From the Archives: February 1981

WHAT WOULD it take for martial law to be lifted and a genuine democracy to be instituted in the Philippines? The obvious barrier to democracy is the economic stranglehold foreign corporations have on the country and the control the U.S. government exercises through its military and economic aid and military bases. ...

The national foreign debt of the Philippines approaches $11 billion and continues to mount. The country must keep producing Barbie dolls and planting pineapples and bananas on prime land to raise enough foreign exchange to pay the interest on its foreign debt. A University of the Philippines Law Center study estimates that for every dollar invested in the country, three to four are taken out. People’s real wages in comparison to the costs of living continue to shrink....

As I traveled around the Philippines people told me countless times, “President Marcos would not be in power one day longer if he did not have the political, military, and economic support of your [U.S.] government.” ... If we understand the economic realities in the Philippines and the part that U.S. corporations, military, and government play in them, we will not rejoice at a name change or slip into supporting any other single person who may have more humane rhetoric than President Marcos, but who will also rely on the army and U.S. support to maintain power.

Dorothy Friesen was a former church worker in the Philippines when this article appeared.

This is an excerpt of an article that originally appeared in the February 1981 issue of Sojourners. Read the full article here.