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The Manila government admits to putting a total of $625 million into the corporate bailout operation, but most analysts believe that it will ultimately require far more. Said Jaime Ongpin, president of the country's oldest mining company, the Benguet Corp., and a leading Marcos critic: "The rescue program has really gotten out of hand." Said another businessman: "They are just postponing the day of reckoning."
Government officials defend the action by saying that massive bankruptcies would have a domino effect on the entire financial system. On television last week, during his scheduled Ask the President program, Marcos attacked Ongpin personally, denying his allegations and coolly noting that Benguet itself received aid from the government in the 1960s, when the company was paid more than the official $35-per-oz. price for gold that it mined. Sniffed Marcos: "I don't know what is eating him. He certainly is acting strangely."
There is no denying, though, that the government's ownership of private industry is growing. It now has 58% of the huge Marinduque Mining and Industrial Corp., as well as large slices of shipping, textiles and construction. The government will soon have majority control of one of the three largest private banks in the Philippines.
Officials claim that the state will sell its interests when stability returns, but critics say that this is nothing less than de facto nationalization. One thing has not changed in Philippine business: Marcos' pals are still running the companies. Crony capitalism is thus turning into crony socialism.