Freedom in the World 1999 - Philippines

1999 Scores

Status: Free
Freedom Rating: 2.5
Civil Liberties: 3
Political Rights: 2

Overview

In 1999, critics accused President Joseph Estrada of cronyism, undermining press freedom, and showing a lack of direction in implementing economic reforms, while supporters pointed to new anti-poverty programs and stable economic indicators.

The Philippines achieved independence in 1946 after 43 years under U.S. rule and occupation by the Japanese during World War II. Ferdinand Marcos, first elected president in 1965, declared martial law in 1972 to circumvent a constitutional two-term limit. The 1986 "People Power" street protests and a split in the armed forces following a blatantly rigged election ended Marcos's dictatorial rule. His opponent in the election, Corazon Aquino, took office. The 1987 constitution vests executive power in a president who is directly elected for a single six-year term. The congress consists of a senate with 24 directly elected members and a house of representatives with 201 directly elected members and up to 50 more appointed by the president.

Aquino consolidated some democratic gains, but faced at least six coup attempts by reactionary army factions and other opponents. Under her successor, former army chief of staff Fidel Ramos, the government ended power shortages and weakened somewhat the considerable political and economic power of large, family-owned business monopolies. Economic reforms raised gross domestic product growth but widened income disparities. In 1997, massive street protests forced Ramos to disavow his supporters' efforts to amend the constitution to allow the president to run for reelection. The protesters argued that the one-term limit provided a necessary check on executive power.

The longtime front-runner for the May 11, 1998, presidential elections was Vice President Joseph Estrada, a former movie actor whom his opponents denounced as a hard-drinking philanderer with close ties to Marcos-era tycoons. Under an estimated 80 percent turnout, Estrada won 46.4 percent of the vote on a pro-poor platform to defeat seven other candidates. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a senator and economist, won the separate vice presidential balloting. In concurrent house elections, Estrada's Struggle for a Democratic Philippines party won 110 seats, with the LAKAS-National Union of Christian Democrats coming in second with 50.

In 1999, the administration established several anti-poverty programs targeted toward Estrada's lower-class constituency. In August and September, churches, unions, and other groups organized large urban protests against Estrada's proposal to amend the constitution to further open the economy to foreign investment. Estrada pledged to leave intact the single-term limit on the presidency, but opponents argued that congress, if convened as a constituent assembly to amend the constitution, might seek to ease the term limits for congressmen and senators. In the fall, polls showed the president's popularity slipping. Critics charged Estrada with cronyism in the granting of lucrative gambling licenses without bidding contracts and other alleged insider deals, although they cited no actual wrongdoing, and faulted the administration for not confronting the problem of high levels of nonperforming loans in the banking system or pushing Congress to pass a series of economic reform bills.

Since 1992, the government has held negotiations over a permanent peace settlement with leaders of the Communist National Democratic Front (NDF) insurgency that began in the late 1960s. A hardline NDF splinter group remains active in Negros Occidental province. In 1996, the government signed a peace agreement with the separatist Moro National Liberation Front, which had waged a 24-year insurgency on southern Mindanao Island. Two smaller groups, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Abu Sayyaf, continue to wage low-grade insurgencies on Mindanao for an independent Islamic state.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Filipinos can change their government democratically. Elections are increasingly peaceful and transparent. Nevertheless, some fraud and intimidation, and at least 47 election-related deaths, marred the 1998 national and local elections. Corruption, cronyism, nepotism, and influence-peddling are widespread in business and government. Throughout the country, local clans and landowners hold considerable power.

The insurgencies in Mindanao occur in the context of complaints by the Moros, or Muslims who live primarily in Mindanao, of economic and social discrimination by the country's Christian majority. Skirmishes between the army and the MILF in Mindanao and nearby Basilan Island annually displace tens of thousands of civilians. Residents occasionally accuse the army of indiscriminate shelling and other abuses during counterinsurgency operations. The MILF and other groups often forcibly evacuate villagers from their homes. Insurgent groups and criminal gangs operate protection rackets and kidnapping syndicates that mainly target ethnic Chinese businessmen and their families in Manila and Mindanao.

Each year, police, soldiers, and local civilian militias are accused of committing several extrajudicial killings and disappearances and are implicated in the torture and arbitrary arrest and detention of suspects. Security forces are also accused of involvement in extortion schemes, the drug trade, illicit logging, and other illegal private activities. Civilian militias often guard private commercial interests in the countryside and violate the rights of local residents with impunity. In recent years, Communist insurgents and the MILF have been implicated in several cases of extrajudicial execution and arbitrary arrest and detention.

The judiciary is independent. However, courts are understaffed, heavily backlogged, and rife with corruption. The courts frequently ignore due process safeguards including the right to an attorney. In practice poor people often have little recourse under the law. In February 1999, the Philippines carried out its first execution in 23 years. Prison conditions are poor and dangerous.

The private press is vigorous though often prone to innuendo in its political coverage. Outside Manila, illegal logging outfits, drug traffickers, and other criminal groups harass and intimidate journalists. Gunmen have killed several journalists in recent years. In March 1999, the president sued the Manila Times for libel over an article that called Estrada an "unwilling godfather" to an allegedly improper government contract. Estrada dropped the suit after the paper issued a limited apology. The family that owned the Manila Times sold the newspaper in July, and in November, the London-based Financial Times reported that relatives and associates of an Estrada associate had bought a 60 percent stake in the newspaper from the new owner. In July, Estrada accused the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a major newspaper that had run articles on alleged government corruption, of being biased against him. Several major companies withdrew advertising from the paper, although the administration denied that it had instigated a boycott.

Nongovernmental human rights organizations are active. Freedom of religion is respected in this predominantly Roman Catholic country. A 1998 Asian Development Bank survey reported that Muslim provinces in Mindanao lag behind the rest of Mindanao on most development indicators. Indigenous people constitute 18 percent of the population and face occasional reprisal attacks during army counterinsurgency operations and displacement from ancestral lands by commercial projects.

Domestic violence, rape, violence in the context of domestic prostitution, and trafficking of Filipino women abroad for the purpose of prostitution continue to be major problems. Women have made gains in educational opportunities, but still face private sector employment discrimination. There are more than 100,000 street children and tens of thousands of child prostitutes.

Unions are independent but have brought relatively few workers under collective bargaining agreements. The International Labor Organization (ILO) has criticized labor laws providing for compulsory arbitration of disputes in "essential" industries, penalties for strikes deemed illegal, and restrictions on the right of government workers to strike and bargain collectively. Private sector employers often physically harass and intimidate union organizers and try to forcibly break strikes, particularly in export processing zones. Employers frequently violate minimum wage standards. According to UNICEF and the ILO, more than two million children work in hazardous conditions.