IMF CARNAGE

IMF Carnage

The results of this subversion are still evident today in the decay of the economic and social fabric of the Philippines. Corazon Aquino fulfilled every IMF request, from the closure of the completed nuclear power facility to the deregulation and privatization of much of the economy. It was a surprise to some of Aquino's supporters, but not to LaRouche, when the pro-IMF members of the Marcos Cabinet were retained in the new government. General Ramos took over directly in the next Presidential election in 1992, selling the nation to the Enrons of the West through corrupt, unequal contract agreements, especially in the energy sector, which left the country in absolute bankruptcy after the speculative assault on the Asian economies in 1997-98. Joseph Estrada, another "commoner," was elected President in 1998, but was allowed only two years in office before another "economic hit man"-orchestrated-coup (again with General Ramos doing the bidding for his foreign controllers) brought him down in January 2001.

The current President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, has generally done what was demanded of her by the neo-conservatives in power in Washington. However, when she pulled the token Philippine military force out of Iraq, and then upgraded the country's relations with China, she won the ire of her patrons, and is now facing the threat of yet another coup—with General Ramos again the neo-cons' man on the scene.

LaRouche, together with his collaborators in the Philippines, intends to use this history of the economic hit men, in the Philippines and elsewhere, as a necessary part of the fight to end such criminality forever. As LaRouche concluded in his address to the Nov. 16 radio show quoted above: "I have had a long-standing special attachment to the Philippines, and I am very much concerned for its integrity and sovereignty and well-being today. I would be very happy, and the Philippines would make me very happy, by being truly sovereign, successful, growing, and peaceful again today. And you may expect that wherever I am and whatever I am doing, that commitment is very active within me, for very special reasons that I won't bother going into, on this question of the Philippines. I am concerned. The sovereignty of the Philippines and the success of the Philippines as a sovereign Presidential republic is, to me, one of the necessary ingredients of a future for the whole Pacific area of the world."