The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos pro forma than anything else. Being one of the most dependable general utility aircraft, the Beaver was widely utilized in Vietnam for a wide variety of supportive military functions, from detecting guerrilla movements to carrying out light machinegun attacks. The purchase of such large numbers of proven and insurgent aircraft by a government engaged in a major guerrilla was ought to have made the surplus-disposal authorities - were they serious about restricting its use - suspicious from the start and led them to more carefully investigate the Philippine government's request. With the confirmation by foreign correspondents of the predictable military utilization of the aircraft, the AID office had, in short, no other alternative but to protest, but this should not obscure what was initially a "complicity through deliberate passivity" on its part. There is no assurance that the planes have not been covertly returned to combat duty. An AID spokesperson asserted that they are currently being utilized to make aerial photographs of the land reform area in Nueva Ecija province.*130 This is a curious activity for such a large number of aircraft; it would mean one plane for every barrio. The fact that Nueva Vizcaya, where NPA activity has been reported, borders Nueva Ecija, and Isabela, the prime NPA stronghold, is less than a hundred miles away, might perhaps shed more light on the "aerial photographic" functions of these aircraft. (*130. Interview with Christenson.)
Chapter XIV International Protection Racket The conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos is locked in a tight conspiratorial embrace with big business corporations from the United States and Japan for the further economic exploitation of the Philippines. They are engaged in a mutual protection racket. The martial regime insures for big business from the United States an excellent investment climate in the Philippines. In turn, American multinationals help Marcos lobby with official Washington, . D.C. for continued American economic and political support for the conjugal dictatorship. On the other hand, the post-war Japanese zaibatsus (conglomerates) - also in exchange for placing them practically on the same footing with big American business in the Philippines — flash continuing signals to their MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) that Marcos deserves more dollar loans from Tokyo. The brave talk in the New Society is that the conjugal dictatorship now has the big American and Japanese business by their balls. Marcos, it is arrogantly held out, has it in his power to withdraw all the concessions he has granted the foreign investors. And yet, the victims of the international conspiracy are not just the Filipino people whose economic nationalism has been betrayed by Marcos to open them to wanton exploitation by the multinationals-. The groaning American and Japanese taxpayers are victims no less of this protection racket invented by Primitivo Mijares
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