felt that this was a terrible thing for him to do. When he was taken into custody by the Americans, it was a common conversation, what would MacArthur do to Roxas? And the answer was not that long and coming. And MacArthur and Roxas met after Roxas was liberated. And I don't remember how long their conversation between the two lasted, but for a long time. But anyway, when the conversation was over, Roxas emerged not as a Colonel any longer, but with one star and was promoted.

And that showed very well what General MacArthur thought of him. This stirred up a great controversy over what should be done with the collaborators there in Manila. I think at this point it might be useful to pinpoint the difference between what was happening in Washington's, as far as attitude toward the collaborators was concerned. And what was happening out there in the field. There were many in Washington who felt that we, Americans, ought to be very tough on collaborators. In Manila, the feeling was different. There were some Americans, particularly those who had not been in Manila before the war and who saw this thing as a black and white issue, felt that they were very anti-American. They had taken an oath of loyalty to the United States, not the Philippines, the United States, because after all, they were our colony.

They had gone back on that oath, and therefore they ought to be treated very harshly. Then there were others, and I think General MacArthur was among the others, who had a great deal more sympathy for them and was inclined not to be harsh on them, and rather left it to the Filipinos to pass judgment on their own people. But after all, it will be much better for the future of the Philippines if the Philippines themselves decide, who should be punished as collaborators and who should be honored as guerrillas and who should be just simply left free without any kind of judgment at all. Well, naturally, a good many Filipinos had tremendous sympathy for men like Laurel, Men like Recto, and Aquino's father. These people had all been unreservedly on the American side when the war broke out.

When Quezon left could only take a few cabinet officers with him and left these other folks behind in Manila. And so it was up to them to continue in some kind of position of leadership. But they had new people behind them. Instead of the Americans wielding the actual power, the Japanese wielded the actual power. And they had to do what their Japanese masters forced them to do. Did you know the father of the Ninoy Aquino, - picture of that? Yes, I don't think it's fair to accuse Ninoy's father of being either more pro-Japanese or more anti-American.

The fact of the matter is that he was a very active pro-Filipino. He said, after all, my father before me fought against Spain. And I feel that what I can do, I'm going to do, for the Philippines. And whether I move under Americans or under Japanese for an earlier achievement of Philippine independence, that's the thing that I want to do. And he organized this outfit Kalibapi, I think, it was called some fancy name that was to mobilize labor forces to help the Japanese. But in Aquino's mind, what he was doing was giving jobs for some Japanese and bring more - some Filipinos, excuse me, not Japanese. He was giving jobs for some Filipinos. And any prosperity or any increment for survival that he could bring to Filipinos was a perfectly

good thing. Could you – what was he like - to any sort of traits in him that you saw later in Ninoy? I didn't know him well enough to trace traits in him that would have gone to his son. I only know that there were people like Guinto and Jose Abad Santos who lost his life. And ?Zulueta? and these fellows were first-class men. I mean, they were leaders in the community. And they were cabinet members. They all had positions of dignity and responsibility under case on. And of course, Laurel was the one that was the most spectacular of the group and the one that had to make the toughest decisions when the chips were down. So let's now go on to this period when you came into Manila after the liberation.

As I said, we have this film, but it would be very nice if you could describe how it looked and smell and give us a sort of world. Yeah, I want to finish a little bit here. As you know, when we came in, when the Americans returned, it was a great question of what was going to happen to these distinguished Filipinos. And the Japanese moved them to Tokyo so that we couldn't get our hands on them at first. And then when we came into Japan, these Filipinos were among those that were held by our occupation forces in Japan. And they were put in prison in Tokyo. And they were held in prison in Tokyo. Well, Roxas would have been taken in Manila was freed and became a natural leader of his own people. And Ninoy's father, for example, had a heart attack shortly after his release.

They were kept in jail almost a year in Tokyo. And when they came back, Ninoy's father died very shortly after he came back. And the attitude in Manila was maybe we should honor these people more for what they did for the Philippines under the Japanese, than condemn them for what they did that was against the American war objectives at the time. And I think for many years this feeling of they did it for us, these leaders did it for us, the populace, was an attitude that grew more and more. And the differences between the guerrillas and the collaborators, I don't think ever became as bitter and as strong as it did with the same kind of cleavages that existed in Europe, for example.

You have pictures of what it looked like. And of course, though that destruction, as you know, was done a great deal more by artillery shelling, and it was by bombing. The city was caught in the crossfire between the Japanese and the American shelling. And the destruction was really very widespread, it was a very damaged city. I suppose the thing that impressed one in coming back was the suffering that the people must have gone through while the actual destruction was taking place. And all the municipal functions, there just wasn't any such thing. And the courage of the individual people, the absolute euphoria seeing the Americans return. I don't suppose any American who has participated in situation of this nature has ever enjoyed being an American more

than it was during those early days because it was a case of what is it, happy days are here again, something like that. And people seemed to rise above the suffering of the moment and work like anything to get their lives back into any kind of order and enjoy freedom. I think that's the thing that impressed me more than anything. What about your own? You came into Manila. Where did you go? How did you survive? I had no problem. I was not in Manila in the actual days of the Americans fighting in. And I had been up in Lingayan in the north and couldn't get back as a civilian until after the city was secured. And I don't even remember where I stayed.

Actually, a lot of houses didn't even have people in. The first night I was in Manila, I had gone down to the High Commissioner's office, which was, of course, in ruins. And on the way back, I didn't remember what house I was in. I couldn't have told it in the dark one from another. And I simply opened the door to a house and went in and went to sleep. I had no idea who it was or anything else. It was more like a ghost city at that time. And I suppose that I simply put up... I frankly don't remember. I suppose a friend's house. I had friends that I had known. And not to Manila Hotel. Not anything that the military had used for their own purposes. That was just off limits as far as we were concerned. And I came in, under the auspices of the Office of War Information.

And I suppose that we had our own barracks or something like that where I was housed. Life was tough under the Japanese. And you did have to resort to lying and stealing and cheating and working for the Japanese. And everything that you did had to be done on the sly unless it was for the Japanese advantage. And this did have an effect on the political behavior of Filipinos when the war was over. I suppose that it even corrupted the moral fibers of the Japanese. You know, the moral fibers of Filipinos. Audio recorder: Let's just say that again. I suppose that the occupation corrupted the moral fibers of the Filipinos.

When you're desperate, you can excuse a lot of things that you wouldn't excuse if circumstances were normal. A theory for example, If you're stealing for the life of a child, it doesn't seem quite so bad. If you haven't got that laudable emotive. And this is the way the Filipinos had to live under the Japanese. There was very little, the comedy that Americans enjoyed who had spent their lives in the Philippines, for example. And there was always the feeling that this relationship is forced majeure. And the Japanese weren't too clever in combating this kind of thing. In the radio programs, instead of appealing to the things that the Japanese - the things that the Filipinos liked. It was such things as salute the emperor and face toward Tokyo when you're doing your morning exercises.

There was not a very clever attempt on the part of the Japanese to make closer bonds spiritually between Japanese and Filipinos. Let's go on after the war. But the whole corruption and stealing and so forth is something that's continued? That's right. And when we came back, we're not able to help the situation immediately. We sent out Tydings commission to assess war damages and to figure out what we could do to rehabilitate the Philippines. But it's not a question of theoretically of how much you ought to help and what way should you help. "The question is what can you do now? What can you do immediately?"

And it took a tremendous amount of time before policies could be determined for the optimum help to the Philippines. And again, I think that MacArthur was one of the wisest people on the spot. And he told Senator Tydings, "Don't waste your time in trying to make accurate assessments of all this." And he said, "At the end of a week, now you go on back home to Washington and tell the American people what's got to be done now." And a bill went through the Congress very quickly that provided for 600 million and different types of rehabilitation help to the Philippines. But even that was a drop in the bucket and where it would go to help a few Filipinos. It didn't go to help a great many. When you would do rebuilding and you'd want contracts, jobs for Philippine help, it was like a mob scene of people that wanted to come and get jobs and earn some money to help you. And then there were very quickly high level rackets that came into being that the Filipinos have never lived down.

For example, a thing was called a Syndicate, where some of the political leaders got together and bought up some things that we declared were surplus war supplies. A lot of heavy construction machinery that was not needed anymore was put on the market for open sale. And if anybody had ins, they very quickly learned how to make money out of cooperation, economically, with occupying authorities. And practically the only way of making a living after the Americans came in was how smart you were in getting close to the Americans to get something that would be helpful to them and provide jobs at the same time. But if you could make the comparison between the Philippines before the Japanese, before the war and afterward, this whole business corruption and it's become a part of our way of life in the Philippines

Yeah. which is, of course, gross proportions on the markets. Yeah. What was there and was it true was the Philippines that correct before the war? When you try to quantify these things, it's darn hard. What you've got is an economic situation where it's difficult to make a living. Now when the agricultural setup of the Philippines, the export of sugar and the export of corn or coconuts or whatever it was they exported, and this satisfied the economic needs of the country, you didn't have to resort to corruption nearly as much. When the world got to be more complicated and the big leap forward was certainly at the time of World War II, and industrialism got to be more a way of life than just agricultural production.

The Philippines lagged in this and the only way to make a living in the Philippines without that industrial urge was by resorting to agriculture, the only people that made a living outside of agriculture were people in the professions. And as that population grew, and this was a very real factor in spite of all the deaths during the war, it didn't take very long for a population increase in the Philippines to make itself felt. And many new people entered the labor market and there weren't the jobs to satisfy their needs. And the smarter you were, and the less contact you had with prosperity through agriculture, the more temptations arose to do something crooked or corrupt or whatever to satisfy your own needs.

Then when the Philippines decided that they had to get in on this industrialization business, then it still wasn't fast enough to satisfy the needs of a growing population. And as economic necessity grew greater, this simply increased the demand for graft and corruption, it increased the opportunities. And the result was that you found a lot more of that kind of operation taking place the more the economic situation deteriorated. But you also had, from everything I gather... Okay, these things had a negative effect on the development of institutions in the Philippines. Sorry, can you start again? Can you say, "these things"?

Okay. The deterioration in the economic situation and the distortions that took place in the political processes had a negative effect on the development of such institutions as we would have liked to see grow in the Philippines. First look at the economic situation. The capital available in the Philippines was largely in the hands of oligarchs whose wealth was fundamentally based on land owning. When they got extra money to put in to development of industries, the first thing they did was to go to the government and get licenses to build a new factory or to engage in some kind of a non-agricultural activity. Usually, you would get those licenses from the government because they were your relatives in the government, maybe distant.

But the Philippine extended family is very conscious of the obligations that exist between the members of that family. There's a Philippine concept that everybody talks about, this "utang na loob" as they call it, which is obligation and recognizing a debt of obligation. And any compadre or any relative would very likely get a grant or license whatever. And very shortly, a very limited group had the same kind of economic power in industrial development that they had enjoyed as long as the country was primarily agricultural. In the political field, always the voting had taken place according to this sense of obligation.

The "pork barrels" are a very well-known practice in the Philippines. A government will take care of some person in a locality. And as a result, he will vote for whatever the patron in manila has given him. And as the parties which inherited this platform of independence occupied the power, usually with American backing, after the Americans returned, the patterns of democracy took on a very Filipino flavor. The heritage of Quezon, later through Roxas, the Nacionalista Party, was so great that there weren't very many effective people in the minority at all. And these people who had benefited from the old heritage of independence found themselves in power.

They found themselves in position where they could gain favorites and support by distribution of "pork barrel". And the result was that you found a proliferation of the kind of economic and political distortion that had already made its appearance before World War II began. Let me make it a little more specific. The first election after the liberation, it was quite a problem who was going to be the new president. Osmeña had been in Washington, identified with a government in exile. And a lot of people thought of course that Osmeña should be the next president. But there were too many people in the Philippines that didn't like the fact that Osmeña had gone away, had lived in Washington while they suffered.

And good many of those people said that you ought to take somebody who has lived through conditions under the Japanese. And there were two candidates that emerged. And the one was Roxas, who had been identified with the collaborators and yet had been given a new blessing by MacArthur. Another one was a man by the name of Tomas Cabili, who was one of the best known of the guerrillas. And that first election, whatever the platforms were, was really a case of "How well were you identified with the Americans, How much support could you get from the people that you had favored in the boondocks, in the backwoods, and then how much could you depend on controlling the ballot box and miscount the votes and use all the practices that we are accustomed to in falsifying or in abusing the privileges of the ballot".

And that appeared from the very beginning. Then there's one other complication that enters into this. And it's got a great deal of relevance for the situation that exists today. And that's the problem of what are you going to do about the Huks? Huks in the Philippines is an expression for Hukbalahap, it's a shortening of this. I want to get into the Huk ?trade? with you. Even in this first election, it's very doubtful if Roxas as would have won had it not been for the forceful elimination of the Huks from their voting rights that yet was close. And ever after this, in every presidential election since then, it's been an alternation of ins and outs.

Everybody says, "I believe in the democratic way of life. I accept an economic free market economy. And the issues in Philippine institution developing have been matters of that were settled by personalities rather than by any theories". For example, when Quirino came in, he was no more of a Democrat, no more of a free trade advocate than his rival, Laurel. See, it wasn't a case of a Democrat versus Socialist, for example, but was a case of which one do you favor against which other one? And it became a matter of very much like Latin American politics, where people were amassed their followers by promises, by personal relationships, by things which are very Filipino in the matter of extended families, for example.

And all through this succession of leaders, the ideological differences have not been very great at all. Now, where Americans have difficulty in understanding the development as we would have liked it and the development as they engineered it, I think stem from conditions which are completely Filipino. And then you had the feeling that in giving jobs to relatives, you were not guilty of nepotism or not guilty of graft and corruption. The philosophy, this was a thing that you just had to do, maybe a family had sacrificed in order to give education to one of the more promising members of that family.

It was just expected when that guy got to the top and got a government job, he was going to remember all those who had contributed to putting him at the place he had achieved. And this occurred in the way in the Philippines, which is different than it would have occurred anywhere over here. But I think that the biggest factor was the only outlet for a lot of talent was in the political activities of the government. And if you didn't get a government job, there was very little place for you in contributing to the development of the Philippines. The great contributions of private enterprise, the private entrepreneur, these things were very much slower in growing in the Philippines than they ever did here.

Then in this development of the political. [sneeze] Sorry. Okay, go ahead. The acceptance of these practices that we consider graft and corruption was universal in the Philippines, very few people condemned others for taking part in those practices. And cynically, a good many of my friends would say that look, it's not the fact that these things took place. It was only the fact that I didn't get my share of it. And the thing, the moral judgment on these things was not a lot different after Marcos than it was before. The thing that was so greatly different was the scale and the length of time that it endured.

Let me just go back to a couple of points...yes, [inaudible] so long. All through the period after independence, the power of the oligarchy was just as strong as it ever was at the beginning. And the Americans never tried to destroy that oligarchy. The land oligarchy goes right back to Spanish times. The grants of land depended on the favor of the Spanish crown. And that land was passed on from generation to generation. And the political power in the Philippines was in the hands of the same oligarchs that the economic power was in the hands of. And you would take families like the Tuason family in Manila, or the Ortigas family in Manila.

And these families had tremendous economic power from the Spanish days. Down in Negros, you would find a family of the Lacsons or the Losins or the ?Montelebinos?. And they were the powers. They were the local powers in that center. Over in Panay, there was the family of the Lopez, which everyone has heard about. And usually some ?sion? of these families from the different areas of the Philippines would go into politics. And whereas one brother would look after the economic interest of the family back home, another cousin or brother would go into politics and become the representative of the central government in Manila, of that family. For example, in the Aquino family, while some member of the family was looking after the Hacienda, and making sure that it would prosper economically, other members of that family would be either local political bosses or member of the Congress, or like Ninoy was, get jobs in the very president's office.

And the president's office that his skills in politics, Ninoy skills and politics were honed by serving in the cabinet of Magsaysay and then of Garcia. The oligarchy was the strength of stability in the Philippines. And when the Americans came in, we didn't try to democratize the Philippines to the extent of breaking up those oligarchies. And the people that welcomed the American presence were the oligarchs, and they very quickly learned that they could operate through the Americans just as well as they ever could through the Spanish. And we Americans very quickly learned that we did not have the wisdom or the power to break up those oligarchs.

We never, for example, tried to rectify the tenant situation in the Philippines. And in the last High Commission's report, it's rather interesting to note that the degree of tenancy in the Philippines was higher when the Americans left than it was when the Americans came in. And then, so far as the American administration itself was concerned, when you say "we had a dream and we tried to bring about a new regime so forth in Manila", it's one thing to talk about the political dreamer back home and the political operator in the Philippines. In the High Commissioners Office, we had exactly 50 people, and you're not going to take 50 people and do much to change the political way of life in a country which is as diverse as the Philippines. However, you would make a judgment in Manila that the enforcement of that judgment would depend upon implementers in every major island in the group.

I think that after 1935, that a good many folks said, look, we have, through our school system, tried to implant the ideology that we want, and through our contacts with individual Americans and Filipinos on this spot, we've tried to supply the role model that we want. But when it comes to political enforcement, it's hopeless. Was it valid to use the word democracy? I'm talking about pre-Marcos now. Yeah, people wonder whether it's valid to use the word democracy in the Philippines, and it's only valid if you put quotation marks around it. Because when you think of the way parliamentary democracies work in the West, you go back to the British system and then to either the French or ourselves the way we worked it.

And a lot of our folks thought that we were transplanting democracy in the Philippines by merely transplanting the forms of democracy. But we knew very well how those forms of democracy had been, in our view, prostituted as they were applied in the Philippines. We knew very well that the elections from the members of the House of Representatives or the elections to the Senate were almost predictable before they occurred. We understood the forces that were operating in the political life of the Philippines, in spite of the forms that were there. And we had done a good job in our view in saying, you shall have a Congress that's got two houses, a House of Representatives and a House of the Senate. And we knew very well that people would get jobs in the Senate by their connection and by their putting into practice.

Peculiarly, these things that were in existence in the Philippines. But we also knew that we couldn't change them. And we felt that we had done our job in transplanting the forms and that the evolution of political forces in the Philippines would have to bring about the things that we couldn't do because of the length of time that we had been there and the fact that we were getting out. But what I'm getting at, is do you think that we were in a sense diluted? I don't think Americans diluted themselves on the depth of the democracy that was being transplanted in the Philippines. A good many Americans did and a good many Americans diluted their audiences deliberately.

You would take a speaker in this country who was wanting to talk about what the United States had achieved in its foreign policy. It was just great to pat yourself on the back and say that we have brought democracy to the Philippines. And I can very well imagine a politician in Wisconsin, a butter country, a politician in Louisiana, a sugar country who was very eager to get the Philippines off the American's back. And he would say our job has been completed. We have brought democracy to the Philippines. But anybody that was working in the Philippines would not dilute himself. He knew exactly what was going on. And it wasn't just fatalism to say that they're going to have to work this out for themselves. Those of us who were in the Philippines knew very well they were going to have to work it out for themselves.

We, in the High Commissioner's office, for example, were never in position that we were going to influence some Filipino family to do things differently. And I think that knowing that independence was going to come in 1946, and I like to put this all differently, knowing that we were going to give up the job of directing the development of the Philippines in 1946. We knew very well, it was going to be in the hands of the Filipinos. And some of us were hopeful and optimistic as I was. And then there were others that said, "Gee, this is really condemning the Philippines to a very bleak future. They're never going to make it." And there were some who would say that "We're just giving up prematurely. And we really ought to stay on there longer." but when you come to this problem of delusion, anybody that studied the Philippines could see what the facts were.

And whether it was going to turn out optimistically or pessimistically, we still don't know. So back with the perspective now, do you think that it was premature? Do you think we should stay longer? No, I do not think that independence was premature. I don't believe that re-examination was a feasible policy. And for the very simple reason that nationalism is a perfectly understandable and justifiable sentiment. And whatever we might have transplanted more quickly by more effort on our own part would never have had deep roots as long as it was a foreign implementation. I think that the Filipinos are going to have to work out for themselves the maturing of their own institutions.

To go back to one point. Excuse me, Stanley. I just wanted to... The Filipinos, if we had, would have been... Was it feasible? It was not feasible for the United States to stay any longer in the Philippines. I sat one night with President Quezon and who later became President Roxas. And just a couple of us were sitting in the back porch at Malacañang. And we were talking about the outlook for the sugar industry after independence. And President Quezon was very thoughtful and recognized that with the loss of the sugar market, economics in the Philippines were going to get tougher. And he turned to President Roxas. He was then the Secretary of Finance, but he turned to Roxas and he said,

"?Modeling?, it looks to me as though I've got the damn thing, independence. And it's going to be up to you to figure out what to do with it." In other words, the realization of the difficulties in those last years was there. And Governor-General, later High Commissioner McNutt, or I guess he was just the High Commissioner, stood for re-examination. And it made a lot of sense to a lot of people, but it simply wasn't a practical alternative any longer when the time came to pull out of the Philippines. Did you said you were optimistic? Is there any thing else...? Democracy is a developing thing. Whether this form of government is the best form of government or not, I suppose still in the scales, I believe that it is the best form of government. And I believe that some kind of a participatory government, representative government, if you want to call it that, is a good thing.

And even looking at all the faults of that government as it is practiced in the Philippines, I still think it's a great deal better than what I would imagine a totalitarian regime of any kind would be. And I think the Filipinos have enough of spirit and of capability that they can develop more toward a representative government and that it will satisfy their needs better than any other form of government that I know. And I think that's the basis of optimism that I have. I wouldn't recommend that they need a temporary dictatorship or maybe a monarchy or anything else. With all its faults, the way that they're on, is still the best way that I can see for them to develop in the future.

I first met Marcos, I imagine, in 1961, I might have met him before then. But in the election of Macapagal, he was elected president in 1961. Marcos was very prominent even at that time. And he was a distinguished leader in the Senate. He struck you for two or three things. He was a brilliant speaker. He knew how to handle an audience. And I always felt that his greatest strength was in his infighting, get into a group of Filipinos with different political objectives. He was a master maneuver. He just managed to come out on top.

And he was very clearly maneuvering for the presidency even that early. In 1965, when he was running for the presidency, he was very much interested in getting as much American approval as he could possibly get. See, he was running on the Nacionalista ticket, which ordinarily would put him in less favor than his liberal opponent. But this was the time when we were bogged down in Vietnam. And we Americans had a leftover sums from the war damages that we had awarded the Philippines at the end of World War II. And our problem was how to distribute money to the Philippines and not seem to have political motives back of the grants that we were making.

Anyway, we decided on a ?roadschool? and rice program that Marcos managed to use for his own political purposes. He was building the trunk road that went around Manila. And there was a whole lineup of great big road building machines there. And put signs on them. These "Come to the Philippines through the efforts of Marcos." And he was able to use the Americans very neatly for his own purposes. His own purpose was to get the presidency in the Philippines. And it was up to him to get as much help from the United States that he could possibly help, that he could use to promote his own political ambitions in the Philippines.

And he was a master at it and he did it. And then as I look at the way he's handled the Americans, this is one plus mark that I would put in his record. See, from his point of view, he was able to never make it appear as though he was an American puppet. And yet he was always able to convince the Filipinos that he was on the American side a little bit, but not too much. One other thing that I've always given him credit for in his foreign policy, the way he handled China, the Soviet Union, the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, for example. And even the countries in ASEAN, it was always his contention that he didn't want to get too close to the United States.

And his procedure was to have an alternative. And he was probably one of the first, and in this he was very ably backed up by General Romulo, who later became his foreign secretary. That he would use his goodwill with these other nations. And his having a second string in his bow is he very often put it. I think he was very capable in the way that he conducted his foreign policy along those lines. He internally, his great asset was his ability to convince the Filipinos that he was always one step ahead of him. They just simply looked at him as being their leader, and just accepted the position that he very gradually won for himself. A one point.

In reflecting, whether- One second, we just need a little speed-up time, I'll tell you when. Look at Stanley and I'll say. In reflecting whether independence was a good thing in 1941, even after the war in 1945. I'm reminded of a story one evening in 1941, early 1941. I was sitting in the porch at Malacañang with President Quezon, and his Secretary of Finance, Manuel Roxas. And we were discussing the future of the sugar market. After the Philippines would get its independence, the Philippines sugar would have to pay the duty levied on foreign sugar. The price would go up, and the thought was that the market would shrink. And Quezon and Roxas were both very worried whether circumstances like this wouldn't hurt the Philippines after independence.

And Quezon was genuinely concerned, although he was the most outspoken advocate of independence, the Philippines. When it got to be very close, when the fact of independence got to be very close, Quezon got more and more worried, particularly in view of the coming of World War II. He was speculating on what independence would mean to the Philippines economically. And he showed very well that he was aware of the difficulties, but he would not worry about giving up his own platform of independence. He turned to Monaling, to Rojas, and he said, "It looks to me, Monaling, as though I've got the damn thing, independence.

Now it's going to be up to you to worry about what to do with it." It showed that re-examination, which a good many people advocated, was not a practical alternative for the Philippines at that time. Let's go back to Marcos when we broke. I'm not sure that most people welcomed the proclamation of martial law. The businessmen certainly did. The bribes that they were having to pay the uncertainties of doing business, made it appear to them that if they could get somebody that could cut down, the levies that were being made on them would be a very good thing. And that's why you would find great many members, the American Chamber of Commerce, people like Jaime Ongpin, that felt that the coming of martial law would be a very good thing.

Another thing that certainly made martial law welcome to a lot of people was the uncertainty of life, the great number of killings that were taking place. It was almost like it had been back in the Huk days when it wasn't safe to go around the countryside, wasn't even safe on the streets of Manila. And the thought that Marcos with martial law would bring a higher degree of law and order, this was a very welcome thing. But out in the countryside where most of the people lived, I don't think they were affected that much by martial law or any other kind of law. They took care of their farms, they had their relationship with their own landlords and what happened in Manila was high politics. So when you say most people, you look at numerically most and I just don't think it mattered that much to them.

Now there were a lot of political people who were very much concerned about the welfare of democracy. A lot of people who love free expression of their thoughts, freedom of the press for example. And as you know the press in Manila was one of the wildest anywhere in the world at that time. And the journalists loved it to be able to say what they pleased and there was a tremendous amount of irresponsibility about it. And they were the people that suffered a great deal at first and good many of them were put in jail, those 13 leading journalists that were jailed at the same time, Ninoy was. And they certainly were against the imposition of martial law. So when you add up your totals, I suppose you could defend either side, a majority were for it or a majority were against it, all depends on where you look. But immediately there was a general feeling, in Manila, of relief and a feeling that maybe this guy will give us time to settle down.

But don't forget that even from the beginning Marco said that this is a temporary thing I believe as firmly as ever in democracy. And what I'm going to do is to give you law and order until we make it possible for democracy to return. It wasn't contemplated even from the beginning that this was going to be a never ending condition.