UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies

What is at stake in the question of cutting off aid to the Marcos dictatorship in truth is directly connected to the future of democracy in the United States. Congress, when it rejected the urgent advice of President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger and moved to cut off aid to South Vietnam, was merely responding to the declared will of the American people measured in poll after poll. And public opinion on this question had been molded by the popular movement against the Vietnam War, probably one of the greatest expressions of grass-roots democracy the United States has ever seen. I urge Congress to follow the lead of the members who have spoken out against aid to the Philippine dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. In this way they will be aligning themselves with most of the people of this country who have grown sick and tired of sending U.S. taxpayers money abroad to shore up the rule of corrupt foreign dictators. They will be speaking for a democratic foreign policy.