The trend to youth in the government

Media

Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Title: The trend to youth in the government
Language: English
Source: The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume XXX (No. 2) February 1954
Year: 1954
Rights
Fulltext: which confront the Government, including those concerning the national security, land-ownership and tenantry, the barrios, foreign policy, government finance, morality in the civil service, etc., there are a few specific statements made in the address which are well worth bringing out and which, we may safely say, have been received by Business with satisfaction. Among these are the following: With reference to the Philippine-American trade relationship: “Most vital to our internal growth end development... is our trade relationship with the United States. Our Government has asked for a re-examination of the Bell Trade Act... We are confident that the Government and people of the United States will not look upon our proposals with indifference.’’ With reference to the promotion of foreign trade: “New emphasis will be placed on the promotion of foreign trade as one of our primary objectives. Our foreign service will everywhere have the new mission of contributing directly to the economic stability and expanding trade of our people.” With reference to private capital; “Private capital, from sources both at home and abroad, will be preferred to direct government financing whenever possible.” With reference to foreign capital: “We also welcome foreign capital, assuring it fair treatment. In the past it was perhaps discouraged by the uncertainty of our attitude, and I propose that we mark out clearly a stable basis on which foreign investors can put their capital to work in this country.” With reference to the government-owned corporations: “The Government will henceforth confine itself to these phases of development where its participation is absolutely essential to the public welfare.” With respect to the government economic controls: “My Administration is pledged to the eventual elimination of controls. I propose to effect this gradually... Meanwhile.. . controls will be administered honestly, fairly, and efficiently. We will not permit any government official or employee to utilize them for private gain.” With respect to tax collection: "The honest, realistic, and really economical way to run this Goyemment is to collect the present faxes efficiently, intensively. We must go after tax evaders without favoritism.” On labor unions: “We will encourage free unionism under responsible, enlightened leadership truly dedicated to the welfare of the laboring masses. But I warn those unscrupulous individuals who would use the labor move ment to exploit the workers that their activities will not go unpunished. We will be equally hard with interference by management in labor union activities.” These excerpts from the address outline a general government economic policy which Business is glad to support. issue of this Journal, attention was that the then President-elect, Ramon Magsaysay, was politically an entire ly post-war personality, differing in several significant respects from his predecessors, and that he was, first of all, younger, this appearing to personify a turn of the Philippine electorate to younger leadership. This same turn is noticeable in the elections to the House of Representatives. According to an article in the Sunday magazine of the Manila Chronicle of January 10, of the 102 seats in the House, 46 have new occupants and their ages range from 27 to 38 years. Of the 69 Nacionalista Party members, 33 are new-comers; of the 35 Liberal Party members, 8; and of the other 5 of the 46, 4 are Democrats and 1 is listed as Independent.1 The new men, however, are not all without experience in political or public life. According to the Chronicle writer, 4 were former provincial governors and several ■According to their “statements of candidacy”, of the 102 members of the House of Representatives, Third Congress, 57 were Nacionalistaa, 7 were identified with the Nacionalista-Democratic Coalition, 3 were Democrats, 34 were Liberals, and 1 In an earlier called to the fact The Trend to Youth in the Government others occupied various provincial and municipal positions; others included held various posts in the civil service or are lawyers, law-professors, teachers, and one, described as a farmer and fisherman, demonstrated an earlier leader ship in farmers’ and fishermen’s organizations. On the opening day of the first session of the Third Congress of the Philippines (January 25), Jose B. Laurel, Jr., oldest son of Senator Jose P. Laurel, was elected Speaker. The younger Laurel was first elected to the House in 1941, at the age of 28, and today he is 40 and, therefore, also comparatively youthful. Former Speaker Eugenio Perez is 57. The Senate, naturally, is a body of older men, not only because the Constitution requires that senators be at least 35 years of age, as against representatives’ 25, but because most of the hold-over senators are men who have served in that body for many years and all the newly elected or re-elected senators are old-timers, too, although three of them were not heretofore members of the Senate.2 The trend to youth is noticeable, also, in President Magsaysay’s appointments, although this does not hold true of all of the Cabinet appointments so far made. VicePresident Carlos P. Garcia, concurrently Secretary of Foreign Affairs, is 58; Jaime Hernandez, Secretary of Finance, is 61; Pedro Tuason, Secretary of Justice, is 69; Salvador Araneta, Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources, is 52; Oscar Ledesma, Secretary of Commerce, is 52. But Budget Commissioner Dominador Aytona is only 36; Commissioner Pacita Madrigal Warns, of the Social Welfare Administration, is 35; Leon Ma. Guerrero, Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs, is 39; Jose M. Crisol, Director of the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) is 35; Manuel P. Manahan, Chief of the President’s Complaints and Action Commission, is 36; Salvador T. Villa, Acting Manager of the Manila Railroad Company, is 38; J. V. Cruz, Press Secretary, is 28; and Fred Ruiz Castro, who holds the important position of Executive Secretary, is 38. The Philippines is, of course, not unused to young men in high office. Sergio Osmena was only 29 years old when he became the first Speaker of the Philippine As sembly in 1907, and Manuel L. Quezon was 38 years old when he became the first President of the Senate in 1916. Most of the members of the Philippine Assembly and, later, of the Senate, were young men in those days, but they aged in office. However, even when Mr. Quezon became President of the Commonwealth in 1935, most of the mem bers of his Cabinet were men still in their forties. But today, most of the illustrious men of the first generation of Filipino statesmen are dead, and those in their prime during the days of the Commonwealth and who still survive are in their sixties. A major difficulty which faced President Osmena, and, after him President Roxas and President Quirino, was the lack of young men of known ability to appoint to important posts,—and there was, of course, also the natural desire of men in positions of power to hold on to them. As a consequence, high positions were rotated among a com paratively small group of officials. Some men, not so well known, rose to positions of responsibility after the war, but they were still more or less identified with the old groups and a number of them proved themselves unfit in character as well as ability. The people have now plainly indicated that they want new blood in their government and President Mag saysay, in his own appointments, is obviously trying to -The 24-member Senate is composed of 12 Nacionalistas, of whom 8 are hold overs: Briones, Delgado, Laurel. Locsin, Puyat, Primicias, Rodriguez, and Recto, and 4 elected or re-elected at the last elections: Cea, Cuenco, Mabanag, and Pe laez; 6 Democrats, of whom 4 are hold-overs: Abada, Cabili, Montano, and Sumulong, and 2 elected or re-elected at the last elections: Lopez and Kangleon; 4 Liberals, all hold-overs: Magalona, Paredes, Peralta, and Zulueta; and 1 repre senting the Citizens Party, Tafiada. The Senate is one member short because of the election of Senator Carlos P. Garcia as Vice-President. Of the new members in the Senate, Cea and Pelaez were formerly representatives and Kangleon, not before a member of Congress, was Secretary of National Defense. 44 carry out that mandate. A complete turn-over in that respect is neither recommendable nor possible, but there can be a considerable leavening, and this is in progress. In the new choices, mistakes will inevitably be made, but they will be mistakes of commission and not omission and it will be possible to correct them, given the will to do so, which President Magsaysay undoubtedly has. It is to be noted that many of the President’s appointments are to posts in an “acting” capacity. * Among other valuable publications received recently by the Journal, certainly the most valuable is the MSAPHILCUSA rural community The Barrios survey report, commonly cal(The McMillan-Rivera led the McMillan-Rivera Re Report) port, released to the public last month by order of Pres ident Magsaysay. The Report, in an edition of 5000 copies printed in October, 1952, had been gathering dust in a warehouse by order of the previous Administration which considered the facts revealed as damaging to the regime. The Report, entitled “The Rural Philippines” and running to 218 pages, is the work of the Philippine Rural Community Survey, a research project conducted co operatively by the U. S. Mutual Security Agency and the Philippine Council for United States Aid. The field work was carried out chiefly during the period from December, 1951, to March, 1952, in which a considerable number- of persons and various government entities took part. The preliminary drafts of the chapters on the family, housing, government, health and welfare, recreation, and community organization were prepared by Mr. Generoso F. Rivera and the final draft of the entire Report was written prin cipally by Mr. Robert T. McMillan. This Journal, in the issue of February, 1953, carried an editorial entitled “The Hardie and McMillan Reports”, but at that time only chapters II and V of the latter Report were available (in mimeographed form). The Hardie Report, by the way, entitled “Philippine Land Tenure Reform”, also created a furore at the time, but, as exclusively the work of the Special Technical and Economic Mission, Mutual Security Agency, it could not be suppressed, al though it apparently received no wide distribution. The McMillan-Rivera Report essays to present a cross section of rural life in the Philippines from the sociological point of view and is based chiefly on a detailed study of thirteen widely scattered and “fairly representative” barrios or villages, these being: (1) Cadcadir, Claveria, Cagayan, a community of small farms in the northern ex tremity of Luzon; (2) Auitan, San Pablo, Isabela, a tobacco growing community, not so isolated as Cadcadir; (3) San Pablo, Binalonan, Pangasinan, a small rice-growing com munity in Central Luzon; (4) San Miguel, Tarlac, a large barrio in the midst of a Spanish-owned sugar cane plantation and near Camp Ord; (5) San Pedro, San Simon, Pampanga, near the center of the area of Huk activity; (6) Bagong Pooc, Lipa, Batangas, a poor but peaceful village; (7) Padre Burgos, Quezon, formerly Tayabas Province, an isolated fishing village; (8) Baligang, Camalig, Albay, in a hemp-growing region, where the people also make slippers; (9) Tuburdn, Pototan, Iloilo, where most of the land is owned by absentee landlords; (10) Alegria, Murcia, Negros Occidental, a community in the sugar cane region of the south in which 96% of those engaged in agriculture are landless; (11) Cabadiangan, Compostela, Cebu, an isolated community of hill-side farms, badly eroded; (12) Lumbayao, Watu, Lanao, a typical Moro community; and (13) Tupi, Coronadal, Cotabato, a new settlement. With the exception of Auitan (Isabela) and Padre Burgos (Quezon), which are poblaciones, these are all barrios, all of them small except San Miguel, Tarlac, and most of them remote or isolated. In the opinion of the writer, it is to be questioned that these communities are indeed “fairly representative” (the words of the Report) of all the barrios of the country. Among the more than 17,000 barrios of the Philip pines, there must be many thousands in which life is easier and happier than in most of the barrios selected for the survey.1 It is not to be serious questioned that the people of the rural Philippines as a whole are far better off, econo mically, socially, and politically, than are the rural popu lations of any other country of Southeast Asia. Western observers are apt to gauge local conditions according to standards in their own countries which can not be rightly applied here. In the case of each of the barrios selected for survey in the McMillan-Rivera Report, the small number or entire absence of radios, movies, tele phones, newspapers, automobiles, etc., was brought out, and desirable as all of these appurtenances of civilization may be, and come, as they no doubt will, in time, life in the barrios can be quite pleasant without them. Western observers are likely to identify certain local conditions as causes of serious unrest which the local popu lation does not look upon as intolerable at all. Unemploy ment, for example, which would bring about grave conse quences in any highly industrialized country where people are absolutely dependent on their wages, and which is serious enough also in Manila and some other cities here, is far from being equally serious in the barrios where it is obvious that many people quite bask at least in under employment. A two- or three-hectare farm would be considered little more than a good-sized garden in some countries, but under present conditions in the Philippines this area is still about as large a one as the average farmer and his family can take care of and is big enough for them to make the sort of living to which they are accustomed and under which they continue happily to multiply. The Report states that 46% of the number of farmers surveyed were tenants on the land and not owners; the 1948 Census gives the figure of 37% for the whole country. These are high percentages, but the Report itself points out that 3/10 of the families surveyed leased it from kinsmen and that this “creates special tenure relationships between them which usually redound to the advantage of the tenant.” It is not so much the system of land tenantry which is making trouble today,—this being part of an ancient and accepted social system, but absentee landownership, which is a comparatively new development. The land owners used to live among their people; of recent years they have been moving to the cities, leaving managers and foremen in charge between whom and the people there does not exist the old-time sympathy and loyalty. Undeniably, there has been ana there remains serious unrest in a number of Philippine areas which is closely related io unsatisfactory conditions of land-ownership and the consequent poverty. But it should not be over looked that before the war much unrest was deliberately stirred up by the Sakdal and Ganap party agitators who were secret agents of Japan, and since the war by Huk leaders who are the agents of Russian imperialism. All this is not to say that everything possible should not be done to improve conditions in our barrios and rural regions,—as elsewhere in the country. But a sense of pro portion and of relative and pertinent local values should be preserved. Nothing that has been said here is to be taken as ad versely reflecting on the great practical value of the Mc Millan-Rivera Report as a well-nigh indispensable guide to the implementation of the plans of the Magsaysay AdlSee the contributed article in this Journal issue, "Tondol, Pangasinan”. 46