Category: Cory Aquino

(I can’t help but find some similarities described by Wolfowitz here to the current situation like “there’s no real alternative” and the “opposition weak and expected the US government to do their work for them.”)

By Paul Wolfowitz
The Asian Wall Street Journal

Corazon Aquino, who died of cancer Saturday at the age of 76, will be remembered as the surprisingly tough “housewife” who forced a dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, to leave office after his attempt to steal an election. But she also deserves to be remembered as the leader of the first “People Power” revolution. Her success strengthened U.S. confidence in what was then a new policy of promoting peaceful democratic change, a policy that remains relevant today.

Marcos ruled the Philippines for 21 years, nine of them under martial law. Initially hailed as a reformer, his regime became progressively more tyrannical, corrupt and incompetent, particularly as his health deteriorated and he became dependent on his wife and on the cronies he promoted solely based on loyalty.

Some U.S. officials in the mid-1980s defended Marcos on the grounds that “there’s no real alternative” (though not, as often claimed, because “at least he’s our son of a bitch”). Embassy officials said that the Philippine opposition was weak and expected the U.S. government to do their work for them. But that ignored the fact that continued U.S. support for Marcos was itself discouraging opposition.