The economic managers discuss their common experience (Part 3)

[In this part 3, as in part 2 published last week, of In Dialogue: The economic managers of the Marcos administration [published by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, 2020], the statement of the speaker is captured as fully although abbreviated in the interest of space. The content today is from pages 7 to 15 from the complete text of dialogue. GPS, Crossroads.]

[Discussion continued from last week.]

Gerardo P. Sicat. I don’t think the President knew much about Jimmy [Laya] except what I told him- Stanford PhD, former dean of the UP College of Business, and so on. That must have been similar to his choice of Cesar Virata. And at least for me, I think that was a major point. The President never asked us about how we felt on political issues, how we voted for anybody in the past. I think his main criterion was to see whether he could look us in the eye and we could answer the questions and problems that he had wanted to be answered.

Jaime C. Laya. On that point, I’d met Marcos only once before, when he went to UP and I was asked by UP president Romulo to brief him.

Placido Mapa, Jr. In my case, I was already an undersecretary under the Macapagal administration, but I was recommended by his executive secretary, the late Paeng Salas, to be retained. I was reluctant to stay because Cesar Zalamea already had a position waiting for me in Philamlife.// Like Jimmy, I was reluctant to stay on because of the low salary compared to what I was going to get in Philamlife, but my late father then said “I will subsidize your stay in government.” (Laughter)

Vicente T. Paterno. In my case I had met him as the vice president for finance in Meralco, escorting him and Mrs. Marcos to the inauguration of the building in 1969. What’s striking to me, I did not expect the web of coincidence and knowledge of each other that we have. // It was Cedito [Mapa] and Cesar [Virata] who brought me to Marcos. We didn’t talk very long, 10 minutes or something like that, and Cesar said something about recommending me to be chairman of the Board of Investment. And he said “no, he has to be elected” by the board and that was, you know, clear to me. I was going into a post [in BOI] that Cesar had left because he was appointed Secretary of Finance. In my case, the main thing my wife and I discussed was how we could last on that kind of a salary. And I told her, “Darling, it’s only for two and a half years, the unexpired term of Cesar Virata”. Famous last words. I didn’t get out until 1980. // How about you, Cesar, what was your handicap?

Cesar E. A. Virata. Well, from SGV, it was really a big let-down. Although under the law creating the BOI, my pay was P80,000, better than the pay of an ordinary Cabinet member who earned P36,000 plus some other allowances, it was really a struggle, and I said I will serve for as long I could feed my family and exhaust our savings. (VT Paterno, echoing: “Exhaustion of savings was also my worry.”) That was to me the end of the line all the time. // And in the case of Gerry [Sicat], I really interfered in his plans. He was about to leave for the Yale Growth Center. I tried to convince President Marcos that we should get him because I was thinking that we were all tied into a policy of import substitution and I could see our reserves going down. These so-called “savings” out of imports were not actual dollars, but only on paper. //I told the President we don’t have to convince Gerry anymore about creating export-orientation for industry. He will push all these particular projects, otherwise, if we have to get somebody, we have to argue with him and what not. So, ah, that is how I told him, and Gerry was called, and all his plans to go to Yale disappeared. [To complete the story, Cesar Virata brought me to meet Pres. Marcos one early evening to Malacañan at the rest-house across the river. Upon being introduced to him, he immediately told me: “I want you to be chairman of NEC.” G. Sicat]

[Story behind Faustino Sy Chanco, who was at Budget from 1966 to 1980 during the Marcos years, in addition to those spent under President Diosdado Macapagal.]

Jaime C. Laya. Before we leave the topic of how Pres. Marcos appointed people, Budget Commissioner Faustino Sy Chanco told me the circumstances under which he was appointed by President Marcos. He was Budget commissioner under President Macapagal, and you know how sensitive the budget office is. // President Marcos, soon after he was elected, called him in and asked him to stay on as Budget commissioner. As told to me by commissioner Sy Chanco, he answered: “Mr. President you may not have known it, but I released millions to defeat your candidacy, I just want to let you know that.”. (In those days, the units were millions, not billions as our time today). And President Marcos said “Yes, I know that, but I want you to stay.” // It turned out that decades before, commissioner Sy Chanco was involved in import clearances. One had to apply for dollar allocations at that time to be able to import anything and Pres. Marcos who was, I believe then in the Senate as senator, was also a practicing lawyer and he was representing an importer who was denied a dollar allocation. So Senator Marcos or Atty. Marcos, together with the client went to see Mr. Sy Chanco, who turned down his request. Pres. Marcos never forgot that incident. And for that very reason he retained him as Budget commissioner. Pres. Marcos said to him, “I want somebody like you.”

For archives of previous Crossroads essays, go to: https://www.philstar.com/authors/1336383/gerardo-p-sicat. Visit this site for more information, feedback and commentary: http://econ.upd.edu.ph/gpsicat/