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Much of the Philippines' violence rises from the chasm of poverty that separates rich and poor. Though the 7,100 islands of the republic are rich in natural resources (gold and copper on Luzon, iron on Samar, chromite on Mindanao) and fecund with such crops as tobacco, sugar, corn and rice, average Filipino income is only $120 a year. Fully 6% of the population is unemployed, and a third of all Filipinos work only three months a year. Manila's wealthy suburb of Forbes Park glitters with swimming pools, but children starve to death regularly in the shack towns along the Sulu Sea. Daughters of wealthy Manila socialites sport names like "Ting-Ting" and take ballet lessons, while at an annual festival at Obando, childless women perform a rhythmic fertility dance coaxing the saints to help them conceive. Polo is played in Manila, but headhunting is occasionally still the game in the wild, distant mountains of northern Luzon.
Placards & Rifle Butts. Politics in the Philippines shows exaggerated hostility too, and Romantic Poet Macapagal finds it difficult to match the flip philippics of his opponents. Already he is swapping invective with the Nacionalistas, although election day is not due until November 1965, and the opposition has yet to select a candidate. Two of the chief contenders for the nomination are former Liberal Party members—Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez and Senate President Ferdinand Marcos—both of whom broke from Diosdado Macapagal after his triumphant election. They are well aware that, until now, not one Philippine President has managed to serve two full terms.
On the eve of Macapagal's departure for Washington, 500 students and union members carrying bamboo torches and placards reading "Ugly American" marched to Malacanang Palace, the Philippine White House. They noisily demanded abrogation of a U.S.-Philippine trade agreement that gives American interests parity in the ownership of Filipino land, resources and public utilities. But the agreement also grants the Philippines tariff advantages in its trade with the U.S., and Macapagal is wisely avoiding any battle on that score. When the demonstrators grew violent, presidential guards drove them back with rifle butts, and Macapagal admitted a delegation of student leaders to hear out their gripes. The students eventually apologized, and Macapagal shook hands and thanked them for coming but said that next time they should make an appointment in advance. But for all the strident show of anti-Americanism, the student demonstration was a far cry from what it might have been in Indonesia, Cambodia or South Viet Nam. As one near-hysterical Filipino shouted at the height of the melee: "Isn't this democracy in action?"