Social Science 4th Quarter || LG 1.1

• Societal effects of World War II


  • Death
  • Shortage of food and potable water supply
  • Massive destruction of properties, infrastructures, and industries
  • Environmental and agricultural damages
  • Unemployment
  • Emotional and psychological trauma
• American army's initiative to provide relief for Filipinos

  1. Creation of Philippine Civil Affairs Unit (PCAU)

  2. Distribution of relief goods

  3. Paid salaries of government staff and teachers

  4. Employment to laborers

  5. Sell fixed-priced goods to wholesalers
• Commonwealth President Sergio Osmeña's actions


  1. Issued Executive Orders regulating the maximum prices of all commodities sold in the market

  2. Reorganized the government to address urgent needs of the nation
• The Third Republic led by Manuel A. Roxas was still facing the same national problems and he needed to immediately address both the short-term and long-term postwar needs of the people
• American government's financial aid and support

  • $120,000,000 for rehabilitation of infrastructure
  • $75,000,000 for budgetary purposes
  • $25,000,000 to compensate the guerillas currencies
  • Php 100,000.00 worth of the American Army surplus
  • $60,000,000 loanable amount
• The US President signed the Rehabilitation Act as a complement to the Bell Trade Relations Act provided for free trade relations between the two countries
• Parity rights


  The Americans were given the right to dispose, exploit, develop, and utilize the natural and mineral resources of the Philippines
• President Roxas was facing widespread opposition to the parity rights bill, but the country needed rehabilitation funding
• Commonwealth President Sergio Osmeña issued Executive Orders

  1. Regulating the maximum prices of all commodities sold in the market

  2. Reorganizing the government to be able to address urgent needs of the nation
• The Third Republic led by Manuel A. Roxas was still facing the same national problems and he needed to immediately address both the short-term and long-term postwar needs of the people
• American government offered for rehabilitation and reconstruction


  • $120,000,000 for rehabilitation of infrastructure
  • $75,000,000 for budgetary purposes
  • $25,000,000 to compensate the guerillas currencies
  • Php 100,000.00 worth of the American Army surplus
  • $60,000,000 loanable amount
• The US President signed the Rehabilitation Act as a complement to the Bell Trade Relations Act provided for free trade relations between the two countries
• Parity rights


  The Americans were given the right to dispose, exploit, develop, and utilize the natural and mineral resources of the Philippines
• President Roxas was facing widespread opposition to this bill, but the country needed rehabilitation funding
• Let us read how the late President Roxas justified the parity rights to be given to the American

  people in exchange for financial assistance.

  The historical account that you are about to read and analyze is the speech of President Manuel

  1. Roxas delivered on March 10, 1947 at Plaza Miranda, Manila, entitled Address of President Roxas

  on the Parity Amendment to the Constitution (Extracts):
• Opponents of parity, in a final effort to confuse the public mind on the eve of the vote on the constitutional amendment, have come forth with the proposal that as an alternative to parity, the Government borrow money from the World Reconstruction Bank, and undertake, with such borrowed money, the entire task of rehabilitation and reconstruction
• The speaker does not think that the Filipino people will take such a proposal with any great degree of seriousness
• The speaker would like to carefully explain the false and casuistic nature of such a plan, if it is seriously suggested as an alternative to the master program of which the parity proposal is an essential part
• The advocates of this proposed plan of borrowing from the World Bank, assume without question that the loan would be granted
• They would have you believe that such a loan could take the place of private capital, initiative, and enterprise
• They carefully pass over the fact that the parity proposal is not merely a means for getting capital into the Philippines, but is the keystone of an entire economic program, of which new investment capital is but a part, a program that would collapse without the approval of this amendment
• Rejection of this amendment will mean, first of all, the denunciation of the Executive

  Trade Agreement, and the loss of our free trade and preferential trade relations with the United

  States. It would mean, in the second place, the loss, or at least the indefinite delay, of a large

  and vital portion of private war damage payments.
• It would mean the end of the rehabilitation

  of the sugar industry, of the coconut oil industry, of the cordage industry, of the embroidery

  industry, of the pearl button industry, of the cigar and tobacco industries, and in a short time,

  the crippling of the coconut industry.
• It would mean the end of our hopes for an early end to

  all unemployment . . . it would mean the drying up of all major sources of government revenue,

  it would mean the blasting of all hopes for a progressive and steady increase of our present

  sources of government revenue. It would mean the destruction of our plans for an increasingly

  larger national income in the immediate months and years ahead.
• And finally it would mean that we would be required to reexamine our essential

  relations with the United States. It would mean an end to the very special economic relations

  which we now have with that country, relations which are the pride and greatest asset of the

  Philippines, and the envy of the rest of the world.
• We do not urge the approval of the constitutional amendment merely to induce capital to invest in the Philippines
• Capital unaccompanied by any other ingredient would not meet all our needs by any means
• What we need in addition to capital

  • Technological skills
  • Managerial know-how
  • Ability to make, process, manufacture, package, and market products from natural resources
• Scientific skill, background and experience will come here with American capital
• Countries all over the world are bidding today for American technological knowledge and methods
• We can get them free, accompanied with investment capital, by approving this amendment
• There are those who profess to be afraid of this capital and this scientific skill
• They would rather prefer that we continue to have an agricultural economy built around long hours of work at low pay, the typical colonial economy, whether in an independent country or not
• Our land was bitterly devastated by war, but our prospects today are better than those of most other similarly war-torn lands
• A leading opponent of parity, in a last and apparently desperate effort to impugn the sincerity of the Administration's advocacy of the parity formula for rehabilitation has come up with the simple suggestion that instead of depending on American capital, the Government should borrow the necessary money from the World Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Bank
• Our currency is a standard by which all the other currencies are measured
• The United States has subscribed one third of the capital of the Bank
• We have no lack of foreign exchange, and every peso in circulation has its counterpart in the United States Treasury
• The United States will have a powerful voice in the loans to be made
• All other nations of the world must scrimp and save and devise plans for obtaining dollar exchange, but we have all that we need for day-to-day operations