After this, the deluge

Of the first ten Philippine presidents, eight were Bar topnotchers.

They were: Manuel L. Quezon, fourth in the Bar exams of 1903; Sergio Osmeña, second in the Bar exams of 1903; Manuel Roxas, first in 1913; Jose Laurel, second in 1915; Elpidio Quirino, second in 1915; Carlos P. Garcia, seventh in 1938; Diosdado Macapagal, first place in 1936 and Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, first place in the Bar of 1939. Average economic growth during their reign was a robust six percent per year, till the late 1970s.

Twice, the Bar topnotchers in one year produced two presidents – Quezon and Osmeña in the Bar exams of 1903; and Laurel and Quirino in the Bar exams of 1915. So the Bar exams were a rich pool of presidential material. During the reign of the Bar topnotcher-presidents, the Philippines became the second richest country in Asia, after Japan. I would like to think the country was even richer than Japan because Japan was devastated by two nuclear bombs dropped by America to end World War II in Asia.

After Ferdinand Marcos’ 20-year presidency ended in February 1986, Cory Aquino hated the two-party system of the Nacionalista Party and the Liberal Party alternating for the presidency. “Puro babaero mga ‘yan,” she told me. The NP and LP were using the brain and talent pool among Bar topnotchers to capture, first the Senate, and then the presidency. With their removal, the presidency went to the most popular and those favored by the military. These presidents were not necessarily the best of us. They became the worst presidents.

In 1987, Cory had her 47-person unelected Constitutional Commission abolish the two-party system and install the multi-party or party-list system. Today, after 38 years, the multi-party system has failed to produce quality presidents.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the country had one of the highest per capita GDPs in the region – higher than the People’s Republic of China, Indonesia and Thailand. However, after 1980, when no more Bar topnotchers were being elected, the Philippines starting falling behind its neighbors in economic growth.

The economy, for instance, contracted in 1984-1985, 1990 and 1998, even while the population was growing tremendously, from 19 million in 1950 to 87 million in 2006, an average clip of 2.75 percent, one of the highest growth rates in the world.

As late as 1970, the Philippines was ahead of Indonesia, with a per capita income of $196 and Thailand, with $329. By 1984, Thailand’s per capita GDP of $933 had overtaken the Philippines’ $908. In 2006, the per capita GDP of the Philippines stood at $1,175, less than half of Thailand’s $2,549.

Another impact of not electing quality presidents was the damage to our rich natural resources.

In the 1990s, the Philippines was rich in natural resources. Land planted to rice and corn accounted for about 50 percent of the 4.5 million hectares of field crops, according to the World Bank.

Another 25 percent of the cultivated area was taken up by coconuts, a major export crop. Sugarcane, pineapples and Cavendish bananas also were important earners of foreign exchange. Forest reserves were extensively exploited to the point of serious depletion.

Archipelagic Philippines is surrounded by a vast aquatic resource base. In 1990, fish and other seafood from the surrounding seas provided more than half the protein consumed by the average Filipino household. The Philippines also had vast mineral deposits.

In 1988, the country was the world’s tenth-largest producer of copper, the sixth-largest producer of chromium and the ninth-largest producer of gold.

The country’s only nickel mining company was expected to resume operations in 1991 and again produce large quantities of the metal. Petroleum exploration continued but discoveries were minimal, and the country was required to import most of its oil.

In 1985, slightly more than half the population lived below the poverty line, about the same proportion as in 1971. The proportion of the population below the subsistence level, however, declined from approximately 35 percent in 1971 to 28 percent in 1985. The economic downturn in the early 1980s and the economic and political crisis of 1983 had a devastating impact on living standards.

The countryside had a disproportionate share of the poor. More than 80 percent of the poorest 30 percent of families lived in rural areas in the mid-1980s. The majority were tenant farmers or landless agricultural workers. The landless, fishermen and forestry workers were the poorest of the poor. In some rural regions – the sugar-growing region on the island of Negros being the most egregious example – malnutrition and famine had been widespread.

According to a 1984 government study, 44 percent of all occupied dwellings in Metro Manila had less than 30 square meters of living area, and the average monthly expenditure of an urban poor family was P1,315.

Of this, 62 percent was spent on food and another nine percent on transportation, whereas only P57 was spent on rent or mortgage payments, no doubt because of the extent of squatting by poor families.

In 1988, the most affluent 20 percent of families in the Philippines grabbed more than 50 percent of total personal income, with most wealth going to the top 10 percent.

Below the richest 10 percent of the population, the share accruing to each decile diminished rather gradually. A 1988 World Bank poverty report suggests that there had been a small shift toward a more equal distribution of income since 1961. The beneficiaries appear to have been the rich and the upper middle income, rather than the poor.

So if you want to let the Philippines keep getting poorer and more stupid, keep electing bums and non-entities in the Senate and in Malacañang. Apres moi, le deluge, say the French.

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