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Voices of Photography
Issue 20 : 冷戰影像．美國因素
Cold War Images．The American Factor

冷戰，一個自二戰後從美國與蘇聯為首的對立關係之中展開，進而影響世界局勢與歷史發展的關鍵詞彙。1950年代起，居於美國反共圍堵政策重要位置的台灣——麥克阿瑟口中的「不沉的航空母艦」——也在美援的推力下，進入了一個新的社會與文化狀態。從意識形態到可口可樂，美國因素至今依舊牽動著東亞世局與我們日常生活的方方面面。在本期專題中，我們從台灣出發，循著東亞島鏈爬行，從冷戰時期的影像檔案，到後冷戰時期的當代攝影創作，對遠去卻仍鮮明的冷戰記憶進行了一次影像考查。

以文化冷戰作為切點，張世倫推究東亞冷戰架構下的圖像線索，剖視美國新聞處與國府的影像敘事策略；單德興與王梅香分別從香港美國新聞處自1950年代起發行的《今日世界》與《四海》畫報，揭開冷戰年代資本主義陣營宣傳戰的紙上烽火；李威儀探查農復會於美援時期拍攝的照片檔案，尋找過往台灣攝影譜系中遺落的美援身影；仲嶺繪里奈以不同世代沖繩攝影家的在地視角，細細解讀戰後沖繩人在美軍佔領與基地環繞下，複雜糾結的認同與抵抗；朴智洙藉由多位南韓攝影家的影像，訴說朝鮮半島分斷體制在北緯38度線間的沉重拉扯；許芳慈則透過藝術家菲奧娜．阿蒙森與萬迪拉塔那的作品，揭示在美國主導的冷戰史學之外的異質論述與歷史創傷。

此外，我們更專訪曾在六○年代派駐台灣的美軍退役士官長肯特．馬修。1965年，23歲年輕的馬修搭上C-54運輸機來到台灣，在隸屬美國空軍的台北通訊站工作，同時兼任台北美軍顧問團軍官俱樂部分部的經理；退休後，他建立了網站，召集許多當年駐台的美國老兵分享在台灣的時代足印。在馬修的軍旅回顧裡，我們彷彿重返歷史現場——美國大兵、俱樂部和基地……。這不只是一個老兵的故事，更是一段屬於台灣的集體記憶。

今年初，對當代視覺文化思考有深遠影響的藝評家約翰．伯格，以高齡90歲辭世。為紀念他，我們邀請影像評論家郭力昕與張世倫在編輯室進行了一場長篇對談，深度評析伯格的觀點論述及其知識份子典型，同時由資深藝評家黃翰荻執筆，追憶伯格敏銳深刻的觀看之道，絕對適合伯格的重度讀者。此外，這期我們也開啟一個新的攝影書選書單元「Photobook Club」，每期邀請一位國際影像工作者、研究者或收藏者，為讀者挑選近來值得關注的攝影書籍，本期將由位在墨爾本的亞太攝影書庫創辦人伯克-史密斯率先為大家介紹。

二月截稿之際，傳來青年藝術家任航輕生的惡耗，讓人震驚不已。我們在2013年的「身體與性」專題曾與任航對話，在他作品中穎異的肢體語言所展露的視覺張力，推進著身體意識的遊戲邊界，令人著迷，也使他成為近年國際攝影圈的一顆新星，但他卻毫不留戀地如流星飛去，告別他正澄亮的藝術生命。謹在此揮手，悼念送行。任航，好走！

◼︎ 購書 | Order : https://goo.gl/rfyotr
◼︎ 訂閱 | Subscribe : https://goo.gl/nYzUQh

Cold War, a historical keyword, refers to a period of time which unfolded after World War II with conflicting relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, affecting the political and historical development of the world. From the 1950s, The U.S.’s anti-communist stronghold Taiwan, which was hailed by McArthur as the “Unsinkable aircraft-carrier”, entered a new social and cultural order under the influence of U.S. Aid. From ideology to Coca-Cola, “The American factor” has been influencing developments in East Asia and our daily lives in more ways than one. In this issue, we set off from Taiwan and move along the East Asian island chain as we look into image archives of the Cold War era to contemporary post-Cold War photography work, conducting a visual study of distant yet fresh Cold War memories.

Using the Cultural Cold War as his point of discussion, Shih-Lun Chang examined the pictorial clues under the framework of the Cold War in East Asia, in order to analyse the strategies of pictorial narratives by the U.S. Information Service and the KMT government; Te-Hsing Shan and Mei-Hsiang Wang respectively made use of the study of World Today and Four Seas, both started by the U.S. Information Service in Hong Kong, to unravel the intense ideological war by the Cold War Capitalist camp on paper. Through his study of the “Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction” image archives' shots captured during the U.S. Aid Period, Wei-I Lee searched for past images of the U.S. Aid Period left behind in Taiwan's photography spectrum.

Furthermore, Erina Nakamine chose to make use of the local perspectives of three Okinawan photographers from three generations to conduct a detailed study of Okinawans' complicated self-identity and resistance issues while under American rule and surrounded by U.S. military bases. Through the photographic images of many South Korean photographers, Park Jisoo told the heavy-hearted story of struggles that took place in the Korean Peninsula on the 38th parallel. Fang-Tze Hsu's unraveling of alternative discourse and historical trauma outside of the US-centric Cold War historiography was done through a study of Fiona Amundsen and Vandy Rattana's works.

In addition, we also feature an interview with a retired U.S. Sergeant First Class, Kent Mathieu, who was based in Taiwan in the Sixties. He arrived in Taiwan on a C-54 carrier in 1965 where he worked in Taipei Air Station belonging to the U.S. Air Force in Taipei, while he also took up the post of Manager in the MAAG HQ’s Annex Officer's Club in Taipei. Following his retirement, Mathieu set up a website which served as a depository of memories for many American soldiers who had previously served in Taiwan. Through the memories of Mathieu’s military career, it was as if we were teleported back in time to the era filled with images of U.S. soldiers, clubs, pubs and bases..... These imprints which have been gradually forgotten in Formosa not only formed the stories of many US soldiers once based in Taiwan, but also collective memories belonging to Taiwan as well.

Earlier this year, renowned and influential art critic John Berger passed away at age 90. In memory of him, we invited photography critic Li-Hsin Kuo and Shih-Lun Chang for a long dialogue to conduct an in-depth critique of Berger’s ideas and his identity as an intellectual. At the same time, we invited experienced art critic Han-Di Huang to pen an article detailing Berger’s acute and intense views on seeing, which would certainly satisfy Berger’s ardent fans. In addition, from this issue onwards, we have started a new segment “Photobook Club” where we invite an international image practitioner, author, researcher or collector, to introduce to our readers recent worthy photobook reads. This issue, we open with Daniel Boetker-Smith, who is the founder of Melbourne-based Asia-Pacific Photobook Archive.

As we close our articles collection in February, we have received the sad news of young artist Ren Hang’s suicide, which has left us in deep shock. We had a dialogue with Ren Hang in 2013 for the Bodies and Sex feature, we saw for ourselves the visual tension demonstrated through body language in his works, where he mesmerized all with his pushing of the game boundaries circling the human body. This led him to become the young star of the international photography scene in recent years. With his passing which happened like disappearing shooting stars, his illustrious life as an artist has also ended. We wish to bid him a fond farewell, may you rest in peace, Ren Hang!

---
Voices of Photography 攝影之聲
www.vopmagazine.com

新刊現身 | NEW RELEASE (第20期!!!)

Voices of Photography
Issue 20 : 冷戰影像．美國因素
Cold War Images．The American Factor

冷戰，一個自二戰後從美國與蘇聯為首的對立關係之中展開，進而影響世界局勢與歷史發展的關鍵詞彙。1950年代起，居於美國反共圍堵政策重要位置的台灣——麥克阿瑟口中的「不沉的航空母艦」——也在美援的推力下，進入了一個新的社會與文化狀態。從意識形態到可口可樂，美國因素至今依舊牽動著東亞世局與我們日常生活的方方面面。在本期專題中，我們從台灣出發，循著東亞島鏈爬行，從冷戰時期的影像檔案，到後冷戰時期的當代攝影創作，對遠去卻仍鮮明的冷戰記憶進行了一次影像考查。

以文化冷戰作為切點，張世倫推究東亞冷戰架構下的圖像線索，剖視美國新聞處與國府的影像敘事策略；單德興與王梅香分別從香港美國新聞處自1950年代起發行的《今日世界》與《四海》畫報，揭開冷戰年代資本主義陣營宣傳戰的紙上烽火；李威儀探查農復會於美援時期拍攝的照片檔案，尋找過往台灣攝影譜系中遺落的美援身影；仲嶺繪里奈以不同世代沖繩攝影家的在地視角，細細解讀戰後沖繩人在美軍佔領與基地環繞下，複雜糾結的認同與抵抗；朴智洙藉由多位南韓攝影家的影像，訴說朝鮮半島分斷體制在北緯38度線間的沉重拉扯；許芳慈則透過藝術家菲奧娜．阿蒙森與萬迪拉塔那的作品，揭示在美國主導的冷戰史學之外的異質論述與歷史創傷。

此外，我們更專訪曾在六○年代派駐台灣的美軍退役士官長肯特．馬修。1965年，23歲年輕的馬修搭上C-54運輸機來到台灣，在隸屬美國空軍的台北通訊站工作，同時兼任台北美軍顧問團軍官俱樂部分部的經理；退休後，他建立了網站，召集許多當年駐台的美國老兵分享在台灣的時代足印。在馬修的軍旅回顧裡，我們彷彿重返歷史現場——美國大兵、俱樂部和基地……。這不只是一個老兵的故事，更是一段屬於台灣的集體記憶。

今年初，對當代視覺文化思考有深遠影響的藝評家約翰．伯格，以高齡90歲辭世。為紀念他，我們邀請影像評論家郭力昕與張世倫在編輯室進行了一場長篇對談，深度評析伯格的觀點論述及其知識份子典型，同時由資深藝評家黃翰荻執筆，追憶伯格敏銳深刻的觀看之道，絕對適合伯格的重度讀者。此外，這期我們也開啟一個新的攝影書選書單元「Photobook Club」，每期邀請一位國際影像工作者、研究者或收藏者，為讀者挑選近來值得關注的攝影書籍，本期將由位在墨爾本的亞太攝影書庫創辦人伯克-史密斯率先為大家介紹。

二月截稿之際，傳來青年藝術家任航輕生的惡耗，讓人震驚不已。我們在2013年的「身體與性」專題曾與任航對話，在他作品中穎異的肢體語言所展露的視覺張力，推進著身體意識的遊戲邊界，令人著迷，也使他成為近年國際攝影圈的一顆新星，但他卻毫不留戀地如流星飛去，告別他正澄亮的藝術生命。謹在此揮手，悼念送行。任航，好走！

◼︎ 購書 | Order : https://goo.gl/rfyotr
◼︎ 訂閱 | Subscribe : https://goo.gl/nYzUQh

Cold War, a historical keyword, refers to a period of time which unfolded after World War II with conflicting relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, affecting the political and historical development of the world. From the 1950s, The U.S.’s anti-communist stronghold Taiwan, which was hailed by McArthur as the “Unsinkable aircraft-carrier”, entered a new social and cultural order under the influence of U.S. Aid. From ideology to Coca-Cola, “The American factor” has been influencing developments in East Asia and our daily lives in more ways than one. In this issue, we set off from Taiwan and move along the East Asian island chain as we look into image archives of the Cold War era to contemporary post-Cold War photography work, conducting a visual study of distant yet fresh Cold War memories.

Using the Cultural Cold War as his point of discussion, Shih-Lun Chang examined the pictorial clues under the framework of the Cold War in East Asia, in order to analyse the strategies of pictorial narratives by the U.S. Information Service and the KMT government; Te-Hsing Shan and Mei-Hsiang Wang respectively made use of the study of World Today and Four Seas, both started by the U.S. Information Service in Hong Kong, to unravel the intense ideological war by the Cold War Capitalist camp on paper. Through his study of the “Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction” image archives' shots captured during the U.S. Aid Period, Wei-I Lee searched for past images of the U.S. Aid Period left behind in Taiwan's photography spectrum.

Furthermore, Erina Nakamine chose to make use of the local perspectives of three Okinawan photographers from three generations to conduct a detailed study of Okinawans' complicated self-identity and resistance issues while under American rule and surrounded by U.S. military bases. Through the photographic images of many South Korean photographers, Park Jisoo told the heavy-hearted story of struggles that took place in the Korean Peninsula on the 38th parallel. Fang-Tze Hsu's unraveling of alternative discourse and historical trauma outside of the US-centric Cold War historiography was done through a study of Fiona Amundsen and Vandy Rattana's works.

In addition, we also feature an interview with a retired U.S. Sergeant First Class, Kent Mathieu, who was based in Taiwan in the Sixties. He arrived in Taiwan on a C-54 carrier in 1965 where he worked in Taipei Air Station belonging to the U.S. Air Force in Taipei, while he also took up the post of Manager in the MAAG HQ’s Annex Officer's Club in Taipei. Following his retirement, Mathieu set up a website which served as a depository of memories for many American soldiers who had previously served in Taiwan. Through the memories of Mathieu’s military career, it was as if we were teleported back in time to the era filled with images of U.S. soldiers, clubs, pubs and bases..... These imprints which have been gradually forgotten in Formosa not only formed the stories of many US soldiers once based in Taiwan, but also collective memories belonging to Taiwan as well.

Earlier this year, renowned and influential art critic John Berger passed away at age 90. In memory of him, we invited photography critic Li-Hsin Kuo and Shih-Lun Chang for a long dialogue to conduct an in-depth critique of Berger’s ideas and his identity as an intellectual. At the same time, we invited experienced art critic Han-Di Huang to pen an article detailing Berger’s acute and intense views on seeing, which would certainly satisfy Berger’s ardent fans. In addition, from this issue onwards, we have started a new segment “Photobook Club” where we invite an international image practitioner, author, researcher or collector, to introduce to our readers recent worthy photobook reads. This issue, we open with Daniel Boetker-Smith, who is the founder of Melbourne-based Asia-Pacific Photobook Archive.

As we close our articles collection in February, we have received the sad news of young artist Ren Hang’s suicide, which has left us in deep shock. We had a dialogue with Ren Hang in 2013 for the Bodies and Sex feature, we saw for ourselves the visual tension demonstrated through body language in his works, where he mesmerized all with his pushing of the game boundaries circling the human body. This led him to become the young star of the international photography scene in recent years. With his passing which happened like disappearing shooting stars, his illustrious life as an artist has also ended. We wish to bid him a fond farewell, may you rest in peace, Ren Hang!

---
Voices of Photography 攝影之聲
www.vopmagazine.com

A GOOD READ from one of the greatest leader that lived, #SINGAPORE's founding man, #LeeKuanYew

THIS MUST BE SHARED AND THOROUGHLY READ BY EVERY FILIPINO... Its quite long but it will surely strengthen our minds but then at the end, I was like "SAYANG!!!"
It came from the SINGAPORE'S FOUNDING MAN ITSELF, former Prime Minister LEE KUAN YEW on how the Philippines should have become, IF ONLY...

I've just read it and, its point blank!
Its a good read
____________

(The following excerpt is taken from pages 299 – 305 from Lee Kuan Yew’s book “From Third World to First”, Chapter 18 “Building Ties with Thailand, the Philippines, and Brunei”)

*

The Philippines was a world apart from us, running a different style of politics and government under an American military umbrella. It was not until January 1974 that I visited President Marcos in Manila. When my Singapore Airlines plane flew into Philippine airspace, a small squadron of Philippine Air Force jet fighters escorted it to Manila Airport. There Marcos received me in great style – the Filipino way. I was put up at the guest wing of Malacañang Palace in lavishly furnished rooms, valuable objects of art bought in Europe strewn all over. Our hosts were gracious, extravagant in hospitality, flamboyant. Over a thousand miles of water separated us. There was no friction and little trade. We played golf, talked about the future of ASEAN, and promised to keep in touch.

His foreign minister, Carlos P. Romulo, was a small man of about five feet some 20 years my senior, with a ready wit and a self-deprecating manner about his size and other limitations. Romulo had a good sense of humor, an eloquent tongue, and a sharp pen, and was an excellent dinner companion because he was a wonderful raconteur, with a vast repertoire of anecdotes and witticisms. He did not hide his great admiration for the Americans. One of his favourite stories was about his return to the Philippines with General MacArthur. As MacArthur waded ashore at Leyte, the water reached his knees but came up to Romulo’s chest and he had to swim ashore. His good standing with ASEAN leaders and with Americans increased the prestige of the Marcos administration. Marcos had in Romulo a man of honor and integrity who helped give a gloss of respectability to his regime as it fell into disrepute in the 1980s.

In Bali in 1976, at the first ASEAN summit held after the fall of Saigon, I found Marcos keen to push for greater economic cooperation in ASEAN. But we could not go faster than the others. To set the pace, Marcos and I agreed to implement a bilateral Philippines-Singapore across-the-board 10 percent reduction of existing tariffs on all products and to promote intra-ASEAN trade. We also agreed to lay a Philippines-Singapore submarine cable. I was to discover that for him, the communiqué was the accomplishment itself; its implementation was secondary, an extra to be discussed at another conference.

We met every two to three years. He once took me on a tour of his library at Malacañang, its shelves filled with bound volumes of newspapers reporting his activities over the years since he first stood for elections. There were encyclopedia-size volumes on the history and culture of the Philippines with his name as the author. His campaign medals as an anti-Japanese guerrilla leader were displayed in glass cupboards. He was the undisputed boss of all Filipinos. Imelda, his wife, had a penchant for luxury and opulence. When they visited Singapore before the Bali summit they came in stye in two DC8’s, his and hers.

Marcos did not consider China a threat for the immediate future, unlike Japan. He did not rule out the possibility of an aggressive Japan, if circumstances changed. He had memories of the horrors the Imperial Army had inflicted on Manila. We had strongly divergent views on the Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Cambodia. While he, pro forma, condemned the Vietnamese occupation, he did not consider it a danger to the Philippines. There was the South China Sea separating them and the American navy guaranteed their security. As a result, Marcos was not active on the Cambodian question. Moreover, he was to become preoccupied with the deteriorating security in his country.

Marcos, ruling under martial law, had detained opposition leader Benigno (Ninoy) Aquino, reputed to be as charismatic and powerful a campaigner as he was. He freed Aquino and allowed him to go to the United States. As the economic situation in the Philippines deteriorated, Aquino announced his decision to return. Mrs. Marcos issued several veiled warnings. When the plane arrived at Manila Airport from Taipei in August 1983, he was shot as he descended from the aircraft. A whole posse of foreign correspondents with television camera crews accompanying him on the aircraft was not enough protection.

International outrage over the killing resulted in foreign banks stopping all loans to the Philippines, which owed over US$25 billion and could not pay the interest due. This brought Marcos to the crunch. He sent his minister for trade and industry, Bobby Ongpin, to ask me for a loan of US$300-500 million to meet the interest payments. I looked him straight in the eye and said, “We will never see that money back.” Moreover, I added, everyone knew that Marcos was seriously ill and under constant medication for a wasting disease. What was needed was a strong, healthy leader, not more loans.

Shortly afterward, in February 1984, Marcos met me in Brunei at the sultanate’s independence celebrations. He had undergone a dramatic physical change. Although less puffy than he had appeared on television, his complexion was dark as if he had been out in the sun. He was breathing hard as he spoke, his voice was soft, eyes bleary, and hair thinning. He looked most unhealthy. An ambulance with all the necessary equipment and a team of Filipino doctors were on standby outside his guest bungalow. Marcos spent much of the time giving me a most improbable story of how Aquino had been shot.

As soon as all our aides left, I went straight to the point, that no bank was going to lend him any money. They wanted to know who was going to succeed him if anything were to happen to him; all the bankers could see that he no longer looked healthy. Singapore banks had lent US$8 billion of the US$25 billion owing. The hard fact was they were not likely to get repayment for some 20 years. He countered that it would be only eight years. I said the bankers wanted to see a strong leader in the Philippines who could restore stability, and the Americans hoped the election in May would throw up someone who could be such a leader. I asked whom he would nominate for the election. He said Prime Minister Cesar Virata. I was blunt. Virata was a nonstarter, a first-class administrator but no political leader; further, his most politically astute colleague, defense minister Juan Ponce Enrile, was out of favour. Marcos was silent, then he admitted that succession was the nub of the problem. If he could find a successor, there would be a solution. As I left, he said, “You are a true friend.” I did not understand him. It was a strange meeting.

With medical care, Marcos dragged on. Cesar Virata met me in Singapore in January the following year. He was completely guileless, a political innocent. He said that Mrs. Imelda Marcos was likely to be nominated as the presidential candidate. I asked how that could be when there were other weighty candidates, including Juan Ponce Enrile and Blas Ople, the labor minister. Virata replied it had to do with “flow of money; she would have more money than other candidates to pay for the votes needed for nomination by the party and to win the election. He added that if she were the candidate, the opposition would put up Mrs. Cory Aquino and work up the people’s feelings. He said the economy was going down with no political stability.

The denouement came in February 1986 when Marcos held presidential elections which he claimed he won. Cory Aquino, the opposition candidate, disputed this and launched a civil disobedience campaign. Defense Minister Juan Enrile defected and admitted election fraud had taken place, and the head of the Philippine constabulary, Lieutenant General Fidel Ramos, joined him. A massive show of “people power” in the streets of Manila led to a spectacular overthrow of a dictatorship. The final indignity was on 25 February 1986, when Marcos and his wife fled in U.S. Air Force helicopters from Malacañang Palace to Clark Air Base and were flown to Hawaii. This Hollywood-style melodrama could only have happened in the Philippines.

Mrs. Aquino was sworn in as president amid jubilation. I had hopes that this honest, God-fearing woman would help regain confidence for the Philippines and get the country back on track. I visited her that June, three months after the event. She was a sincere, devout Catholic who wanted to do her best for her country by carrying out what she believed her husband would have done had he been alive, namely, restore democracy to the Philippines. Democracy would then solve their economic and social problems. At dinner, Mrs. Aquino seated the chairman of the constitutional commission, Chief Justice Cecilia Muñoz-Palma, next to me. I asked the learned lady what lessons her commission had learned from the experience of the last 40 years since independence in 1946 would guide her in drafting the constitution. She answered without hesitation, “We will not have any reservations or limitations on our democracy. We must make sure that no dictator can ever emerge to subvert the constitution.” Was there no incompatibility of the American-type separation of powers with the culture and habits of the Filipino people that had caused problems for the presidents before Marcos? Apparently none.

Endless attempted coups added to Mrs. Aquino’s problems. The army and the constabulary had been politicized. Before the ASEAN summit in December 1987, a coup was threatened. Without President Suharto’s firm support the summit would have been postponed and confidence in Aquino’s government undermined. The Philippine government agreed that the responsibility for security should be shared between them and the other ASEAN governments, in particular the Indonesian government. General Benny Moerdani, President Suharto’s trusted aide, took charge. He positioned an Indonesian warship in the middle of Manila Bay with helicopters and a commando team ready to rescue the ASEAN heads of government if there should be a coup attempt during the summit. I was included in their rescue plans. I wondered if such a rescue could work but decided to go along with the arrangements, hoping that the show of force would scare off the coup leaders. We were all confined to the Philippine Plaza Hotel by the seafront facing Manila Bay where we could see the Indonesian warship at anchor. The hotel was completely sealed off and guarded. The summit went off without any mishap. We all hoped that this show of united support for Mrs. Aquino’s government at a time when there were many attempts to destabilize it would calm the situation.

It made no difference. There were more coup attempts, discouraging investments badly needed to create jobs. This was a pity because they had so many able people, educated in the Philippines and the United States. Their workers were English-speaking, at least in Manila. There was no reason why the Philippines should not have been one of the more successful of the ASEAN countries. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was the most developed, because America had been generous in rehabilitating the country after the war. Something was missing, a gel to hold society together. The people at the top, the elite mestizos, had the same detached attitude to the native peasants as the mestizos in their haciendas in Latin America had toward their peons. They were two different societies: Those at the top lived a life of extreme luxury and comfort while the peasants scraped a living, and in the Philippines it was a hard living. They had no land but worked on sugar and coconut plantations.They had many children because the church discouraged birth control. The result was increasing poverty.

It was obvious that the Philippines would never take off unless there was substantial aid from the United States. George Shultz, the secretary of state, was sympathetic and wanted to help but made clear to me that the United States would be better able to do something if ASEAN showed support by making its contribution. The United States was reluctant to go it alone and adopt the Philippines as its special problem. Shultz wanted ASEAN to play a more prominent role to make it easier for the president to get the necessary votes in Congress. I persuaded Shultz to get the aid project off the ground in 1988, before President Reagan’s second term of office ended. He did. There were two meetings for a Multilateral Assistance Initiative (Philippines Assistance Programme): The first in Tokyo in 1989 brought US$3.5 billion in pledges, and the second in Hong Kong in 1991, under the Bush administration, yielded US$14 billion in pledges. But instability in the Philippines did not abate. This made donors hesitant and delayed the implementation of projects.

Mrs. Aquino’s successor, Fidel Ramos, whom she had backed, was more practical and established greater stability. In November 1992, I visited him. In a speech to the 18th Philippine Business Conference, I said, “I do not believe democracy necessarily leads to development. I believe what a country needs to develop is discipline more than democracy.” In private, President Ramos said he agreed with me that British parliamentary-type constitutions worked better because the majority party in the legislature was also the government. Publicly, Ramos had to differ.

He knew well the difficulties of trying to govern with strict American-style separation of powers. The senate had already defeated Mrs. Aquino’s proposal to retain the American bases. The Philippines had a rambunctious press but it did not check corruption. Individual press reporters could be bought, as could many judges. Something had gone seriously wrong. Millions of Filipino men and women had to leave their country for jobs abroad beneath their level of education. Filipino professionals whom we recruited to work in Singapore are as good as our own. Indeed, their architects, artists, and musicians are more artistic and creative than ours. Hundreds of thousands of them have left for Hawaii and for the American mainland. It is a problem the solution to which has not been made easier by the workings of a Philippine version of the American constitution.

The difference lies in the culture of the Filipino people. It is a soft, forgiving culture. Only in the Philippines could a leader like Ferdinand Marcos, who pillaged his country for over 20 years, still be considered for a national burial. Insignificant amounts of the loot have been recovered, yet his wife and children were allowed to return and engage in politics. They supported the winning presidential and congressional candidates with their considerable resources and reappeared in the political and social limelight after the 1998 election that returned President Joseph Estrada. General Fabian Ver, Marcos’s commander-in-chief who had been in charge of security when Aquino was assassinated, had fled the Philippines together with Marcos in 1986. When he died in Bangkok, the Estrada government gave the general military honors at his burial. One Filipino newspaper, Today, wrote on 22 November 1998, “Ver, Marcos and the rest of the official family plunged the country into two decades of lies, torture, and plunder. Over the next decade, Marcos’s cronies and immediate family would tiptoe back into the country, one by one – always to the public’s revulsion and disgust, though they showed that there was nothing that hidden money and thick hides could not withstand.” Some Filipinos write and speak with passion. If they could get their elite to share their sentiments and act, what could they not have achieved?

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SAYANG! kindly share.