Philippines in Crisis, U.S. Power vs local revolt

by Donald Kirk

Revised and updated edition of the author's 1998 book, The Philippines After the Bases. So little are Americans really attuned to the Philippines, after more than a century of involvement, that the sense remains of a distant land doing fine after the purge of People Power and then, 15 years later, People Power II. The country, however, is mired in problems that predated Marcos or even the advent of American colonialism. So endemic is the culture of corruption and nepotism, so diffused are groupings from one region to another, so deep are class distinctions as to counter attempts to replicate more than the forms of democracy as seen or practiced...in some Western countries. This book is an attempt to show the problems besetting democracy in the Philippines not through the maneuvering of elitist political parties but in the machinations of an upper class as dramatized in the fate of the American basses at Clark and Subic. It examines the corruption and nepotism that overshadow the mystique of People Power revolts. It recounts the drama of the eruption of Mount Pinatubo as the beginning of a period of looting and exploitation and, in that context, analyzes and contrasts efforts at resolving guerrilla revolt. At the same time, it looks ahead to new frontiers amid renewed threats heightened by the global war on terror. Now, more than ever, this society is a matter of concern militarily, economically, and culturally.

First published January 1, 2007