No Mr. Imelda

WI Ferdinand Marcos was killed by Japanese in WWII? He claimed to be the most decorated insurgent, but this was found a fabrication by US Army postwar. It is rumoured that ill-gotten Marcos wealth could pay off all PI foreign debt at a stroke. In OTL he was a brilliant con artist. The Supreme Court acquittal, ability to recite Criminal Code backwards, etc. Now if only he wasn't a murderous, corporatist evil genius with Imelda using the treasury as a chequing account...
 
WI Ferdinand Marcos was killed by Japanese in WWII? He claimed to be the most decorated insurgent, but this was found a fabrication by US Army postwar. It is rumoured that ill-gotten Marcos wealth could pay off all PI foreign debt at a stroke. In OTL he was a brilliant con artist. The Supreme Court acquittal, ability to recite Criminal Code backwards, etc. Now if only he wasn't a murderous, corporatist evil genius with Imelda using the treasury as a chequing account...

Then the old country may not have had all the problems it has today to the degree it does today. Like most tyrants, Marcos's thugs removed, by force and intimidation, many of the substantial mass of civil society and politicized what neutral ones remained. Today, basically the only major source of 'civil society' with real legitimacy is the Church. With no Marcos we may have more of a stabilizng force.
 

Bearcat

Banned
The Philippines

might have stayed economically and politically healthy enough to achieve economic takeoff in the 80s/90s and be one of the leading "Asian Tiger" economies today.
 
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