Word: nacionalistas
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Economists give many reasons for the financial crisis-that the peso is ludicrously overvalued, the government has strained the economy by industrializing too fast, etc. But among other explanations, one pops up with dismaying consistency. Says one Nacionalista member of a Senate committee investigating corruption : "After what this committee has learned, I can safely say that we have in the Philippines today the dirtiest government in the world...
Shadow Cabinet. Sitting in an outer wing of the presidential palace watching these goings-on is young Vice President, Diosdado Macapagal, a Magsaysay follower who, running on the Liberal ticket, got more votes for Veep than did Nacionalista Garcia for President. Since Macapagal refused to change his party after the election, Garcia barred him from any Cabinet post. Completely isolated ("I only learn what's going on from reading the newspapers"), Macapagal has been subjected to every kind of palace snub. If his air conditioner breaks down, maintenance men take weeks to fix it. When official limousines were handed...
...keep the office he had inherited last March after the tragic death of Ramon Magsaysay. Garcia's victory was not impressive. Polling only an estimated 41% of the vote v. 28% for the Liberals' Yulo, he was returned to office more by the power of the Nacionalista Party machine than by any popular conviction that he could fill his predecessor's unfillable shoes. Independent Manahan, who tried so hard to shrug into the lost leader's mantle that he retouched his campaign photos to heighten his physical resemblance to Magsaysay, finished a respectable third with...
...opposition Liberal ticket but racked up more votes than President Garcia himself. In doing so, he defeated the man the U.S. most wanted to see defeated-Garcia's running mate, Jose Laurel Jr., a pouchy-eyed lover of nightclubs and strong drink who remarked to one Nacionalista audience: "To hell with the Americans." Laurel's campaign was marked by handouts of cigarette lighters and switchblade knives, and the appearance of contraceptives inscribed: "Be safe with Laurel." (The Nacionalistas indignantly insisted that it was the Liberals who had passed them...
...Speaker of the House of Representatives, with powers far beyond those of Sam Rayburn in Washington, Laurel exercises a firm control over the rich congressional pork barrel. Last July President Garcia "released" some $10 million of public funds to dole-hungry Nacionalista Congressmen, and he has promised another $60 million. Much of this money goes through Laurel's hands. But José is frowned upon by the church; he has an unsavory reputation as a hard drinker and a frequenter of nightclubs, where he has an irritable habit of picking on customers whose looks displease him. His victims...