Post WWII: Shabby US Treatment of Philippines?

I'd like to thank Top Blogger Raissa Robles for provoking this blog with her comment:

• "Philippines was treated quite shabbily by the US after WW 2"

This pertained to a complaint by another commenter about how the US favored Japan and did not do much for the Philippines.

I asked Raissa "Do you know why?" but she was unable to respond, being busy visiting with Japanese dignitaries. I asked the question because I am not familiar with post WWII activities at all. I know the U.S. was brutal in wrapping up the war in Manila, pretty much destroying the city. So I decided to brief myself up, thanks to a series of articles by:

• Ronald E. Dolan, ed. Philippines: A Country Study, done in 1991.

I'll take a few quotes from his write up, summarize other parts, and add my own interpretations.

Let’s start the lesson with how WWII ended in the Philippines.

• MacArthur's Allied forces landed on the island of Leyte on October 20, 1944. . . Landings then followed on the island of Mindoro and around the Lingayen Gulf on the west side of Luzon, and the push toward Manila was initiated. Fighting was fierce, particularly in the mountains of northern Luzon, where Japanese troops had retreated, and in Manila, where they put up a last-ditch resistance. Guerrilla forces rose up everywhere for the final offensive. Fighting continued until Japan's formal surrender on September 2, 1945. The Philippines had suffered great loss of life and tremendous physical destruction by the time the war was over. An estimated 1 million Filipinos had been killed, a large proportion during the final months of the war, and Manila was extensively damaged.

In other words, the ending was violent and destructive.  The Philippines exited from the war, not in celebration, but as a demolished, demoralized nation.

The Philippines: A Nation Divided

Perhaps the most persistent difficulty the Philippines has faced since Aguinaldo formed the first Republic is infighting among Filipinos.  This was also true after World War II. The big issue: what to do about those Filipinos who had collaborated with Japan?  As Dolan cites it:

• " . . .collaboration became a virulent issue that split the country and poisoned political life. "

The US wanted collaborators to be punished.

• Harold Ickes, who as United States secretary of the interior had civil authority over the islands, suggested that all officials above the rank of schoolteacher who had cooperated with the Japanese be purged and denied the right to vote in the first postwar elections. Osmeña countered that each case should be tried on its own merits.

Within the Philippines harsh lines were drawn.

• Collaborators argued that they had gone along with the occupiers in order to shield the people from the harshest aspects of Japanese rule.  . . . Critics accused the collaborators of opportunism and of enriching themselves while the people starved. Anticollaborationist feeling, moreover, was fueled by the people's resentment of the elite. 

The names of the key players are echoes of today's power families:

• Osmeña, Commonwealth President
• Laurel, Recto, and Roxas, collaborators.
• Quezon(before his death) told Laurel and José Vargas, mayor of Manila, that they should stay behind to deal with the Japanese but refuse to take an oath of allegiance.

Roxas actually was collaborating with the US while he was collaborating with the Japanese. He was MacArthur's man, and after the war, MacArthur supported Roxas for the Presidency. It was a bitter election. Roxas beat an ailing Osmeña. Once in office, Roxas went against MacArther's sentiments, declared amnesty and released all accused collaborators except those who had committed violent crimes.

So there was a measure of Philippine independence, for sure. But . . .

• In the first years of the republic, the issue of collaboration became closely entwined with old agrarian grievances and produced violent results.

The Huk guerillas who had fought the Japanese turned against the landowner elite of the Philippines. It is a familiar story. Peasants against the landowners. The fighting was violent, from War's end to 1951, mainly within the central provinces of Luzon: Pampanga, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, and Tarlac. In the latter years the Huk rebellion was considered a front for communism in the Philippines.

• Beginning in 1951, however, the momentum began to slow. This was in part the result of poor training and the atrocities perpetrated by individual Huks. Their mistreatment of Negrito peoples made it almost impossible for them to use the mountain areas where these tribespeople lived, and the assassination of Aurora Quezon, President Quezon's widow, and of her family by Huks outraged the nation. . . . Other decisive factors were the better quality of United States-trained Philippine armed forces and the more conciliatory policy adopted by the Quirino government toward the peasants.

The Philippines: A Nation Occupied

The Philippine economy was deeply tied to the United States. Large landowners, under US influence, wanted open and free trade between the two countries. The US passed The Bell Act (Philippine Trade Act) in 1946 with the provision that $620 million of aid for war damages would be released ONLY if the Philippines accepted a provision of the Act that granted Americans equal economic rights to Filipinos, and left in the American President's hands the right to revoke all or parts of the Agreement if the Philippines did not comply.

• The Bell Act, particularly the parity clause, was seen by critics as an inexcusable surrender of national sovereignty. The pressure of the sugar barons, particularly those of Roxas's home region of the western Visayan Islands, and other landowner interests, however, was irresistible. 

The Philippine Congress, in a hotly contested matter, approved the Agreement in 1947. In 1955, the Agreement was significantly modified to remove onerous pro-American trade provisions.

In addition to economic interests tied to trade, the U.S. maintained a strong military presence in the Philippines after WW II.

• The Philippines became an integral part of emerging United States security arrangements in the western Pacific upon approval of the Military Bases Agreement in March 1947. The United States retained control of twenty-three military installations, including Clark Air Base and the extensive naval facilities at Subic Bay, for a lease period of ninety-nine years. United States rather than Philippine authorities retained full jurisdiction over the territories covered by the military installations, including over collecting taxes and trying offenders, including Filipinos, in cases involving United States service personnel. Base rights remained a controversial issue in relations between the two countries into the 1990s.

Ahhh, but it was not a one-way ticket to ride:

• The Military Assistance Agreement also was signed in March 1947. This treaty established a Joint United States Military Advisory Group to advise and train the Philippine armed forces and authorized the transfer of aid and matériel--worth some US$169 million by 1957. Between 1950 and the early 1980s, the United States funded the military education of nearly 17,000 Filipino military personnel, mostly at military schools and training facilities in the United States. 

Ramon Magsaysay was elected President by a landslide in 1953. He had ended the Huk rebellion and started to lay the groundwork to bringing farmworkers back into economic society with land reforms. His popularity was from the people, much like Aquino's. But his reforms also caused problems:

• The Economic Development Corps project settled some 950 families on land that the government had purchased on Mindanao. In the ensuing years, this program, in various forms, promoted the settlement of poor people from the Christian north in traditionally Muslim areas. Although it relieved population pressures in the north, it also exacerbated centuries-old MuslimChristian hostilities.

The three principle Philippine conflicts still persist today: (1) farmworker versus landowner, (2) US military presence, and (3) Muslim discontent.

Evaluation

Did the US treat the Philippines "shabbily" after World War II?

Yes. The US clearly dominated politics and economic activity. The attitude was perhaps not as racially discriminatory as it was in 1898 (see JoeAm's essay "Fire WhenReady, Gridley"), but it was clear, America had a heavy hand of self-interest in just about everything. US influence did help settle the matter of "collaboration with Japan" by backing the Presidency of Roxas. But clearly, that was a meddling engagement, too.

So, yes, the US was heavy handed. Or "shabby" in its dealings. And, yet, it is not possible to say the Philippines was an unwitting or unwilling victim in this treatment. The large landowners, the elite, were able to thrive under the "undercover American occupation". But they were not able to master the divisions within the Philippines and promote a vibrant economy. The economic heartland, Central Luzon, was at war. No middle class arose from the rubble of self-reconstruction as occurred in the US and Japan.

The Philippines has had the best military training the U.S. can provide, but it's military remains weak, underequipped, and historically at the forefront of Filipino fractuousness (coup leadership). It is hard to blame the U.S. for this failure to make something of the training.

So I think it is fair to say that Filipinos also treated the Philippines shabbily as the empowered elite failed to articulate an economic model and laws that promoted fair employment, fair land ownership, and a deep-seated sense of the Philippines as a land of opportunity for all. It remained a land of "haves" and "have nots".  Economic and military cohesion got lost in the divisions.

That is the Philippines today, is it not? Great wealth. A Senate awash in year-end cash, 3.3 million people admitting to being hungry, no middle class, and unending local conflicts between clans. Filled with red tape and protectionist insecurity, unable to build a rousing industrial base.

Unity is not a trademark of the Philippine nation.

What Happened in Japan?

The United States supplied military oversight in Japan from War's end until 1952 when the San Francisco Peace Treaty took effect. There were parallels in that MacArthur was the key American military director and he relied upon the Japanese government to manage Japan. There was no direct American civil authority. The Emperor was not removed from his throne, but made a figurehead only, as democracy was established.

America had 300,000 troops stationed in Japan, so the military influence was also heavy. These troops were drawn down to join fighting in Korea in the early 1950's. The role of remaining troops shifted from monitoring Japan to standing by to defend Japan.

The US changed its approach in Japan due to the "Red Scare", the regional spread of communism. Direction shifted from dismantling the military establishment, installing democracy and social change to economic revitalization. The U.S. wanted to avoid a weak economy that might invite the rise of communism. The US pumped billions of aid into Japan to ensure that Japan did not succumb to the lure of communism. Japan prospered.

One material factor distinguished Japan from the Philippines, as stated by historian John W. Dower as he explained why the U.S. was quick to return authority to the Japanese:

• Discipline, moral legitimacy, well-defined and well-articulated objectives, a clear chain of command, tolerance and flexibility in policy formulation and implementation, confidence in the ability of the state to act constructively, the ability to operate abroad free of partisan politics back home, and the existence of a stable, resilient, sophisticated civil society on the receiving end of occupation policies—these political and civic virtues helped make it possible to move decisively during the brief window of a few years when defeated Japan itself was in flux and most receptive to radical change.

Japan was orderly, compliant and not politically divided or in a state of internal revolution.

(Sources: wikipedia, US Department of State)

Different Issues, Different Approaches

Japan and the Philippines were not parallel cases. The US took a hard management role in Japan and a soft role in Philippine politics. Japan was orderly and the Philippines was engaged in bitter fighting.  Perhaps America felt more "parental" towards Japan, and the Philippines was the troublesome orphan. Japan got the lavish big-bucks, the Philippines got a pittance and that with pro-American strings tied to it.

America fought the Red Scare in Japan with economic investment and in the Philippines with Philippine troops and a dictator's allegiance. Here is Riassa Robles commenter Parekoy's hard-hitting view of things:

Then there was the Vietnam War. US bases in the Philippines played an important ole in the supply of American hardware as well as soldiers. So US bases needed to stay in the Philippines, by hook or by crook.

Growing and improving economy and nationalistic fervor in the Philippines in the early sixties posed a threat. Any hints of nationalism were suspect, Philippines might turn red. It was not only in the Philippines, crimson was looming all over the Latin and South American countries. In US perspective and interest, they need to check and insure that communism should not have a foothold in these countries, hence the policy changed. The icon of democracy need to be a hypocrite. They need to suppress the infant democracies of Asia as well as the Americas. US backed dictatorships mushroomed, and Banana Republics were established.

Among the countries, Philippines was screwed. We were gang banged by Marcos dictatorship, our economy went down to the toilet, the influence of the Catholic Church made us apathetic and left our destiny to God, made us even more reliant to the US economically through aids and in the defense of our sovereignty. There was no Marshall Plan in the Philippines, there was no need, they were paying Marcos peanuts he was their puppet. They did not give a f–k about human rights, freedom, and democracy. Democracy was reserved for Americans and the first world countries, Philippines can have it later depending on US timetable.

Then we have a new generation of Pilipinos who adores anything made and from America. We became Pavlov’s dogs. American policies and treatment of the Philippines set back our political and economic progress. They know that Marcos was a son of a bitch, but he was their bitch same of all the dictators they installed all over the world. When the dictators were toppled, Most of these countries were bankrupt. America tolerated the heist for even when the dictators were replaced by the so called democratically elected new leaders, one thing remains, they will still be relying on America, he was the only game in town economically.

Broad Brush Picture

Yes, the Philippines was treated shabbily by American self-interest. America was wholly consumed in fighting the beast of the "Red Scare" and was using and abusing any nation that could be deployed in the fight. It is not unlike the past twenty years in the Middle East.

The Philippines, argumentative and populated by self-dealing, was in no position to stand up for itself.

The Red Scare, communism, was pushed back into China and Russia, where it ate itself.

So America succeeded.

The gains are clear: a commercially robust world rid of all empire-builders but two, China and Iran. Infusion of democratic principles across Asia.

The costs are still being added up.