Administration of Diosdado Macapagal

The election of 1961 showcased Carlos Garcia representing the Nationalist party and Diosdado Macapagal representing the Liberal party. Carlos Garcia was the incumbent president seeking re-election. Unfortunately, Diosdado Macapagal, using his background as his campaign was able to topple the current regime. Diosdado Macapagal was able to win the election 55% to 45% with a promise to end corruption while appealing to the people with his background as a common man. With this victory, Diosdado Macapagal became the 9th president of the Republic of the Philippines. After securing his victory, in his inaugural address, he proclaimed, “I shall be president not only of the rich but more so of the poor. We must help bridge the wide gap between the poor man and the man of wealth, not by pulling down the rich to his level as Communism desires, but by raising the poor towards the more abundant life."

With this statement, Macapagal laid the foundation for what would be his agenda as the president of the Philippines. In effort to affirm his statement, Macapagal vowed open the Malacañang Palace to the people. In addition, he tried to bridge the gap between the rich and poor by first starting with the government. Macapagal began to purge the government of corrupt officials who suddenly became wealthy without any explanation. In an effort to raise the morale of his people, he changed the official date of independence from July 4th, 1946 (the day the Americans recognized the Philippines as a sovereign nation) to June 12th, 1898 (the day Filipinos declared their independence from Spain).

A significant part of Macapagal’s term as President was his ability to stimulate economic growth. During the Elpidio Quirino administration, the Philippines adopted a policy which devalued the Peso according to the American dollar. President Macapagal was able to lift this policy which allowed for the Peso to be traded on the open market. This policy plus numerous other policies allowed the Filipino economy to grow by an average of 5.15% GDP. This economic growth was seen all throughout the Philippines as his promise to the poor was partially fulfilled. The growth seen by the Philippines slowly trickle down to the poor.



Unfortunately, President Macapagal was unable to bring about substantial change to the Philippines because of the attempts of the opposition party to block his reform efforts. At the end of 1965, Macapagal sought re-election in order to continue his reforms. Despite his efforts to appeal to the masses Macapagal lost by a substantial number of votes to Ferdinand Marcos. At the end of his political career, Macapagal was elected to be the president of the constitutional convention which drafted the constitution of the Philippines. On April 21, 1997, Diosdado Macapagal died of heart of failure in Manila.

-H.Du