Did he steal all of it? Didn't any of it go to build roads, bridges, hospitals, universities?
Sorry; I wasn't clear. Money lent directly from government to government - or from multilateral agencies to governments - for infrastructure or other public projects is a very small part of the Philippine debt, and of most 3rd world debt. The vast majority is private borrowing backed by government guarantees.
It works like this. If a Filipino company wants to borrow from Chase Manhattan, it can't present collateral, because Chase M. couldn't repossess the collateral in the event of a default. So the Filipino company gets a guarantee from the Philippine Government, agreeing that if the company defaults, the Philippine Government will assume the responsibility of paying the loan. Since we all know - sort of - that governments don't default, this is acceptable to the bank.
This system was set up for the admirable purpose of encouraging and supporting private enterprise in developing countries. The potential for abuse resulting from collusion between corrupt governments and crony businessmen was recognized from the start, and the IMF was assigned the job of watching to make sure they weren't guaranteeing loans for projects that weren't viable, or guaranteeing more loans than they could pay. The IMF abdicated this responsibility under direct pressure from the US Government. This pressure was the result of a policy decision, the grounds of this assumption being that Marcos was a necessary ally against the communists, and that keeping him in power was worth the risk of bankrupting the country.
The irony, of course, is that Marcos was the best thing that ever happened to the Philippine communists, and that once he was gone the rebellion sank quickly into marginality. Evidence that this was the case was abundant and widely published at the time these policy decisions were made, but the people making the decisions found the evidence incompatible with their doctrines and ideologies, and ignored it.
The question, again: if we are going to make decisions affecting people that have zero influence on our political process, should we take responsibility for the consequences of those decisions?
Without that money, what would the infrastructure of the Philippines be today?
Very shitty, as it is today. Very little was lent - or spent - for infrastructure development.
If you anyone is really curious about what happened; I recommend Raymond Bonner's book Waltzing With a Dictator. Quite shocking, really; the man played our government like a stringed instrument, and all the while our government thought it was the other way around. Fascinating story. |
