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One of the ironies surrounding international development assistance is that while it purports to help liberate people from those conditions which enslave them, the very act of offering assistance already constitutes a potential constraint to the liberative process. Historically, international aid has been one of the abiding instruments of intervention in the affairs of another country. Yet at the same time, the ethic of global solidarity requires that local efforts at liberation from the disabling conditions of poverty, oppression, and domination must be enhanced and strengthened as if it was the whole global moral community itself that is offended by the persistence of these conditions. Concerned individuals working in international development agencies have a moral obligation to ensure that international assistance does not become the vehicle for new intervention or the seed for new forms of dependence. Political and business groups in the donor countries are known to be adept in exploiting such relationships for their own benefit. Great care should be taken that their influence does not determine the shape of the assistance offered. The best way to protect the integrity of an international assistance program both from domestic and foreign opportunists is for the international donor agency to draw a coherent vision of its work in a country and to transparently premise all its activities and projects on such a vision. The concrete meanings of this vision must be articulated and carefully reviewed and assessed from year to year in the light of the unfolding realities they confront.

Becoming a newly-industrialized country is the new development ideology. State technocrats deploy it to justify and obtain bigger budgetary support for their pet programs, and to rationalize acquiescence in the adjustment measure prescribed and dictated by the guardians of the world capitalist system. To surrender to the singular logic of world market is not only to give up on autonomy;it is also to submit to a fragmentary notion of development. More nations are becoming aware of the equally important values that had been given up in exchange for economic development. Values like democracy, identity, equity, and ecological sustainability. The conventional view is that such values come truly salient only after the quest for economic development has been satisfied. All too often, the values that are traded off are irreversibly lost. The environment only bears the most visible scar but in truth, the erosion is comprehensive. In the Philippines, this whole flawed episode has produced national demoralization, and has made us wondering whether we will ever again be masters of our own destiny.

President Corazon Aquino's term is not without its shares of problems. Years of stay in power has resulted in six coup attempts the latest and most threatening of which is the December 1, 1989 coup led by Colonel Tito Legaspi and Colonel Romylino Goho among others. This article analyzes the December First coup from the events that triggered the coup, why it failed, how has the coup affected the Aquino government and the prospect of President Aquino's regime.

It is the function of alternative social scientists to formulate the axes of the ongoing political struggle, and to indicate to political activists and popular organizations the direction of progressive action. Here, the relevant options are necessarily a function of the properties of the concrete situation--e.g., the level of political consciousness and organization of the basic masses, the level of cohesion of the dominant classes, and the strength and level of interest shown by the external forces. In the present democratic conjuncture in the Philippines, it may be argued that the battle lines are currently drawn on a number of crucial political, social and economic issues. The nature of the polarization leaves no doubt that maximalist demands are out of the question for the moment.

The nonviolent February 1986 EDSA Revolution ushered in a transition period from an authoritarian regime towards democratic one. This paper focuses on the interface of three basic factors in the Philippine context: the alternative vision, the immediate problems, and the concrete internal and external conditions, which either limit or actualize the possibilities of social transformation. The revolution, which, came about as an unintended product of a failed coup attempt and a coalition of different groups, placed the Aquino administration in charge. The events that followed saw various moves to rectify the repressions of the previous administration such as restoring the freedom of the press and abolishing all the repressive decrees. Afterwards, the Aquino administration entered a more progressive phase as it tried to address concerns of labor rights, institutionalization of people's councils, payment of foreign debt, dialogues with armed underground forces, land reforms, and political normalization. The dilemmas of political consolidation did not disappear and Cory Aquino's popularity steadily declined as it was based on how the current government could successfully provide livelihood. The virtues of self-reliance had to be scrapped with the nonexistent dynamism of private capital as the government needed the new loan provided by the IMF and the World Bank. Politically, the Aquino government maintains an open democratic regime but it faces tremendous odds as it presides over a "democratic conjuncture," a politicoeconomic phase which it cannot readily control. The Philippine experience shows that the conditions of toppling authoritarianism are different from what is needed to preserve and advance democracy and an alternative praxis is yet to be formed.

The February events in the Philippines have been referred to with some degree of ambiguity and indecision. The task of interpreting in more analytical terms what actually happened in those four days is unfinished. This essay argues that an understanding of the subjective viewpoint of the Filipino public is important because it provides a key to the problem whether and how far the people are prepared to support meaningful changes in Philippine society; notwithstanding the analysts and scholars who argue over the specific characteristics of the February uprising. Moreover, it emphasizes the ideological struggle that must be waged in order to preserve the democratic gains. Set in this context, it examines and evaluates Cory Aquino's government in the face of lingering contradictions and formidable stumbling blocks.

This paper attempts to examine some of the crucial aspects, from the perspective of the Philippine experience, the current dilemmas brought about by international economic relations. The impacts of the existence of the OPEC; and the transnationalization of the Philippine economy under the Marcos regime, provide the backdrop for the availability of large amounts of foreign exchange within the country. Simultaneously, Filipinos were opened to an influx of imported consumer goods. As a result, money easily flowed out of the country as quickly as it came in. This problem is further aggravated by the rise in interest rates in the international financial markets. The Marcos government's borrowing of more loans to cover deficits, lead to the mounting indebtedness of our country. In addition, First World countries have instituted protectionist measures, which have affected Third World exports. The global economic crisis of the 1980's facilitated for the rise of the IMF and the World Bank. These institutions supervise the adjustment of heavily indebted countries by means of "rescue packages" in the form of conditionalities. The foreign debt of our country by now has amounted to a huge sum that it is impossible to service it completely without having to borrow new money. Furthermore, this economic crisis, an aspect the Philippines shares with other indebted Third World countries, is coupled with an ensuing political crisis. The problem of whether or not democracy can last without concrete changes in the world economic order must be seriously addressed. It is also doubtless if economies of the South will be able to end balance of payments problems unless radical restructuring of international economic relations be made. In conclusion, the paper argues that developing nations, particularly the Philippines, can only meaningfully participate in the world economic system when they have attained a degree of economic autonomy.

The overwhelming affirmative vote given to the 1986 Constitution in the February plebiscite may be seen as a testimony to Cory Aquino's unfading popularity. Viewed against the background of the recent military-led attempts to overthrow her government, the vote signifies an unequivocal rejection of Marcos-loyalist elements and other coup plotters within the military.

The events of February 1986 have been prominently billed as revolutionary so spectators believed that the government is revolutionary as well. But the Aquino government, which was hounded with issues of agrarian reform, the external debt obligations, and unreformed military, failed to deliver. It did not claim full control over military ranks. In 1986, the country paid more than $4 million in debt service, which is approximately 80% of the total foreign exchange earnings from commodity exports the previous year. The People's Power may not have led to meaningful changes in the Philippine social structure, but it definitely gave many Filipinos enough reason and courage to question the existing system of privilege, of power, and of property. A wellspring of a sustained campaign for an authentic agrarian reform and of the quest for a far-reaching democratization of Filipino life has been established.

Thirty months have passe since the flight of the dictator to Hawaii. Yet he continues to be a thorn on the side of the Cory Aquino government. Today Filipinos are debating whether he should be allowed to return to the country he ruled for twenty years, even as the government alternates between letting the courts decide the legal grounds for denying or giving him travel documents, and invoking its political prerogative to keep him out of the country for as long as necessary.