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<p>
After the February 1986 coup, the insurgency led by the New People's Army has consolidated its grip on 20% of the country and improved its position in the key urban areas.  The economy has deteriorated rapidly. Unemployment was at a record 60-70%, while the "corruption rate",  bad under Marcos, has become worse. In economic policy, Aquino and her controllers led the Philippines into the status of an International Monetary Fund "colony".
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<p>
Marcos was overthrown because of economic policy and the Philippines' geostrategic position. The news media and the Congress, along with a variety of U.S. think tanks, perpetrated the myth that the "victory of Cory Aquino" was a victory for democracy. But "People's Power",  the slogan of the "liberation theology" Catholic Church under Cardinal Jaime Sin, was mere political cover for a naked military coup directed by the U.S: State Department. While Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and sometimes chief-of-staff Fidel
Ramos had complex motives, they were mere participants in a U.S. operation.
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<p>
Filipino nationalists could only recall how the brutal Spanish colonialists and their priesthood kept Filipinos' in a state of subservience. 
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<h3>
The basis for the February coup
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Historically, the Philippines were the model of the U.S. commitment to development of backward peoples. U. S. rule over the Philippines sought to demonstrate to the world that it were not only possible to raise a backward people to sovereign status, but also a moral necessity. This had been General Douglas MacArthur's commitment and an outlook shared by President Franklin Roosevelt.
The postwar U.S. shift away from MacArthur's outlook toward support of neo-colonialism, especially during the period of the Vietnam War, placed the now-sovereign Philippines in a difficult position. The Philippines came to reflect the best and the worst of American political culture. On the  one hand, the Philippines became an extension of U.S. military operations in Southeast Asia. On the other, as Marcos emerged as the strongman, he built up his political machine as a Chicago-style patronage system that partially broke up the "oligarchic land system" that had dominated the Philippines for several hundred years. However, he did not succeed in eliminating the financial and political underpinnings of the oligarchic system, but was forced into a compromise that portended his demise.
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The families, Lopez, Aquino, Laurel, Cojuangco, and others, were not only opposed to Marcos, but were aligned with the international financial networks that controlled the Philippines' insurance and banking companies. These families, many of whom were Japanese collaborators during World War II (including the Aquinos), are backers of Sin's "Theology of Liberation," and in some cases, actively supported the New People's Army. Mrs. Aquino's husband, Begnino, killed in 1983, utilized his brother "Butz" as a liaison to the
NPA. The families' conceived of the NPA as the Church did-a needed armed force against Marcos's military. Through this relationship, for example, the present "ceasefire",  was arranged.
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<p>
The central foreign financial interest in the Philippines was the C.V. Starr group, dominating the insurance and banking groups. Successor to C. V. Starr was Maurice "Hank" Greenberg's American International Group and related companies. His influence over U.S. policy toward the Philippines is augmented by a personal friendship with CIA director William Casey.
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Despite such interests, Marcos's attempts to industrialize and, develop the Philippines led to a certain amount of improvement
in the real economy during the 1970s. However, by 1979-80, when the Carter administration's Paul Volcker pushed interest rates up to 20%, Marcos made a fatal mistake. Instead of shifting toward a South Korean industrialization model, he stupidly clung to the austerity prescription handed to him by the IMF and commercial bank controllers of Prime Minister Ceasar Virata and Central Bank governor Jose B. Fernandez. By the time of the coup, unemployment and underemployment stood at 50% as result of the destabilization of his opponents after the 1983 killing of Benigno Aquino.

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<h3>
Weapon: the media
</h3>
<p>
In Washington, a decision had been taken for a coup by mid-1985. There followed a barrage of psychological warfare unprecedented in scope, creating a climate in Washington in which stupid and opportunistic politicians in the Congress fell into line with those complicit in the plot, calling for Marcos's "democratic" ouster. On the scenes in the Philippines, I saw something almost unimaginable to the average citizen: The media became the single most important instrument of the banker's coup. 
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<p>
Marcos seemed to hold his own, until the interview he gave to ABC's Ted Koppel. He announced a "snap election".  Enormous pressure had· been placed on him by President Ronald Reagan and his personal envoy, Senator Paul Laxalt, who informed him that no U. S. aid would be forthcoming unless he permitted elections. It was December 1985, when the opposition was essentially demoralized. Had Marcos not gone ahead with the elections, he could have survived.
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<p>
However, Marcos knew that he would win the election - and he believed that he still had a deal with his friend, President Reagan. He called the election. The U.S. news media responded with a wild wave of lying that vote-fraud would  be used to return Marcos to power. Representative Stephen Solarz and others set in motion an "anti-vote-fraud" campaign inside the Philippines led by Cardinal Sin. With this in full-swing, the military faction aligned with Enrile and Ramos, around the Reform Officers group called the RAM, with backing from nearly all factions of the U. S. intelligence and military community, saw the critical opportunity for a coup. All the elements
had been in place since July 1985.
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<p>
The elections were held, Marcos won (in fact), the U.S. press and the opposition said that Aquino won, and a "democratic" coup was set in motion. But Marcos and chief of staff Fabian Ver had unearthed the operation and were prepared to suppress it. However, from inside Malacanang Palace, news of the planned suppression reached Enrile and then Ramos, who, with U.S. assistance, moved the coup forces into Camp Anguinaldo.
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When the small group of officers around Enrile and Ramos made this move, Cardinal Sin mobilized the population in and around Manila to back them. Through Radio Veritas financially supported by the U.S. government, as State Department official Michael Armacost admitted-marching orders to the Church legions and the population were issued. Then, President Reagan withdrew support. The rest is history.
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<p>
<b>Sources</b>: 
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<ol class="article-sources">
<li>
The end of an era: the fall of Marcos by Paul Goldstein, Executive Intillegence Review,  Volume 14, Number 1, January 2, 1987, EIR News Service, Washington D.C.
</li>
</ol>

The fall of President Marcos and the myth that the "victory of Cory Aquino" was a victory for democracy