Imagine that Felipe Gonzalez before becoming prime minister of democratic Spain had been head of General Franco's security police. This bizarre political trajectory might be unimaginable in modern Spain, but it is almost exactly what happened in east Asia's most "exuberant" democracy - the Philippines.
Fidel Ramos, the bespectacled, cigar-chomping technocrat who replaced Cory Aquino as president five years ago, was head of the country's security apparatus in the bad old days under strongman Ferdinand Marcos. Under Ramos's tenure thousands of leftwing activists and Muslim insurgents either disappeared or emerged badly scathed at the hands of the elite unit of the national police force. Many were-in the quirky argot of Philippine English-simply "salvaged" (decapitated and left to float down the river). Others, numbering about 10,000, fled to exile in the US and Australia and are still pursuing the Marcos estate for billions of dollars in compensation. The class action against the widowed Imelda Marcos (she of the 3,000 shoes) and her family is likely to run for years.
No document or piece of evidence, however, has been found directly to implicate Ramos for the human rights violations of the Marcos years. Instead, "steady Eddie" is portrayed as the restorer and guardian of Philippine democracy for his role, alongside Aquino, in helping to overthrow Marcos in 1986. In Manila, it seems, the price of democracy is collective amnesia. Alternatively, perhaps, the foundations of Philippine freedom are built upon catholic forgiveness. Either way, Ramos has somehow cast off his past and emerged-like a chrysalis-with an entirely new skin.
At the weekly televised press conference in the Malacanang palace, the 68-year-old president is a jovial figure. He banters with the press, cracking jokes about his portly wife and humouring the most curmudgeonly questions. Impromptu inquiries about the national sports council or the governorship of a faraway province receive detailed replies. Ramos revels in this rare exercise in Asian democracy: no scandal goes unanswered; no accusation or insult unreturned.
The president's metamorphosis is all the more remarkable considering the principles he espouses. As head of state of east Asia's second largest bona fide democracy behind Japan (with 70m inhabitants the Philippines is more populous than Thailand) Ramos has become the unofficial spokesman of liberal democracy in the region. Armed with quotes from Philippine nationalists-who struggled against first Spanish then US colonialism as well as Japanese occupation-he attacks the contention that "Asian values" are at odds with individual democratic rights. The idea that free-wheeling democracy is inimical to economic development is belied by recent Philippine experience, he says.
Others, notably Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's senior minister, Mahathir Mohamed, the prime minister of Malaysia, or, indeed, almost any regional counterpart, disagree. On a brief visit to Manila in 1992 shortly after Ramos was elected president, Lee Kuan Yew applied his censorious philosophy to the Philippine context. The Philippines was an "exuberant democracy," said Lee. "But when you pick up a telephone," he added, "you can't get a dialtone." Lee's aside incensed Ramos who pointed out that under the Marcos dictatorship during the 1970s and 1980s the Philippines had come close to bankruptcy. Prior to the ascendancy of Marcos in 1965, the World Bank had talked about democratic Philippines as a possible economic model for other Asian countries. By the time the autocrat was ejected in 1986, the country had become the "sick man of Asia."
A more graphic version of what happened to the Philippine economy during the Marcos years can be gathered from almost any Manila taxi driver. In 1965, the growing Philippine economy imported cheap Asian labour to clean and cook for the country's middle classes. Plenty remember the Chinese amahs and South Korean nannies toiling for menial wages in Manila during the 1950s and 1960s.
By 1986 the situation had been turned on its head. Collapsing under the weight of the foreign debts incurred by the Marcos "kleptocracy," the Philippine economy had become a net exporter of menial labour. Even in 1996-and in spite of the country's economic renaissance under President Ramos-the Philippines remains the largest source of expatriate labour in Asia with over 4m Filipinos working abroad as maids, nannies, "entertainers" and merchant seamen. Few Singaporean or Hong Kong middle class households are complete without the Filipina amah.
Ramos's post-1986 political values, therefore, are founded on distaste for the excesses of autocracy and the observation that, in the Philippines, it leads inevitably to greater corruption. Born in 1928 in central Luzon, the largest of the country's 7,000 islands, Ramos was raised in an austere family which valued loyalty and hard work more than flair or riches. Converted to protestantism by American missionaries, the Ramos family was never part of the intimately connected catholic elite or the brash world of Manila's americanised business class.
Nevertheless, as secretary of state for foreign affairs in the 1960s, Ramos's father, Narciso, was no underachiever. As a civil servant, Narciso lived on a modest income in an otherwise graft-ridden system. No one, even among his detractors, accused him of corruption. The same could be said of Ramos junior whose own family home on the outskirts of Manila would pass as the residence of a middle-ranking manager or civil servant. Whatever else Ramos has been accused of-blind loyalty to dubious leadership being the most common-there are few who believe that he enriched himself or his family during the Marcos era. Surprisingly in a society which champions family advancement above all else, and at times seems almost to condone dishonesty if it is for the benefit of offspring, no charges of corruption have been levelled at the three Ramos daughters, all of whom live in obscurity. The president's wife, Amelita, devotes most of her time to charities and is not thought to own more than ten pairs of shoes.
Ramos senior's devotion to professionalism, work and patriotic duty clearly left a mark on his only son. More significantly, perhaps, Fidel Ramos has also inherited a professional's mistrust of showiness and a provincial's dislike for excessive living.
So, not by chance a guiding principle in the Ramos administration's roll-call of reforms is the devolution of power to the smallest provincial units. Devolution, combined with land reform, is designed in part to help stem the flow of landless peasants abroad. And as part of the public relations effort to promote it, Ramos announced last year that he would hold fortnightly cabinet meetings in the poorest outlying regions. Travelling in a phalanx of Vietnam war era Hueys, Ramos and his cabinet descend on isolated provincial outposts armed with "pork barrel" funds for the local communities.
Part circus and part substance, the fortnightly cabinet meeting is more akin to a US army "hearts and minds" campaign in south Vietnam than a domestic political exercise. Indeed, the helicopters which Ramos and his cabinet travel in are the exact same machines used in the Vietnam war film Apocalypse Now-shot in central Philippines in 1976.
Back then Ramos was the Marcos regime's leading anti-communist general with a brief to stamp out the domestic insurgency. Unlike the US in Vietnam, the Philippines succeeded in suppressing the communist rebellion with General Ramos taking much of the credit. Twenty years later, the West Point-trained soldier has lost none of his prosyletising zeal. "We are here in Iba [a small coastal town] to bring the government of the Philippines to you," Ramos tells a sports hall crammed with dignitaries, off-duty soldiers and bewildered schoolchildren. "I have also come to check up on your governor to see that he's doing a good job," he continues to hoots of encouragement. "Has he been a good boy?" Ramos doles out a welter of land title transfers, public commendations, cheques to local cooperatives and a wheelchair to a young paraplegic who has to be carried over heads to reach the podium. All that is missing is the crack of the circus whip.
The president is then whisked off to a small television studio to participate in a show called "people's day" which pairs off carefully handpicked indigents with local bigwigs in a kind of financial blind date. Ramos plays the benevolent comp?e. An old lady blighted by poverty and illness is matched up with the provincial representative of the national power corporation after being quizzed by Ramos on her plight. The object is to persuade the wealthy participant to extend a loan to his impecunious counterpart who will invest it in a small business. Ramos reminds viewers that these are not supposed to be handouts.
"So how much are you going to lend to Mrs de la Cruz?" the president inquires. The young executive mutters something nervously. "Six thousand pesos (?150)?" "Oh I think you can do better than that. What about 10,000 pesos?" asks Ramos winking at the camera. The manager, transfixed by the enormity of the moment, nods mechanically. "And how about a little donation for her medical expenses?" Another stupefied nod and the two are ushered away to be replaced by the next couple: a young aboriginal mother with her baby and a terrified Japanese engineer who is sweating through his suit. The young mother strikes the jackpot. The show lasts an hour.
few would have guessed in the early 1980s that Ramos was destined to champion the pro-democracy forces which would topple the Marcos family. With little to show for himself except a career of loyal military service to Marcos and his predecessors, Ramos's curriculum vitae could hardly have inspired confidence. Yet it was to "steady Eddie" that the mantle of chief hero would descend.
The occasion was the rigged 1986 presidential election. Faced with hundreds of thousands of protesters claiming Marcos had doctored the results to defeat Cory Aquino-widow of an assassinated dissident and symbol of non-violent opposition to the regime-Ramos and his fellow generals knew they would be ordered to suppress the peaceful uprising. The prospect of turning tanks on a sea of defenceless nuns, students, election volunteers and activists could not have been appealing. Promoted the previous year to deputy chief of staff, the task of breaking up this display of "people power" would have fallen on Ramos.
The defection of the troops and tanks under the command of Ramos and the secretary of state for defence, General Juan Ponce Enrile, shattered what remained of the dictator's credibility. After 21 years of service to the Marcos regime, Fidel Ramos joined the opposition at one minute to midnight. Within days, the former Marcos henchman had become the "guardian of Philippine democracy." It was as if Ramos's past-like the regime he had served and many of those who had opposed it-had vanished.
There are some who are still happy to recall Ramos in the first phase of his career. Of these, the tenacious Cardinal Sin, head of the catholic church and one of the heroes of 1986, is the most authoritative. "The president and I are very good friends," he said. "We are the same age, we share a sense of humour and on some matters we share a common outlook. But you should never forget that Ramos is a military man. Soldiers don't like to relinquish power."
Opponents of the Ramos administration, including various hopefuls for the 1998 presidential elections, accuse Ramos of plotting to extend his hold on power. Under the 1987 constitution, designed to prevent a return to autocracy, the head of state is limited to a single six year term of office. Most people date the beginnings of the Marcos dictatorship to his decision to alter and then suspend the constitution in 1972. Parallels between Marcos in 1972 and what many expect Ramos to do in 1998 are frequently drawn.
"As leader of the catholic church it is my duty to oppose any attempts to alter the constitution or lift term limits on elected politicians," said Cardinal Sin. "We cannot stand by and watch that happen." But the cardinal's political views, which are echoed by Cory Aquino, the former president, no longer ignite the Philippine faithful with quite the same fervour.
In 1992 voters ignored Cardinal Sin's entreaty to vote for Ramon Mitra, speaker of the House of Representatives, who was considered Ramos's strongest rival for the job. As a former general-and a protestant at that-Ramos did not fit the church's profile. But the electorate opted to snub the cardinal's advice although only 23.5 per cent voted for Ramos in the multi-horse contest. Some argue that the episode left a residue of bitterness which has subsequently clouded Sin's judgement.
Others, notably the swelling ranks of the new middle classes, dismiss suggestions that Ramos harbours autocratic intentions. For those old enough to recall the Marcos years but young enough to have benefited from the Philippines' remarkable turnaround since 1992, Ramos is credited with bringing about an economic rebirth. From growth of less than 1 per cent in 1992, the Philippine economy is now expanding at over 7 per cent a year.
"It is easy to forget that in a democracy the electorate is perfectly within its rights to amend the constitution, even if in the Philippines the device has been misused in the past," said a presidential aide who is associated with the campaign to lift term limits. "The US has done it. Why shouldn't we? The Ramos government has a lot of unfinished business."
Ramos's own democratic business began as defence secretary in the administration of Cory Aquino from 1986 to 1992, when it fell to him to defend the new democracy from a series of coup attempts by Marcos loyalists. Little else, apart from the expropriation of assets alleged to have been stolen by Marcos and his "cronies," was accomplished under Aquino.
The challenge of expunging the economic legacy of the late dictator and replacing an incestuous elite with a meritocracy, has now been taken up by the Ramos government. The initial objectives-privatisation, abolishing Marcos-era monopolies, lifting trade barriers and reducing debt interest payments-were relatively simple. The more difficult tasks, including the painstaking goal of eradicating institutionalised graft and spreading the fruits of growth to the masses, remain largely unfulfilled.
"It takes a long time to alter the culture of a nation," said Jos?lmonte, a former general and classmate of Ramos, now chief strategist in the administration. "When Ramos came to office there were still basically 60 families controlling the economy and the spoils of political office. This is now changing quite rapidly. But it is not yet irreversible."
Set against Ramos's ambitious objectives, the spectre of an old-style "economic nationalist" winning the 1998 presidential election has alarmed many figures in the administration. Ironically, the main threat to the Ramos achievements comes from Vice-President Joseph Estrada, erstwhile Marcos intimate and an unabashed "economic nationalist." Estrada, who made his name as a "B movie star" playing Charles Bronson-style vigilante cops, regularly tops nationwide popularity ratings. Many, including influential voices in the private sector, believe that only Ramos can draw on sufficient public enthusiasm to defeat Estrada in 1998.
From his record to date it seems probable that Ramos will try to run again in 1998-despite having undergone minor heart surgery in December. His assertion that he plans to spend most of his time on the golf course after 1998 is widely taken as a joke-and the fact that Ramos enjoys holding cabinet t?e-?t?es on the ninth hole has hardly reassured his opponents.
viewed from manila, Ramos's provincial cabinet meetings are an indication that he is already running for re-election. With half the population still living in the countryside, the agrarian vote is vital.
But back in Iba, seated at the head of the cabinet table in a mayoral suite spruced up for the occasion, Ramos also has real business to finish. "What are we doing about the new highway between Subic Bay and Clark airbase," asks the president. "Is it running to schedule?" The secretary of state for public works delivers his report. "And what about the resettlement programme for those who lost their homes [in a typhoon] last year?" The agenda is remorselessly detailed and focuses on local issues alone. One head of department can be seen yawning into his handkerchief. Another has nodded off altogether.
"Some of our colleagues don't understand why they have to give up so much valuable time to jaunt around the provinces every two weeks," said one cabinet official after the meeting. "But for the president it's very therapeutic. He gets away from the back-biting atmosphere of Manila and lets people know that he hasn't forgotten them."
And democracy can be volatile, as Ramos discovered in the run up to the mid-term congressional elections in 1995. What at one moment appeared to be a sedate home run for the two-party Ramos coalition was transformed into one of the most emotive campaigns in the country's recent history.
The execution in Singapore of a Filipina maid, Flor Contemplacion, for the self-confessed murder of a fellow domestic servant and her four-year-old Chinese charge, was not expected to register on the Philippines' electoral radar. But last minute claims by opposition parties that Contemplacion had been framed by the Singaporean police left Ramos with little option but to request a stay of execution to evaluate the "new facts." The Singapore government ignored Ramos's request and the hanging took place as scheduled at Changi prison on 17th March 1995. With Contemplacion dead, all hopes of focusing the campaign on the administration's economic record disappeared as the Christian Philippines took to the streets against Confucian Singapore. Effigies of Goh Chok Tong, prime minister of Singapore, were burnt and Singaporeans were banned from restaurants.
But this was not the start of a culture war. The Philippines' historic ties to the US and its Christian liberal democracy make it an oddity in the region. But in recent years the country has, if anything, been moving closer to its Asian neighbours on trade and business issues. The Singapore execution simply struck a nerve among a Filipino underclass weary of sending its wives and daughters overseas to work for often abusive employers. Many of them were prepared to punish the Ramos government for its perceived weakness in the face of Singapore's intransigence. Ramos swam with the tide.
Suspending diplomatic relations and cancelling joint naval exercises with Singapore, Ramos hailed the late Contemplacion as a "national heroine" and ordered the 80,000 Filipina maids in Singapore to return home in protest. Speeches attacking "Asian values" were hastily drafted. The pro-Ramos parties, needless to say, went on to trounce the opposition at the polls a few weeks later. It was a lesson in populist democracy-Ramos said afterwards-which the Philippines would be happy to teach Singapore whenever the island state felt ready. Lee Kuan Yew cannot have been amused.
