Ramon F.

Magsaysay (1953-1957)

CONDITION OF THE PHILIPPINES

Recovery of the Philippines after the Japanese War.

Reconstruction of the Philippines after WW2

PRIMARY PROBLEMS

Land Reform Problems

Hukbalahap Rebellion

Lack of funding for the rehabilitation of the Philippines from the damages from World War 2

PROMISES DURING THE ELECTIONS AND INAUGURATION

I will have such men. From this day, the members of my administration, beginning with myself, shall cease to belong to our
parties, to our families, even to ourselves. We shall belong only to the people.
In the administration of public affairs, all men entrusted with authority must adhere firmly to the ideals and principles of
Constitution.

I will render-and demand-uncompromising loyalty to the basic tenet of our Constitution: that you the people, are sovereign.

The rule of the government must be service to you. Accordingly, I pledge my administration to your service.
I pledge that we shall be guardians of freedom and dignity of the individual.

The Bill of Rights shall be, for me and the members of my administration, a bill of duties. We shall be guardians of the freedom
and dignity of the individual.

The land tenure system of our country shall be re-examined, to purge it of injustice and oppression.
Land for the landless shall be more than just a catch-phrase. We will translate it into actuality. We will clear and open for
settlement our vast and fertile public lands which, under the coaxing of willing hearts and industrious hands, are waiting to
yield sustenance to millions of our countrymen.

I therefore call upon the remnants of the Huk uprising still hiding in the hills to lay down their arms and rejoin the rest of the
nation in the ways of peace.

But, to the leaders of the Communist conspiracy who would deliver this country and its people to a foreign power, this I say: I
shall use all the forces at my command to the end that the sovereign authority of this government shall be respected and
maintained.

LAWS AND PROGRAMS

Agrarian Reform Programs

1. Republic Act No. 1160 of 1954

LASEDECO was abolished and established the National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Administration
Main goal was to resettle landless farmers, and aimed at the rebels who returned to provide them with lots for home and
farming in Palawan and Mindanao

2. Republic Act No. 1199 (Agricultural Tenancy Act of 1954)

Created the court of Agrarian Relations

The leasehold system and share-tenancy were organized to oversee the relationship between tenants and landowners

3. Republic Act No. 1400 (Land Reform Act of 1955)

Land Tenure Administration (LTA) were in charge of the possessing and distributing tenanted rice and corn lands (200
hectares for individuals and 600 hectares for corporations)

4. Republic Act No. 821 (Creation of Agricultural Credit Cooperative Financing Administration)

Small farmers and tenants low interests of between six to eight percent with their loans

5. Reparation Agreement

An agreement between Japan and the Philippines to pay the latter five hundred fifty million U.S. dollars ($550,000) as payment
for the war damages of World War II.

6. Bell Trade Act of 1946 into the Laurel-Langley Agreement

It eradicated the authority of the United States to have control over the exchange rate of the Philippines peso, parity privileges
reciprocal, extended the sugar quota. This agreement retained the economic subservience between the U.S. and the
Philippines.

7. Agricultural Commodities Agreement with the U.S. (1957)

perpetuating the colonial pattern of the nations economy

8. Anti-subversion Law

Law that limited the citizens democratic rights of assembly, free speech, and belief.

BENEFICIARIES OF THE LAWS AND PROGRAMS

Republic Act No. 1160 of 1954

Rebel returnees and as well as landless farmers benefitted for they were given home lots and farm lands

Republic Act No. 1199 (Agricultural Tenancy Act of 1954)

Although the law amended on the tenancy problem, farmers benefitted from the distribution of crops on a certain basis

The main problem of tenurial system was not given notice

HOLES AND SHORTCOMINGS OF THE LAWS

Although the common people benefitted from the land distribution of the government, and tenants were given more rights, the
problems that were solved by the government were just in the surface rather than the main problem. They put a solution to a
problem but not in the main one, in Republic Act No. 1199 farmers were given a certain percentage of the distribution of crop,
so it put and minor solution to that but with the case of the tenurial system, it wasnt given notice.

His programs were designed to benefit the common people but eventually had its problems in the end. The relocation of the
people from certain places, worked at first but eventually started a cultural dispute between the natives living there and those
who were relocated.

ISSUES AND CONTROVERSIES

Corruption among cabinet members and the endless attempts to bribe the president were the most common issues of that
time where corruptions was very rampant among government officials and President Magsaysay was among the very few who
resisted and had zero tolerance against corruption.
The president who had zero tolerance for corruption even simple signs of not having a clean government he would put a stop
on to it especially with his relatives. Like when his brother planned to start a law firm, the president refused for it will draw
shady dealings for the firm will be run by the presidents brother.

SUMMARY OF GOVERNANCE

Ramon Magsaysay was dubbed as the guy because many considered him as the president who really connected and
represented the common man being a president with a sympathetic heart to the masses. He even opened Malacaang to the
public. His death was presented with issues telling that his plane didnt actually crashed but it was sneaked in with a bomb that
caused the plane crash of the president.

GRADE (DLSU SYSTEM)

If I were to grade, it will be 2.5 based on what he did against corruption. His man for the masses image really reflects on what
he did and how he did it. He roamed around barrios in order to hear from the people what they needed. But that really started
something bad for the Filipino people, which started on what I believe the strong dependency of the people to public servants.
Instead of the people doing what they needed to do, they instead leaned on the officials that is why I only gave him a 2.5
instead of a 4.0 which will be solely based on his uncorrupted tenure as president.

Ramn Magsaysay was born in Iba, Zambales on August 31, 1907 to Exequiel Magsaysay, a blacksmith, and Perfecta del
Fierro, a schoolteacher. He entered the University of the Philippines in 1927. He worked as a chauffeur to support himself as
he studied engineering; later, he transferred to the Institute of Commerce at Jos Rizal College (19281932), where he
received a baccalaureate in commerce. He then worked as a bus mechanic and became the General Manager of the bus
company sometime later.
At the outbreak of World War II, he joined the motor pool of the 31st Infantry Division of the Philippine Army. When Bataan
surrendered in 1942, Magsaysay escaped to the hills, narrowly evading Japanese arrest on at least four occasions. There he
organised the Western Luzon Guerrilla Forces, and was commissioned captain on 5 April 1942. For three years, Magsaysay
operated under Col. Merrills famed guerrilla outfit and saw action at Sawang, San Marcelino, Zambales, first as a supply
officer codenamed Chow and later as commander of a 10,000 strong force. Magsaysay was among those instrumental in
clearing the Zambales coast of the Japanese prior to the landing of American forces together with the Philippine
Commonwealth troops on January 29, 1945.
On 22 April 1946, Magsaysay, encouraged by his ex-guerrillas, was elected under the Liberal Party to the Philippine House of
Representatives.

In 1948, President Roxas chose Magsaysay to go to Washington as Chairman of the Committee on Guerrilla Affairs, to help to
secure passage of the Rogers Veterans Bill, giving benefits to Philippine veterans. In the so-called dirty election of 1949, he
was re-elected to a second term in the House of Representatives. During both terms he was Chairman of the House National
Defense Committee.
In early August 1950, he offered President Quirino a plan to fight the Communist guerillas, using his own experiences in
guerrilla warfare during World War II. After some hesitation, Quirino realized that there was no alternative and appointed
Magsaysay Secretary of National Defence on August 31, 1950.
He intensified the campaign against the Hukbalahap guerillas. This success was due in part to the unconventional methods
he employed and developed alongside an American adviser, General Edward Lansdale. The counterinsurgency the two
deployed utilized soldiers distributing relief goods and other forms of aid to outlying, provincial communities. Where before
Magsaysay, the rural folk looked on the Philippine Army if not in distrust, at least with general apathy, during his term as
Defense Secretary Filipinos began to respect and admire their soldiers.
In June 1952, Magsaysay made a goodwill tour to the United States and Mexico. He visited New York, Washington, D.C. (with
a medical check-up at Walter Reed Hospital) and Mexico City where he spoke at the Annual Convention of Lions International.
By 1953, President Quirino thought the threat of the Huks was under control and Secretary Magsaysay was becoming too
weak. Magsaysay met with interference and obstruction from the President and his advisers, in fear they might be unseated at
the next presidential election. Although Magsaysay had at that time no intention to run, he was urged from many sides and
finally was convinced that the only way to continue his fight against communism, and for a government for the people, was to
be elected President, ousting the corrupt administration that, in his opinion, had caused the rise of the communist guerrillas by
bad administration.
He resigned his post as defense secretary on February 28, 1953, and became the presidential candidate of the Nacionalista
Party, disputing the nomination with senator Camilo Osas at the Nacionalista national convention.
In 1949, the governor of Negros Occidental Rafael Lacson assumed the gubernatorial chair and he ran the war-torn province
as a police state. He tied up with the wealthy sugar plantation owners in the province, assembled private local armies and held
the constabulary in an iron fist. The next year, many local journalists foretold the defeat of Lacson in the office if he would not
loosen up his policies in the province.
In the 1951 local elections, a former anti-Japanese guerrilla fighter named Moiss Padilla declared his bid to become mayor of
Magallon, Negros Occidental (now Moiss Padilla). Padillas opponent was an ally of Lacson, and because of this Lacson sent
word to Padilla, threatening him with death unless he renounced his candidacy. Despite the warning, Padilla continued his
campaign and sought military protection from Magsaysay who was then Defence Secretary.
Padilla lost the mayoralty race, and the night after the polls, Lacsons uniformed men abducted him. Padilla was sent on a
town show where he was publicly beaten and tortured along the road. After the ordeal, one of Lacsons men announced in
the town plaza, this is what happens to people who oppose us.When news reached Magsaysay that Padilla was being
tortured, he rushed to Negros Occidental, but was too late. He was then informed that Padillas body was swimming in blood,
pierced by fourteen bullets, and was positioned on a police bench in the town plaza. Magsaysay himself carried Padillas
corpse with his bare hands and delivered it to the morgue, and the next day, news clips showed pictures of him doing so.
Magsaysay even used this event during his presidential campaign in 1953.
The trial against Lacson started in January 1952; Magsaysay and his men presented enough evidence to convict Lacson and
his 26 men for murder.In August 1954, Judge Eduardo Enriquez ruled the men were guilty and Lacson, his 22 men and three
other mayors of Negros Occidental municipalities were condemned to the electric chair.
In the Election of 1953, Magsaysay was decisively elected president over the incumbent Elpidio Quirino. He was sworn into
office wearing the Barong Tagalog, a first by a Philippine president. He was then called Mambo Magsaysay.

As president, he was a close friend and supporter of the United States and a vocal spokesman against communism during the
Cold War. He led the foundation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization also known as the Manila Pact of 1954, that aimed
to defeat communist-Marxist movements in South East Asia, South Asia and the Southwestern Pacific. During his term, he
made Malacang Palace literally a house of the people, opening its gates to the public. One example of his integrity
followed a demonstration flight aboard a new plane belonging to the Philippine Air Force (PAF): President Magsaysay asked
what the operating costs per hour were for that type of aircraft, then wrote a personal check to the PAF, covering the cost of
his flight.
His administration was considered one of the cleanest and most corruption-free; his presidency was cited as the Philippines
Golden Years. Trade and industry flourished, the Philippine military was at its prime, and the Filipino people were given
international recognition in sports, culture and foreign affairs. The Philippines ranked second in Asias clean and well-governed
countries.
Magsaysays term that was to end on 30 December 1957 was cut short by a plane crash. On 16 March 1957, Magsaysay left
Manila for Cebu City where he spoke at three educational institutions. That same night, at about 1 am, he boarded the
presidential plane Mt. Pinatubo, a C-47, heading back to Manila. In the early morning hours of 17 March, the plane was
reported missing. By late afternoon, newspapers had reported the airplane had crashed on Mt. Manunggal in Cebu, and that
36 of the 56 aboard were killed (the actual number on board was 25, including Magsaysay). Only newspaperman Nstor Mata
survived. Vice-President Carlos Garca, who was on official visit to Australia at the time, assumed the presidency to serve out
the last eight months of Magsaysays term.