UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies

U.S. policymakers and pundits have often trumpeted U.S. policy in the Philippines as a model -- of colonialism, of democracy, of counter-insurgency -- that could be applied world wide. In fact, however, the Philippine model was always based on misrepresentation, and the lessons that we should take from the Philippine case are rather different from those usually mentioned. The Philippine model is examined during the period of the conquest at the turn of the last century; in 1946, when formal independence was achieved; during the anti-Huk campaign of the early 1950s; during martial law; and during the People Power revolt of 1986. In all these versions, the U.S. government stood as an opponent of the democratic aspirations of the Philippine people.