Quezon and Osmena, April 22, 1933

April 22, 1933

Quezon and Osmeña

Discussions between leaders presage bitter fight over freedom bill

AFTER meeting amicably in Paris last Saturday and sailing for New York Monday aboard the s.s. Ile de France, Senate President Quezon and Senator Osmeña broke sharply over the question of accepting or rejecting the Hawes-Cutting-Hare bill when they settled down to a formal discussion of the matter on board the ship.

The following report of the rupture was cabled by Carlos P. Romulo, managing editor of the T-V-T publications, to his newspapers in Manila:

“Mr. Osmeña was presenting a point when Mr. Quezon, rising and facing his colleague, broke out passionately:

“‘Sergio, you and I are growing old. We shall soon pass away. Do you realize the tremendous responsibility you and I are shouldering in accepting a bill, the effects of which will tie the hands of posterity? It is mortgaging the future of our children! We are deciding their fate, knowing that when we are gone, we shall be unable to help them!’

“‘Do you realize,’ replied Senator Osmeña, maintaining his usual calm, ‘the tremendous responsibility we will be assuming in rejecting the bill, as a result of which America may stay in the Philippines forever?’

“‘I realize that,’ the senate president replied warmly, ‘but don’t forget that if America is in the Philippines today it is by force, and against our will. With her sovereignty she has assumed responsibilities, both legal and moral, to the Filipino people. But if we accept the bill she will remain in the Islands with our consent—exercise authority without any responsibility; and I for one am unwilling to give any sanction to it.’

“The first counterproposal offered by Mr. Quezon, and made public by him last night, is to accept the bill with reservations, enumerating in the resolution accepting the measure the amendments desired, and specifying that the bill is not acceptable until the amendments are enacted.

“Further discussion elicited the information that the original bill contained a clause providing only for naval reservations, but no military stations. It was Senator Hiram Bingham who, in the conferences on the bill between the Senate and the House, inserted a provision for military reservations.

“To this time of writing there seems to be no prospect of agreement between the two leaders. The discussions are continuing.’

The meeting of Quezon and Osmeña in the Gare de Lyons in Paris was an historical one. As the express train from Nice pulled into the station, Senator Osmeña was waiting to welcome his chieftain, against whose leadership he bids fair to revolt.

“¿Cómo está, chico?” was the welcome of the man on the platform to the man in the train.

“Muy bien, Sergio,” came the enthusiastic reply. “Veo que estás bien.”

Not since a group of statesmen representing Spain and the United States sat down at a peace table to draw up the Treaty of Paris had the French capital been the scene of a meeting so vital to the future of the Philippine islands.

Long have the team of Quezon and Osmeña ruled the internal political destinies of the Philippines. On occasion opposing each other, but generally pulling together like a team of thoroughbreds, they have stayed in power for a longer period than any national leader in any other country in which the people have the vote.

But as they met in that Paris railroad station last week, they stood diametrically opposed on the most important question the Filipino people have ever been called upon to answer.

There was no vote of disagreement in their friendly meeting. With all care, Senator Osmeña helped the Quezon family out of the station and into a taxicab. He followed shortly after in another cab, and the members of the party stayed at the same hotel.

That evening the gallant senator from Cebu entertained Mrs. Quezon at dinner, the senate president feeling indisposed to attend. For hours the two leaders conferred on the Hawes-Cutting-Hare bill, and as far as newspaper correspondents could gather their sessions were amiable. However, no formal statement was made, excepting on that “we cannot indicate what direction the conversation took”.

On Monday the entire party boarded the Ile de France for New York, and correspondents reported the possibility of some sort of a compromise being reached. The only direct word received in the Philippines was a message from Senate President Quezon to Sen. Elpidio Quirino, majority floor leader, who refused to divulge the full contents of the message.

Tantalizingly, he quoted the following statement from the Quezon cabal: “It does not mean that I have changed my attitude.” Manila newspapers interpreted the statement as they wanted to, some saying it meant that Quezon would continue his opposition, others declaring it meant that although his attitude was unchanged he had been forced to yield to the inexorable pressure of circumstances.

Senate President Quezon’s stay in Washington will be a brief one, the general belief being that he will begin his return trip to the Philippines, via the Pacific, in the latter part of May. With him, undoubtedly, will come Senator Osmeña, Speaker Roxas and the other weary missioners, all of whom are now feeling the pinch of reduced per diems and restricted expense money. In fact, the money appropriated by the last session of the legislature will be exhausted about June 1, although an overdraft such as was used last year will probably be resorted to in order to bring every body home.

End

The hand of the government, April 10, 1948

THE HAND OF THE GOVERNMENT

April 10, 1948

By Teodoro M. Locsin

Staff Member

HOW far should the government go into business? It depends, of course, on the kind of government. If the government is socialist, it should go into business up to its neck. That is what socialism means. Production for consumption instead of private profit. But if the government is that of capitalist democracy, then the government should stay out of business as much as possible. It should leave business in private hands.

Two opposing theories of government divided the leaders of the new American republic. There were the “Maximarchists,” who wanted to increase the powers and functions of the government, and the “Minimarchists,” who regarded government as at best a necessary evil, in theory a servant, in practice usually a despot. Alexander Hamilton, spokesman of the “Maximarchists,” called for a powerful centralized government, distrusted the common people, whom he called, if memory serves, “a great beast.” He denied them the right or ability to govern themselves, “regarded democracy as the dream of demagogues or visionaries.”

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States, fought Hamilton, called for less government and more individual freedom, was twice elected presidency, opposed as dangerous his party’s plan to nominate him for a third term. He was a democrat, pure and simple. He saw the government as a wise man of China saw it: a tiger that must be tamed.

The issue of more government or less did not die when Aaron Burr shot Hamilton dead in a duel. England is trying more government, Russia has total government, while the United States, during the New Deal, went in for enterprises usually left to private initiative. The United States was faced with the problem of over-production, of a market glutted with surplus goods that could not be sold. Those goods had somehow to be disposed of, if the wheels of industry were once more to turn and unemployment to end. So, the government, since capital could not do it, went out and put people to work—or not to work, as the critics charged. The purpose was to create jobs, increase purchasing power, get rid of the surplus produce and open the doors of factories again.

The Philippines is not socialist, heaven knows, and it is certainly not communist, at the same time it is far from faced with the problem of over-production, of having more than can be sold. Of its present condition it may be said that the Philippines has not enough of anything—unless it be politicians. Yet the government is in business—and in business, apparently, to stay.

“The finger of the government is—in every pie,” complains a businessman. “It is difficult these days to go into any enterprise unless you are in the good graces of the government. You have to play ball with the politicians—or go broke.”

An exaggeration, we daresay, but not without some truth in it. The list of government corporations is impressive. The government does seem to be in everything. It is in the transportation business (Manila Railroad Co.), in the hotel business (Manila Hotel), in the shipping business (Shipping Administration), in banking (Philippine National Bank, Rehabilitation Finance Corporation), in real estate (National Land Settlement Administration, People’s Homesite and Housing Corporation, Rural Progress Administration), in abaca (National Abaca and Other Fibers Corporation), in coconut (National Coconut Corporation), in cement (Cebu Portland Cement Co.), in sugar (Insular Sugar Refining Corporation, Binalbagan Sugar Central), in tobacco (National Tobacco Corporation). It has the Metropolitan Water District, the National Power Corporation, the Surplus Property Commission, the Government Service Insurance System, and it is in the wholesale and retail trade via the PRATRA and the National Cooperatives and Small Business Corporations. It is even in gambling—the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.

Some of these government enterprises can be justified: Manila Railroad, Government Service Insurance, Metropolitan Water District, etc. All are being justified—on one ground or another. The usual excuse is that the government entered into these enterprises because of the timidity of private capital. It went in to pioneer and pave the way for private investment and initiative. All very nice—but the government has not gone out yet. When will it go out?

Today the Government Enterprises Council is considering the creation of a great holding company to coordinate the activities of the various government corporations. Meanwhile government planned to enter into the lumber industry, only to retreat—this must be said in its favor—in the face of objections by private lumbermen. In this connection private capital was reassured by President Roxas that it need not fear government competition—because government businesses are always more costly to operate, their costs of production are always higher.

A revealing admission of government inefficiency—and graft? In each government corporation or enterprise the government must maintain what one official termed “internal check.”

“What’s that?” we asked.

“Well, in a private business, as you know, the businessman tries his best to make money, if he cheats, he only cheats himself, if he loafs, his business suffers and he sustains the loss. That is not true of the government corporation. We must maintain the internal check I have mentioned: an auditor, etc., to see to it that the business is being run properly, that nobody…”

“Is trying to run away with the government’s money, is that it?” we said.

“Well, if you put it that way.”

And of course a government business is not run the way a private one is, he admitted. In a private business, inefficiency is punished by ruin, so the employee who idles and loafs is canned. The manager must know his business—or else. It is not so in a government corporation.

In a government corporation, appointment to the most responsible position is dictated first by politics, secondly and incidentally by qualifications. A government corporation is the natural home of lame-ducks. The dumber you are, the better. Independent thought is subversive, imaginative planning is the quality of a man who can think for himself—a dangerous man, one to get quickly rid of. The dumber you are, the better. You may yet be the president of a bank—a government bank.

A government corporation needs, like any other business, competent employees and skilled hands. It must employ lazy and useless ones. It must accommodate as many as possible of the boys who brought the party in power a fair number of votes. Its aim, at least in practice, is not to produce but to provide the boys with a place in which to read their morning papers. What does it care about profits and losses? The losses can always be passed on to the people. The politician does not go broke, the people are the ones who hold the bag.

The Metran was an awful loss, the Nacoco has taken a terrific financial beating under the otherwise competent hands of Maximo Kalaw, PRATRA burned badly-needed milk, and it would be interesting to put the NBI really to work to dig into and make an over-all report on the Surplus Commission. The National Cooperatives and Small Business Corporation lost a lot of money last year, the National Tobacco Corporation is in a pretty bad fix, NARIC did not exactly make a name for efficient administration, and the Philippine National Bank will be lucky if it got back half, or even a fourth, of its crop loans, whose exact amount it is afraid to tell the people for the people might die of shock.

And nobody gets fired.

A government spokesman justifies the existence of these government corporations. You will find the “reason” for their existence in the charters of the respective corporations. Persuasively set forth. The fact remains that the government is in business, and we have a presidential secretary (Emilio Abello) chairman of the board of directors of a hotel, the secretary of labor (Pedro Magsalin) as chairman of the board of governors of cooperatives, the secretary of justice as chairman of the board of directors of a bank, a secretary of education (Manuel Gallego) as chairman of an agricultural settlement, a budget commissioner (Pio Pedrosa) as president of a railroad company, a carnival man (Arsenio Luz) as administrator of public property valued in tens of millions, and others we can enumerate ad nauseam.

Over them all presides the Honorable Placido Mapa, vice-chairman of the Government Enterprises Council, and over him sits His Excellency, Manuel Roxas, President of the Philippines, ruling a business and industrial empire that may yet, in the possible future, rival Ford’s or Rockefeller’s.

Such powers as these few men wield must shake a democratic heart. Power, no matter held by whom, corrupts, we know, and the philosophy of democratic government is to withhold as much power as possible from the few lest they oppress the many. In a supposedly democratic Philippines, however, the philosophy of government seems to run the other way. One recalls the cry of the Bolsheviks: “All powers to the Soviet!”

The Philippines, we have said, is not socialist, it is not communist, nor is it a mature capitalist society like the United States, harassed by the problem of over-production. What then is the Philippines? What kind of a government will it have if present tendencies are unchecked? We do not like the word, but there seems no way of evading it: fascist.

End