General History of the Philippines
From an observer's point of view, the successive dismissal in 2019, by the Sandiganbayan of the alleged ill-gotten wealth against the former President Marcos, his family and cronies of the cases filed by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) for insufficiency of evidence is wrong.
President Duterte's fifth State of the Nation Address (SONA) is historic in that it is the first to make a clarion call for the country to fight the scourge of oligarchy, one of the obstacles to becoming a developed nation. How difficult and messy that could be has been demonstrated in the battle against, and defeat of, the Lopez oligarchic clan.
The installation of the Cory Aquino regime was ominous, for rightly, she appointed Filipinos to run the industry who openly exhibited their fealty to their imperialist brokers. Cesar Buenaventura who once served as president of the Ayala-owned Pilipinas Shell Corporation was appointed to replace Geronimo Velasco whose department was immediately abolished by the vindictive but devoutly Catholic Cory Aquino.
President Ferdinand Marcos was not the first post-World War II president to suggest the existence of a group of business establishments exercising control over the Philippine economy. President Diosdado Macapagal, whom he defeated in the 1965 elections, was the first to do so.
Let us first recall the Mamasapano massacre. The bloody incident occurred on January 25, 2015 when a combined force of Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters waylaid members of the Philippine National Police Special Action Force (PNP/SAF).
With President Corazon Aquino in power only nine months, a government power struggle was grabbing front-page headlines. It was reported that the situation was "too fluid" to call, as backroom negotiations continue among parties, but with "no commitments made yet."