James Fallow is the American author and journalist who wrote the

literary piece entitled “A Damaged Culture”. His remarks are truly contrarian
to the average Filipino point of view towards the dethronement of what is
thought to be an “evil dictator’, known as the late president Ferdinand
Marcos, and his replacement with a “revered, and saint-like house wife”
known as the late president Corazon Aquino. Here he laid out his own point
of view on what truly happened during this time of despair, chaos, and
alleged misuse of power. He then provides the necessary facts and statistics
in order to enable to reader to understand what his opinions about the
Marcos regime and Aquino’s entrance to the Presidential seat is all about.

Aquino replacing Marcos has been such a success not only in the minds
of people who live in the Philippines but also to the people who reside in the
United States. It was almost as if the whole world was blind to what the
“dictator” has done to the country, and only now were they able to see
behind the fogged glass. Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Korea,
were all countries in Asia that are lacking in natural resources but were able
to rise to the top, not by the change of governance, but by the use of
research and hard work. The Philippines on the other hand, as Fallow
described it, had all the necessary resources to thrive, but was unable to do
so due to its culture. But this does not mean that there have been no
improvements since Marcos fled the country. The economy actually stopped
shrinking, and a considerable amount of capital came back to the Philippines.
It was obvious that even though the Philippine economy didn’t explode
upwards, Filipino citizens are still very elated by the fact that Aquino was
already the one in office and not Marcos.

This excitement has been evident even before the People Power
Revolution happened. Any visitor of the Philippines by that time would be
considered blind if they were unable to see the extreme idolatry that the
Filipinos showed towards Corazon Aquino. It was as if she was a saint, an
icon, a holy being, instead of a normal human being just trying to make
things right. People were always talking about her kindness, her piety, and
overall godliness which suggests how her image revolved around being
sacred and perfect. Filipinos were even selling miniature Cory dolls in round
rimmed glasses and a yellow dress, showing how much people actually
believed in her capabilities. During this dark period, she was heralded as the
one and only individual who has the potential to replace Marcos and make
the Philippines great again. The desperation in the air was so thick, it was as
if she was the only trump card that could defeat the evil that persists in the
Malacañang palace.

With obvious reasons, gossip and rumors arouse immediately after the
Philippines gained democracy once again. Due to the fact that the Philippine
politics scene has so much of a small town feel to it, publicists and journalists
are always coming out with the most intense claims and gossips regarding
the current and previous government. Scandals and attempted coups
plagued the newspapers like there is no tomorrow. Everyone seems to be on
their toes even after Aquino’s confirmed inauguration. This just goes to show
how the negative effects of the Filipino culture still persists even after
Marcos leaving presidency. One of the cultural problems that Fallow
observed was “delicadeza”, or the Philippine’s version of saving face.
Because Filipinos put so much importance on external image, on what
people think, and on what will people feel, most issues are usually raised
indirectly, sometimes not at all. This characteristic of the Filipino culture,
similar to many other characteristics, has led the Philippines to become not
only self – defeating, but also self – destructive.

During the mid-1960’s, South Korea was toe to toe with the Philippines
when it comes to per capita income. This memory was a dark past that South
Korea was proud to overcome, this memory for the Philippines on the other
hand, was a commemoration of the golden ages. Ever since that time, the
Philippines spiraled down and remained in the 600-dollar per capita income
while South Korea soared to higher grounds at 2500-dollar per capita
income. Some provinces in the Philippines have even gone as low as 100
hundred dollars per capita income. It was also stated that by the time Marcos
was inaugurated as the president, the amount of people below the poverty
line actually increased. This was proven back then by a government report
where it stated that two thirds of the population are already poor, compared
to the pre-Marcos era where only half of the country was considered poor.

Even in the face of this baffling statistics, many people are still huge
believers that the political change brought by Marcos leaving the office and
democracy coming back through Aquino’s entrance to the Malacañang
Palace, could accelerate the Philippine economy once again. This was proven
by Fallow when he had a meeting with Jaime Ongpin, the finance minister of
that time. Ongpin stated that the future is actually looking brighter for the
Philippines post – Marcos’s regime. Less scrupulous money is coming out of
the Philippines and small businesses seem to repopulate the streets. He even
exclaimed that the Philippines gained the potential to grow five to six
percent, an estimate that exceeds the growth rate of Japan and even the
United States. Bernardo Villegas, another economist that Fallow got in touch
with, also said that the Philippines is prime for a “boom” among East Asian
countries. This overall belief that Marcos was the one and only source of all
problems seemed to be proven false as days, weeks, and months go by
under Aquino’s governance.

What Fallow insists in this paper is the knowledgeable opinion that

Marcos, considering all the damage that he has done to the Philippines, was
not the originator of the problem but was only the catalyst for its
intensification. He states that the horrible things that has happened during
the Marcos regime were events that were happening even before Ferdinand
Marcos himself was born. To put it into proper context, there are already
novels and history literature relating to the Philippines that has resembled
what was happening in the slums of Manila at that time. These literature
goes back to 1890’s, a time where an American soldier wrote about the living
conditions of the Philippine nation. There are even ones written in the 1930’s
and 1950’s by a Filipino nationalist and/or a foreign economist. Even Benigno
S. Aquino, Jr. himself, the man who was assassinated in the Manila
international airport back in 1983, wrote during the 1960’s that the
Philippines was a land where extremely rich people are rare, and the
common men are extremely poor.
To reinstate what Fallow said, Marcos was not the originator of the
problem, this then means that Aquino claiming office was also not the
solution. This statement clearly went over people’s heads at that time of
desperation. People were looking for a quick fix to the Philippines as a whole
and they saw Aquino as the perfect scape goat away from poverty. Little did
they know that Aquino seating as the President of the Philippines was not a
revolution towards economic growth, but a restoration of the orthodox
political order in the Philippines. Behind the kind and gentle image of
Corazon Aquino was her landowning elite bloodline under the name
Cojuangco. These upper-class individuals who are prominent in Makati, in
addition to her husband, Benigno S. Aquino, Jr., coming from a famous family
as well, proves that Corazon was not the simple housewife that everyone
seems to think.

She was a true aristocrat, a person educated outside the Philippines,

with jewels dating back decades and decades ago. This is in contrast to the
Marcoses who were considered to be “new- money rich”. Ferdinand and
Imelda both rose in economic and political status very recently, unlike
Corazon’s family that has been pretty much in the upper echelon of the
socioeconomic pyramid even before Corazon was born. When Fallow came
back on his second trip to the Philippines, Corazon’s true intentions rose and
people started to doubt if she truly was the “messiah’ that will lead them out
of the mud. Many Filipinos at the time seem to think that Aquino became
passive when it comes to her authority as the president. It seems like as long
as she was able to prevent Marcos from entering the office, whilst also riding
out all types of coups, she was already disinterested in doing anything else.
And even if Aquino did change into a much more active presence in the
office, Fallow said that it is still highly unlikely for her to effectively propel the
Philippines towards the Filipino’s expectations.

As I analyzed the whole article, there seems to be three major points

that Fallow’s “A Damaged Culture” emphasizes on. First is the fact that
Marcos, and his time as the president, is not entirely the same as what the
media portrays it to be, second is the notion that Aquino is also not the same
person as the media portrays her to be. The third and final point is the idea
that the Filipino culture is the main driver of the Philippines’s very own
demise. The first major point says that Marcos is not truly where the problem
originated, he just turned out to become a magnifying glass of the injustices
that is already happening in the Philippines. This for me makes a lot of
sense, because if Marcos was indeed the problem, then that means that his
replacement from the office would result to a plateau when it comes to the
decline of the Philippine economy, and may even result to a boost of the
economy itself.

The idea was plausible, but it just lacks the details necessary to fully
make the reader believe that it is the truth. Because yes, Marcos may not
possibly be as nefarious as the media suggests, but that should not also
discredit the things that he has done during his term. A huge part of this is
the imposition of the Martial Law, which basically gave him emergency
powers to have full control of the country. This resulted to him gaining the
ability to use the military force to intimidate voters to say “yes” to the
constitution while “no” answers were allegedly not counted. The
imprisonment of multiple journalists, government officials, and civilians, with
“no due process” was also utilized in order to threaten the supreme court to
agree with martial law. This prevented any form of media, whether it is radio
broadcast or published newspapers, to talk against him and his associates.
He even gave the military the authority to take over all of the assets of
privately owned media outlets utilized nationwide. This then gave him the
authority to put a blanket censorship over what is seen on the television
screen, preventing any message against the government from reaching
people’s ears. If Fallow touched upon these topics, it would’ve been a much
more effective argument rather than just focusing on the Kleptocratic
characteristic of Marcos’s term.

As per the second point, it also has the same problem as the former
point, and that is the lack of details supporting its claims. I do personally
believe that Aquino becoming the president by that time was not as
impactful as people hoped it would be, but that’s mainly due to the fact that
I’ve actually researched about this topic years ago. If I were to base my
knowledge about Aquino on Fallow’s literature piece alone, it seems like he
was saying that Aquino wasn’t an effective leader because she was part of
an aristocratic family, plain and simple. If I were completely foreign to this
subject, I would’ve probably been skeptical with this claim as well. He also
did not emphasize enough the fact that the coup, rumored or real, that he
was talking about were not just from external terrorist groups or criminal
organizations, but were from the Philippine military themselves.

The fact that Aquino has been put on an infinitely high pedestal made
it very difficult for her as well to answer the demands of the people. The
Filipino men and women thought that she was the savior that the Philippines
needed in order to get out of international debt and become a rising star
again. But her inability to quench the needs of the Filipinos regarding
poverty, agriculture, criminal activities, etc. lead to her popularity to decline
rapidly, which is exacerbated even more by the fact that she cannot trust the
military force. Aquino was an effective face of the revolution, but her being
the leader towards the transition from dictatorship to democracy was
definitely far from remarkable. I believe that the reason why the narrative of
Aquino being the “good president”, and Marcos being the “bad president”,
still persists is mainly because it’s much easier to write a story that way, a
contrast between light and dark, a political battle between what people
thought was the villain, and what people thought was the hero.

The last and final major point that Fallow talked about was about the
Filipino culture’s role in the demise of the Philippine nation. One of the
highlighted characteristics of our culture was “delicadeza”, which is the
Filipino’s version of saving face. Filipinos are always walking on eggshells
around each other so as not to hurt or insult another Filipino. Image plays a
huge role in the Filipino’s identity; this is the reason why talking against
someone’s image is seen as scandalous and pervasive. Another is idolatry,
which is also deeply rooted to the Filipinos religious beliefs. It is very easy for
the Filipino citizens to put people on a pedestal, and see them as perfect
beings that can do nothing wrong. This is the reason why Corazon Aquino
was likened to the virgin Mary multiple times.

The first characteristic can be connected to Marcos’s term. He wanted

to gain full control of the country’s media so that he can do scrupulous
activities without letting anyone know about it, thereby saving his “face”
from public scrutiny. Idolatry on the other hand negatively affected Aquino
because the expectations were too high for a person like her who doesn’t
really have the experience or the expertise to lead a country, let alone lead a
country from dictatorship. This led to her loss of popularity, therefore
resulting to people losing trust on her abilities, making it even more difficult
to leave a positive impact during her term. Both of these characteristics do
have negative effects towards the Philippine economical growth, but I think it
hasn’t been emphasized enough in the article. One comprehensive
paragraph about culture alone would’ve definitely allowed the author to
persuade the reader on why the Filipino culture is the Achilles heel of the
Philippines.

Overall, James Fallow’s “A Damaged Culture” was a very good read. It

was informative to a considerable degree, and was almost effective when it
comes to getting his point across. Just the fact that he contradicted the
major theme when it comes to the Aquino versus Marcos era was already
commendable in my book. I just think that the literary piece was not detailed
enough to fully convince people that these are the hidden truth behind what
happened during that time. As for me, it is a very good effort to make people
think twice about what they believe in. It gives the reader just enough
information to make them rethink of the things they learned from history
books, the things they saw on media outlets, and even the photos they see
on modern day museums. I would definitely recommend this to people who
have an open mind, to teenagers and adults who are already able to keep a
neutral stance when it comes to politics, as this will enable them to read the
literary piece in unbiased lenses.
References:
Borlaza, G. C. , Hernandez, . Carolina G. and Cullinane, . Michael (2021, August
6). Philippines. Encyclopedia Britannica.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Philippines

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2021, July 28). Corazon

Aquino. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Corazon-
Aquino