Third Source Of Marcos's Funds example essay topic

The Marcos rule was economically disastrous for the Philippines. The causes of this were greatly made by the abuses of the Marcos es and their cronies. Their crimes brought our country into deep poverty and trouble at the end. And the evidence of their scandalous acts is found in various published materials. Some people have estimated that the Marcos's and their associates took at least 5 billion dollars of ill-gotten wealth. But there are other materials suggesting that Marcos took even greater amounts of money.

According to Jovi to Salon ga (the first chairman of the Philippine Presidential Commission on Good Government) there were three main sources of the Marcos loot. Firstly, Marcos diverted our economic aid donations from other countries for his own personal purpose. He was the one arranging all our foreign economic assistance, including reparation funds from Japan and economic aid from the United States. Secondly, there were the military funds to help the community (Philcag funds).

Marcos approved the sending of Philcag engineers to Vietnam, a measure for which he was thoroughly rewarded by the US government. The huge optional funds that were put at his removal were suspected to have found its way into his pocket too. The third source of Marcos's funds was the kickbacks from public works contracts. Marcos accepted money or other bribes from his friends in exchange for the granting of government employment, government contracts, licenses, concessions, permits, franchises and monopolies. The Marcos's also took direct withdrawals of money from the public treasury and the gold stocks of the State. Imelda Marcos was using the Philippine National Bank as if it were her own private piggy bank!

During the Marcos rule, poverty increased from 24% in 1974 to 40% in 1980. The Philippine economy was not improving, per capita income was falling, and money owed to other countries had grown to serious levels. By 1985 the Philippines had the heaviest external debt burden of any country in East and South East Asia. Many of our businessmen, traders, industrialists, producers and manufactures stopped their operations. Stores and schools were closing down. And the Philippines suffered some losses in trade too.

The increasing cost of oil imports and the lowering of the prices of traditional exports like sugar, copper and ore contras, plywood, coconut oil, logs and lumber and abaca, led to a trade shortfall of P 1,164 million in 1975. It was called a "smiling dictatorship" but the only one who was smiling was the dictator, his friends, and family members. After having tracked down Marcos accounts and properties all over the world, investigators still aren't sure that they " ve found all the ill-gotten wealth. Surprisingly enough, Marcos actually achieved to do a lot of good things to our society too. His dictatorship benefited our country in different ways. He established diplomatic relations with Beijing and Moscow long before the U.S. and others in ASEAN did.

He refused to extend the Laurel-Langley Agreement that granted U.S. citizens many of the same rights in the Philippines as Filipinos themselves. In his first four years as president, employment increased because of the construction of roads, bridges, and airports. He brought his country self-sufficiency in rice. And most importantly, he gave us a sense of nationhood and national identity. His reign brought us all together in unity during the first Edsa Revolution. His greatest accomplishment, he told Asia week while in exile in Hawaii in 1987, was "the conversion of a mendicant, indolent, uninspired and resigned people and country into a vibrant society.".