Postwar Problems and the Republic

     The damage done by the war to the Philippines and the Filipinos was incalculable. The basic problem, therefore, that confronted the Commonwealth and, later, the Republic, was economic. Buildings, school houses, roads, bridges, livestock, sugar mills, agriculture, and banking institutions had to be rehabilitated or reconstructed. The problem of collaboration also faced the government. There was confusion in the national scene; the wounds of the recent war were as yet unhealed. The United States gave material and financial aid to the Philippines on condition that the Philippine Constitution should be amended in order to give the Americans parity rights in the exploitation of the country’s natural resources.

 Postwar Economic Condition

           The incomes of the people dipped radically and means of livelihood were reduced tremendously. Poverty, resulting from widespread destruction of property, including work animals, was rampant throughout the country.

                Production was almost a standstill in the early months of liberation due to lack of capital to finance the restoration of destroyed machinery and other equipments.

                Shipping in railways were out of operation resulting in very limited production and marketing of consumer goods;

                Farmers lost some thirty percent of their implements;

                Livestock was reduced was about by about sixty five percent resulting in the scarcity of food;

                Facilities for irrigating farms were either destroyed or unrepaired; and

                Large areas of agricultural land were neglected.

Philippine Civil Affairs Unit (PCAU)

                When the Americans hits the beaches of Luzon, food was extremely scarce. PCAU organized food distributing centers in Manila and the provinces. In the amount of goods distributed was based on the number of persons in the family. Because there was not much food to buy, even if one had the money, most of the heads of the families padded the number of persons comprising the families in order to get more goods. The agency provided speedy relief for all the people of Manila and the provinces which had been recently liberated from Japanese rule. First organized in New Guinea on September 28, 1944 took part in the Leyte campaigns.  Its purpose was to assist the various military commanders in the civil administration and relief of the areas liberated.

Reorganization of the Government

                March 7, 1945, President Osmena and Executive Order providing for the restoration of the executive departments of the government as they existed before the war.

The Congress Convened

                June 9, 1845, Osmena called a special session of congress. Manuel A. Roxas, whose ambition spoke for the so-called collaborationists by declaring that all men who were employed during the Japanese occupation were actually loyal to the commonwealth government.

                Back Pay Law, approved in 1948, promised to give three years back pay to all pre-war government employees after the end of a ten year period, that is in 1958.

The Collaboration Issue

                June 29, 1944,  President Roosevelt stated that those who collaborated with the enemy should be removed “fro authority and influence over the political and economic life of the country”

                September 11, American secretary of the interior Harold reminded Osmena, in a cable gram of the late president Roosevelt’s policy regarding collaboration.

                September 26, 1945,  Congressman C. Jasper Bell of Missouri introduced a bill providing for free trade relations between the United States and the Philippines for a period of 20 years.

                Bell Trade relation act provided for free trade relations between the US and the Philippines until 1954.

                “Parity Rights” the bad feature of the Law giving Americans the right to dispose, exploit, develop and utilize.

Quirino’s  Administration

                Quirino announced that his program of government would consisting restore the faith and confidence of the people. His program compost of 2 parts; the first part was based on the realization  that the people had lost their confidence in the government owing  to the rampalt galt. The second was based on the pathetic lack of peace angd order.

The Hukbalahap Movement

      This movement has its deep roots in the Spanish encomienda system which developed in to a system of exploitation. The founding of the hukbalahap was immediately preceding the outbreak of the war in the pacific. The hukbalahap sovereignty is the high command of the hukbalahap imposed an iron discipline on all its members. When the liberation and imprisonment, the American landing in Lingayen in January 1945 was opportune, for the guerrillas had already cleared out the Japanese obstacle. In the pacification campaign, Taruc and the other peasant leaders, in their desire to make the countryside safe, cooperated with President Roxas in the campaign of pacification. The Hak movement is not an isolated armed uprising against duly constituted authority.

       The Tao in history is the common man, popularly known as the tao in Tagalog. He has been the victim of injustices contempt and pity. When Magsaysay’s charismatic leadership true to his promise, he work hard to make a tao a man in his community. Magsaysay’s intentions regarding the tao for he wanted him to imporove his lot within the framework of the laws.