title: History of the Philippines

text: On January 23, 1899, the First Philippine Republic was proclaimed under Asia's first democratic constitution, with Aguinaldo as its president. Under Aguinaldo, The Philippine Revolutionary Army was also renowned to be racially tolerant and progressive as it had a multi-ethnic composition that included various other races and nationalities asides from the native Filipino, being its officers. Juan Cailles an Indian and French Mestizo served as a Major General, the Chinese Filipino José Ignacio Paua was a Brigadier General, and Vicente Catalan who was appointed supreme Admiral of the Philippine Revolutionary Navy was a Cuban of Criollo descent. There were even Japanese, French and Italian soldiers in the Revolution and Republic, such as the Japanese officer Captain Chizuno Iwamoto, French soldier Estaquio Castellor, and Italian revolutionary Captain Camillo Ricchiardi. And, even among the defeated Spanish Army and American invaders, there are those who defected to the side of the Philippine Republic. The most famous of which was African-American Captain David Fagen who joined the Filipinos due to his disgust of American racism against both African-Americans and Filipinos. Various nations, mostly Latin American, also influenced the new Republic, the Sun in the Philippine flag was taken from the Sun of May of Peru, Argentina, and Uruguay which symbolized Inti who was the Incan Sun God, while the stars in the flag were inspired by the stars in the flags of the nations of Texas, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. The Constitution of the First Philippine Republic was also influenced by the Constitutions of Cuba, Belgium, Mexico, Brazil, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, in addition to using the French Constitution of 1793.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Despite the establishment of the First Philippine Republic, Spain and the United States had sent commissioners to Paris to draw up the terms of the Treaty of Paris to end the Spanish–American War. The Filipino representative, Felipe Agoncillo, had been excluded from sessions as Aguinaldo's government was not recognized by the family of nations. Although there was substantial domestic opposition, the United States decided to annex the Philippines. Despite the fact that the first Philippine Republic was patterned after the French and American Revolutions, plus the Latin-American Republics; the Americans and French themselves sought to crush the revolution in the Philippines. In addition to Guam and Puerto Rico, Spain was forced in the negotiations to cede the Philippines to the U.S. in exchange for US$20,000,000.00. U.S. President McKinley justified the annexation of the Philippines by saying that it was "a gift from the gods" and that since "they were unfit for self-government, ... there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them", in spite of the Philippines having been already Christianized by the Spanish over the course of several centuries. The First Philippine Republic resisted the U.S. occupation, resulting in the Philippine–American War (1899–1913).


title: History of the Philippines

text: The estimated GDP per capita for the Philippines in 1900, the year Spain left and the First Philippine Republic was in operation, was $1,033.00. That made it the second-richest place in all of Asia, just a little behind Japan ($1,135.00), and far ahead of China ($652.00) and India ($625.00).


title: History of the Philippines

text: Filipinos initially saw their relationship with the United States as that of two nations joined in a common struggle against Spain. However, the United States later distanced itself from the interests of the Filipino insurgents. Emilio Aguinaldo was unhappy that the United States would not commit to paper a statement of support for Philippine independence. The islands were ceded by Spain to the United States alongside Puerto Rico and Guam as a result of the latter's victory in the Spanish–American War. A compensation of US$20 million was paid to Spain according to the terms of the 1898 Treaty of Paris. Relations deteriorated and tensions heightened as it became clear that the Americans were in the islands to stay.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Hostilities broke out on February 4, 1899, after two American privates killed three Filipino soldiers as American forces launched a major attack in San Juan, a Manila suburb. This began the Philippine–American War, which would cost far more money and take far more lives than the Spanish–American War. Some 126,000 American soldiers would be committed to the conflict; 4,234 Americans died, as did 12,000–20,000 Philippine Republican Army soldiers who were part of a nationwide guerrilla movement of at least 80,000 to 100,000 soldiers.


title: History of the Philippines

text: The general population, caught between Americans and rebels, suffered significantly. At least 200,000 Filipino civilians died as an indirect result of the war mostly as a result of the cholera epidemic at the war's end that took between 150,000 and 200,000 lives. Atrocities were committed by both sides.


title: History of the Philippines

text: The poorly equipped Filipino troops were easily overpowered by American troops in open combat, but they were formidable opponents in guerrilla warfare. Malolos, the revolutionary capital, was captured on March 31, 1899. Aguinaldo and his government escaped, however, establishing a new capital at San Isidro, Nueva Ecija. On June 5, 1899, Antonio Luna, Aguinaldo's most capable military commander, was killed by Aguinaldo's guards in an apparent assassination while visiting Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija to meet with Aguinaldo. With his best commander dead and his troops suffering continued defeats as American forces pushed into northern Luzon, Aguinaldo dissolved the regular army on November 13 and ordered the establishment of decentralized guerrilla commands in each of several military zones. Another key general, Gregorio del Pilar, was killed on December 2, 1899, in the Battle of Tirad Pass—a rear guard action to delay the Americans while Aguinaldo made good his escape through the mountains.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Aguinaldo was captured at Palanan, Isabela on March 23, 1901, and was brought to Manila. Convinced of the futility of further resistance, he swore allegiance to the United States and issued a proclamation calling on his compatriots to lay down their arms, officially bringing an end to the war. However, sporadic insurgent resistance continued in various parts of the Philippines, especially in the Muslim south, until 1913.


title: History of the Philippines

text: In 1900, President McKinley sent the Taft Commission, to the Philippines, with a mandate to legislate laws and re-engineer the political system. On July 1, 1901, William Howard Taft, the head of the commission, was inaugurated as Civil Governor, with limited executive powers. The authority of the Military Governor was continued in those areas where the insurrection persisted. The Taft Commission passed laws to set up the fundamentals of the new government, including a judicial system, civil service, and local government. A Philippine Constabulary was organized to deal with the remnants of the insurgent movement and gradually assume the responsibilities of the United States Army.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Brigadier General James F. Smith arrived at Bacolod on March 4, 1899, as the Military Governor of the Sub-district of Negros, after receiving an invitation from Aniceto Lacson, president of the breakaway Cantonal Republic of Negros. The Negros Republic became a Pro-American protectorate of the United States. Another insurgent republic was briefly formed during American administration: the Tagalog Republic in Luzon, under Macario Sakay. In the island of Mindanao the Chavacano speaking Republic of Zamboanga was proclaimed. That government was formed by Vicente Álvarez with the support of Jamalul Kiram II, the then-current Sultan of Sulu, and included Latin-American (Peruvian, Uruguayan and Argentinian) enslaved soldiers who had revolted against the Spanish colonial government.


title: History of the Philippines

text: The Philippine Organic Act was the basic law for the Insular Government, so called because civil administration was under the authority of the U.S. Bureau of Insular Affairs. This government saw its mission as one of tutelage, preparing the Philippines for eventual independence. On July 4, 1902, the office of military governor was abolished and full executive power passed from Adna Chaffee, the last military governor, to Taft, who became the first U.S. Governor-General of the Philippines.


title: History of the Philippines

text: United States policies towards the Philippines shifted with changing administrations. During the early years of territorial administration, the Americans were reluctant to delegate authority to the Filipinos, but an elected Philippine Assembly was inaugurated in 1907, as the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the appointive Philippine Commission becoming the upper house.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Philippines was a major target for the progressive reformers. A 1907 report to Secretary of War Taft provided a summary of what the American civil administration had achieved. It included, in addition to the rapid building of a public school system based on English teaching, and boasted about such modernizing achievements as:


title: History of the Philippines

text: In 1903 the American reformers in the Philippines passed two major land acts designed to turn landless peasants into owners of their farms. By 1905 the law was clearly a failure. Reformers such as Taft believed landownership would turn unruly agrarians into loyal subjects. The social structure in rural Philippines was highly traditional and highly unequal. Drastic changes in land ownership posed a major challenge to local elites, who would not accept it, nor would their peasant clients. The American reformers blamed peasant resistance to landownership for the law's failure and argued that large plantations and sharecropping was the Philippines’ best path to development.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Elite Filipina women played a major role in the reform movement, especially on health issues. They specialized on such urgent needs as infant care and maternal and child health, the distribution of pure milk and teaching new mothers about children's health. The most prominent organizations were the La Protección de la Infancia, and the National Federation of Women's Clubs.


title: History of the Philippines

text: When Democrat Woodrow Wilson became U.S. president in 1913, new policies were launched designed to gradually lead to Philippine independence. In 1902 U.S. law established Filipinos citizenship in the Philippine Islands; unlike Hawaii in 1898 and Puerto Rico in 1918, they did not become citizens of the United States. The Jones Law of 1916 became the new basic law, promised eventual independence. It provide for the election of both houses of the legislature.


title: History of the Philippines

text: In socio-economic terms, the Philippines made solid progress in this period. Foreign trade had amounted to 62 million pesos in 1895, 13% of which was with the United States. By 1920, it had increased to 601 million pesos, 66% of which was with the United States. A health care system was established which, by 1930, reduced the mortality rate from all causes, including various tropical diseases, to a level similar to that of the United States itself. The practices of slavery, piracy and headhunting were suppressed but not entirely extinguished.


title: History of the Philippines

text: A new educational system was established with English as the medium of instruction, eventually becoming a "lingua franca" of the Islands. The 1920s saw alternating periods of cooperation and confrontation with American governors-general, depending on how intent the incumbent was on exercising his powers vis-à-vis the Philippine legislature. Members to the elected legislature lobbied for immediate and complete independence from the United States. Several independence missions were sent to Washington, D.C. A civil service was formed and was gradually taken over by Filipinos, who had effectively gained control by 1918.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Philippine politics during the American territorial era was dominated by the Nacionalista Party, which was founded in 1907. Although the party's platform called for "immediate independence", their policy toward the Americans was highly accommodating. Within the political establishment, the call for independence was spearheaded by Manuel L. Quezon, who served continuously as Senate president from 1916 until 1935.


title: History of the Philippines

text: World War I gave the Philippines the opportunity to pledge assistance to the US war effort. This took the form of an offer to supply a division of troops, as well as providing funding for the construction of two warships. A locally recruited national guard was created and significant numbers of Filipinos volunteered for service in the US Navy and army.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Daniel Burnham built an architectural plan for Manila which would have transformed it into a modern city.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Frank Murphy was the last Governor-General of the Philippines (1933–35), and the first U.S. High Commissioner of the Philippines (1935–36). The change in form was more than symbolic: it was intended as a manifestation of the transition to independence.


title: History of the Philippines

text: The Great Depression in the early thirties hastened the progress of the Philippines towards independence. In the United States it was mainly the sugar industry and labor unions that had a stake in loosening the U.S. ties to the Philippines since they could not compete with the Philippine cheap sugar (and other commodities) which could freely enter the U.S. market. Therefore, they agitated in favor of granting independence to the Philippines so that its cheap products and labor could be shut out of the United States.


title: History of the Philippines

text: In 1933, the United States Congress passed the Hare–Hawes–Cutting Act as a Philippine Independence Act over President Herbert Hoover's veto. Though the bill had been drafted with the aid of a commission from the Philippines, it was opposed by Philippine Senate President Manuel L. Quezon, partially because of provisions leaving the United States in control of naval bases. Under his influence, the Philippine legislature rejected the bill. The following year, a revised act known as the Tydings–McDuffie Act was finally passed. The act provided for the establishment of the Commonwealth of the Philippines with transition to full independence after a ten-year period. The commonwealth would have its own constitution and be self-governing, though foreign policy would be the responsibility of the United States, and certain legislation required approval of the United States president. The Act stipulated that the date of independence would be on July 4 following the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the Commonwealth.


title: History of the Philippines

text: A Constitutional Convention was convened in Manila on July 30, 1934. On February 8, 1935, the 1935 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines was approved by the convention by a vote of 177 to 1. The constitution was approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 23, 1935, and ratified by popular vote on May 14, 1935.


title: History of the Philippines

text: On September 17, 1935, presidential elections were held. Candidates included former president Emilio Aguinaldo, the "Iglesia Filipina Independiente" leader Gregorio Aglipay, and others. Manuel L. Quezon and Sergio Osmeña of the Nacionalista Party were proclaimed the winners, winning the seats of president and vice-president, respectively.


title: History of the Philippines

text: The Commonwealth Government was inaugurated on the morning of November 15, 1935, in ceremonies held on the steps of the Legislative Building in Manila. The event was attended by a crowd of around 300,000 people. Under the Tydings–McDuffie Act this meant that the date of full independence for the Philippines was set for July 4, 1946, a timetable which was followed after the passage of almost eleven very eventful years.


title: History of the Philippines

text: The new government embarked on ambitious nation-building policies in preparation for economic and political independence. These included national defense (such as the National Defense Act of 1935, which organized a conscription for service in the country), greater control over the economy, the perfection of democratic institutions, reforms in education, improvement of transport, the promotion of local capital, industrialization, and the colonization of Mindanao.


title: History of the Philippines

text: However, uncertainties, especially in the diplomatic and military situation in Southeast Asia, in the level of U.S. commitment to the future Republic of the Philippines, and in the economy due to the Great Depression, proved to be major problems. The situation was further complicated by the presence of agrarian unrest, and of power struggles between Osmeña and Quezon, especially after Quezon was permitted to be re-elected after one six-year term.


title: History of the Philippines

text: A proper evaluation of the policies' effectiveness or failure is difficult due to Japanese invasion and occupation during World War II.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Japan launched a surprise attack on the Clark Air Base in Pampanga on the morning of December 8, 1941, just ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Aerial bombardment was followed by landings of ground troops on Luzon. The defending Philippine and United States troops were under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. Under the pressure of superior numbers, the defending forces withdrew to the Bataan Peninsula and to the island of Corregidor at the entrance to Manila Bay.


title: History of the Philippines

text: On January 2, 1942, General MacArthur declared the capital city, Manila, an open city to prevent its destruction. The Philippine defense continued until the final surrender of United States-Philippine forces on the Bataan Peninsula in April 1942 and on Corregidor in May of the same year. Most of the 80,000 prisoners of war captured by the Japanese at Bataan were forced to undertake the infamous Bataan Death March to a prison camp 105 kilometers to the north. About 10,000 Filipinos and 1,200 Americans died before reaching their destination.


title: History of the Philippines

text: President Quezon and Osmeña had accompanied the troops to Corregidor and later left for the United States, where they set up a government in exile. MacArthur was ordered to Australia, where he started to plan for a return to the Philippines.


title: History of the Philippines

text: The Japanese military authorities immediately began organizing a new government structure in the Philippines and established the Philippine Executive Commission. They initially organized a Council of State, through which they directed civil affairs until October 1943, when Japan declared the Philippines as an independent republic at Gozen Kaigi since U.S. government had promised independence of the Philippines in 1935. The Japanese-sponsored republic headed by President José P. Laurel proved to be unpopular.


title: History of the Philippines

text: From mid-1942 through mid-1944, Japanese occupation of the Philippines was opposed by large-scale underground and guerrilla activity. The Philippine Army, as well as remnants of the U.S. Army Forces Far East, continued to fight the Japanese in a guerrilla war and was considered an auxiliary unit of the United States Army. Supplies and encouragement were provided by U.S. Navy submarines and a few parachute drops. Their effectiveness was such that by the end of the war, Japan controlled only twelve of the forty-eight provinces. One element of resistance in the Central Luzon area was furnished by the Hukbalahap, which armed some 30,000 people and extended their control over much of Luzon. While remaining loyal to the United States, many Filipinos hoped and believed that liberation from the Japanese would bring them freedom and their already-promised independence.


title: History of the Philippines

text: The Philippines was the bloodiest theater of the war for the invading empire, with at least 498,600 Japanese troops killed in fighting the combined Filipino resistance and American soldiers, a larger number of casualties compared to the second-placed theater, the entirety of China, which caused the Japanese about 455,700 casualties. The occupation of the Philippines by Japan ended at the war's conclusion. At the eve of the liberation of the Philippines, the Allied forces and the Japanese Empire waged the largest naval battle in history, by gross tonnage in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The American army had been fighting the Philippines Campaign since October 1944, when MacArthur's Sixth United States Army landed on Leyte. Landings in other parts of the country had followed, and the Allies, with the Philippine Commonwealth troops, pushed toward Manila. However, fighting continued until Japan's formal surrender on September 2, 1945. Approximately 10,000 U.S. soldiers were missing in action in the Philippines when the war ended, more than in any other country in the Pacific or European Theaters. The Philippines suffered great loss of life and tremendous physical destruction, especially during the Battle of Manila. An estimated 1 million Filipinos had been killed, a large portion during the final months of the war, and Manila had been extensively damaged.


title: History of the Philippines

text: As in most occupied countries, crime, looting, corruption, and black markets were endemic. Japan in 1943 proposed independence on new terms, and some collaborators went along with the plan, but Japan was clearly losing the war and nothing became of it.


title: History of the Philippines

text: With a view of building up the economic base of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Japanese Army envisioned using the islands as a source of agricultural products needed by its industry. For example, Japan had a surplus of sugar from Taiwan but, a severe shortage of cotton, so they tried to grow cotton on sugar lands with disastrous results. They lacked the seeds, pesticides, and technical skills to grow cotton. Jobless farm workers flocked to the cities, where there was minimal relief and few jobs. The Japanese Army also tried using cane sugar for fuel, castor beans and copra for oil, derris for quinine, cotton for uniforms, and abaca (hemp) for rope. The plans were very difficult to implement in the face of limited skills, collapsed international markets, bad weather, and transportation shortages. The program was a failure that gave very little help to Japanese industry, and diverted resources needed for food production.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Living conditions were bad throughout the Philippines during the war. Transportation between the islands was difficult because of lack of fuel. Food was in very short supply, due to inflation.


title: History of the Philippines

text: The return of the Americans in spring 1945 was welcomed by nearly all the Filipinos, in sharp contrast to the situation in nearby Dutch East Indies. The collaborationist "Philippine Republic" set up by the Japanese under Jose P. Laurel, was highly unpopular, and the extreme destructiveness of the Japanese Army in Manila in its last days solidified Japan's image as a permanent target of hate. The pre-war Commonwealth system was reestablished under Sergio Osmeña, who became president in exile after President Quezon died in 1944. Osmeña was little-known and his Nacionalista Party was no longer such a dominant force. Osmeña supporters challenged the legitimacy of Manuel Roxas who had served as secretary to Laurel. MacArthur testified to Roxas' patriotism and the collaborationist issue disappeared after Roxas was elected in 1946 on a platform calling for closer ties with the United States; adherence to the new United Nations; national reconstruction; relief for the masses; social justice for the working class; the maintenance of peace and order; the preservation of individual rights and liberties of the citizenry; and honesty and efficiency of government. The United States Congress passed a series of programs to help rehabilitation, including $2 billion over five years for war damages and rehabilitation, and a new tariff law that provided for a 20-year transition from free trade to a low tariff with the United States. Washington also demanded that Americans would have equal rights with Filipinos in business activities, a special treatment that was resented. In 1947 the United States secured an agreement that it would keep its major military and naval bases. On the whole the transition to independence, achieved in 1946, was mostly peaceful and highly successful, despite the extreme difficulties caused by massive war damages. The special relationship with the United States remained the dominant feature until sharp criticism arose in the 1960s.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Elections were held in April 1946, with Manuel Roxas becoming the first president of the independent Republic of the Philippines. The United States ceded its sovereignty over the Philippines on July 4, 1946, as scheduled. However, the Philippine economy remained highly dependent on United States markets—more dependent, according to United States high commissioner Paul McNutt, than any single U.S. state was dependent on the rest of the country. The Philippine Trade Act, passed as a precondition for receiving war rehabilitation grants from the United States, exacerbated the dependency with provisions further tying the economies of the two countries. A military assistance pact was signed in 1947 granting the United States a 99-year lease on designated military bases in the country.


title: History of the Philippines

text: During Roxas' term of office administration of the Turtle Islands and Mangsee Islands was transferred by the United Kingdom to the Republic of the Philippines. By an international treaty concluded in 1930 between the United States (in respect of its then overseas territory, the Philippine Archipelago) and the United Kingdom (in respect of its then protectorate, the State of North Borneo) the two powers agreed the international boundaries between those respective territories. In that treaty the United Kingdom also accepted that the Turtle Islands as well as the Mangsee Islands were part of the Philippines Archipelago and therefore under US sovereignty. However, by a supplemental international treaty concluded at the same time, the two powers agreed that those islands, although part of the Philippines Archipelago, would remain under the administration of the State of North Borneo's British North Borneo Company. The supplemental treaty provided that the British North Borneo Company would continue to administer those islands unless and until the United States government gave notice to the United Kingdom calling for administration of the islands to be transferred to the U.S. The U.S. never gave such a notice. On July 4, 1946, the Republic of the Philippines was born. It became the successor to the U.S. under the treaties of 1930. On July 15, 1946, the United Kingdom annexed the State of North Borneo and, in the view of the United Kingdom, became the sovereign power with respect to what had been the State of North Borneo. On September 19, 1946, the Republic of the Philippines notified the United Kingdom that it wished to take over the administration of the Turtle Islands, Tawi-Tawi and the Mangesse Islands. Pursuant to a supplemental international agreement, the transfer of administration became effective on October 16, 1947.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Roxas did not stay long in office because of a heart attack as he was speaking at Clark Air Base on April 15, 1948. He was succeeded by his vice president Elpidio Quirino.


title: History of the Philippines

text: The Roxas administration granted general amnesty to those who had collaborated with the Japanese in World War II, except for those who had committed violent crimes. Roxas died suddenly of a heart attack in April 1948, and the vice president, Elpidio Quirino, was elevated to the presidency. He ran for president in his own right in 1949, defeating José P. Laurel and winning a four-year term.


title: History of the Philippines

text: World War II had left the Philippines demoralized and severely damaged. The task of reconstruction was complicated by the activities of the Communist-supported Hukbalahap guerrillas (known as "Huks"), who had evolved into a violent resistance force against the new Philippine government. Government policy towards the Huks alternated between gestures of negotiation and harsh suppression. Secretary of Defense Ramon Magsaysay initiated a campaign to defeat the insurgents militarily and at the same time win popular support for the government. The Huk movement had waned in the early 1950s, finally ending with the unconditional surrender of Huk leader Luis Taruc in May 1954.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Enhancing President Manuel Roxas' policy of social justice to alleviate the lot of the common mass, President Quirino, almost immediately after assuming office, started a series of steps calculated to effectively ameliorate the economic condition of the people. After periodic surprise visits to the slums of Manila and other backward regions of the country, President Quirino officially made public a seven-point program for social security, to wit: Unemployment insurance, Old-age insurance, Accident and permanent disability insurance, Health insurance, Maternity insurance, State relief, Labor opportunity


title: History of the Philippines

text: President Quirino also created the Social Security Commission, making Social Welfare Commissioner Asuncion Perez chairman of the same. This was followed by the creation of the President's Action Committee on Social Amelioration, charged with extending aid, loans, and relief to the less fortunate citizens. Both the policy and its implementation were hailed by the people as harbingers of great benefits.


title: History of the Philippines

text: As President, he was a close friend and supporter of the United States and a vocal spokesman against communism during the Cold War. He led the foundation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, also known as the Manila Pact of 1954, that aimed to defeat communist-Marxist movements in Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Southwestern Pacific.


title: History of the Philippines

text: During his term, he made Malacañang literally a "house of the people", opening its gates to the public. One example of his integrity followed a demonstration flight aboard a new plane belonging to the Philippine Air Force (PAF): President Magsaysay asked what the operating costs per hour were for that type of aircraft, then wrote a personal check to the PAF, covering the cost of his flight. He restored the people's trust in the military and in the government.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Magsaysay's administration was considered one of the cleanest and most corruption-free in modern Philippine history; his rule is often cited as the Philippines' "Golden Years". Trade and industry flourished, the Philippine military was at its prime, and the country gained international recognition in sports, culture, and foreign affairs. The Philippines placed second on a ranking of Asia's clean and well-governed countries.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Supported by the United States, Magsaysay was elected president in 1953 on a populist platform. He promised sweeping economic reform, and made progress in land reform by promoting the resettlement of poor people in the Catholic north into traditionally Muslim areas. Though this relieved population pressure in the north, it heightened religious hostilities. Remnants of the communist Hukbalahap were defeated by Magsaysay. He was extremely popular with the common people, and his death in an airplane crash in March 1957 dealt a serious blow to national morale. At this time, the Philippines joined the United Nations in defending South Korea from North Korean invasions. The Philippines was the first country in Southeast Asia to recognize South Korean independence and was the first to send military units to fight on South Korea's behalf.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Carlos P. Garcia succeeded to the presidency after Magsaysay's death, and was elected to a four-year term in the election of November that same year. His administration emphasized the nationalist theme of "Filipino first", arguing that the Filipino people should be given the chances to improve the country's economy.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Garcia successfully negotiated for the United States' relinquishment of large military land reservations. However, his administration lost popularity on issues of government corruption as his term advanced.


title: History of the Philippines

text: In the presidential elections held on November 14, 1961, Vice President Diosdado Macapagal defeated re-electionist President Carlos P. Garcia and Emmanuel Pelaez as a vice president. President Macapagal changed the independence day of the Philippines from July 4 to June 12.


title: History of the Philippines

text: The Agricultural Land Reform Code (RA 3844) was a major Philippine land reform law enacted in 1963 under President Macapagal.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Macapagal ran for re-election in 1965, but was defeated by his former party-mate, Senate President Ferdinand Marcos, who had switched to the Nacionalista Party. Early in his presidency, Marcos initiated public works projects and intensified tax collection. In a failed attempt to retake east Sabah, the Jabidah massacre, where Muslim Tausug Filipinos were killed by the Philippine Army, occurred under the authority of Marcos. Due to his popularity among Christians, Marcos was re-elected president in 1969, becoming the first president of the Philippines to get a second term. Crime and civil disobedience increased. The Communist Party of the Philippines formed the New People's Army and the Moro National Liberation Front continued to fight for an independent Muslim nation in Mindanao. An explosion which killed opposition lawmakers during the proclamation rally of the senatorial slate of the Liberal Party on August 21, 1971, led Marcos to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Protests surged and the writ was restored on January 11, 1972.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Amid the growing popularity of the opposition, Marcos declared martial law on September 21, 1972, by virtue of Proclamation No. 1081 to stifle dissent. Marcos justified the declaration by citing the threat of Communist insurgency and the alleged ambush of defense secretary Juan Ponce Enrile. Ruling by decree, Marcos curtailed press freedom and other civil liberties, abolished Congress, closed down major media establishments, ordered the arrest of opposition leaders and militant activists, including his staunchest critics: senators Benigno Aquino Jr., Jovito Salonga and Jose Diokno. Crime rates plunged dramatically after a curfew was implemented. Many protesters, students, and political opponents were forced to go into exile, and a number were killed.


title: History of the Philippines

text: A constitutional convention, which had been called for in 1970 to replace the colonial 1935 Constitution, continued the work of framing a new constitution after the declaration of martial law. The new constitution went into effect in early 1973, changing the form of government from presidential to parliamentary and allowing Marcos to stay in power beyond 1973. Marcos claimed that martial law was the prelude to creating a "New Society", which he would rule for more than two decades. The economy during the 1970s was robust, due to previous engagements by various administrations. However, the economy suffered after incurring massive debt and downgrading prospects of the Philippines under martial rule, while the wife of the president, Imelda Marcos, lived in high society.


title: History of the Philippines

text: The human rights abuses under the dictatorship particularly targeted political opponents, student activists, journalists, religious workers, farmers, and others who fought back against the administration. Based on the documentation of Amnesty International, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, and similar human rights monitoring entities, the dictatorship was marked by 3,257 known extrajudicial killings, 35,000 documented tortures, 77 'disappeared', and 70,000 incarcerations.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Some 2,520 of the 3,257 murder victims were tortured and mutilated before their bodies were dumped in various places for the public to discover – a tactic meant to sow fear among the public, which came to be known as "salvaging." Some bodies were even cannibalized.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Marcos officially lifted martial law on January 17, 1981. However, he retained much of the government's power for arrest and detention. Corruption and nepotism as well as civil unrest contributed to a serious decline in economic growth and development under Marcos, whose own health faced obstacles due to lupus. The political opposition boycotted the 1981 presidential elections, which pitted Marcos against retired general Alejo Santos, in protest over his control over the results. Marcos won by a margin of over 16 million votes, allowing him to have another six-year term under the new Constitution that his administration crafted. Finance Minister Cesar Virata was eventually appointed to succeed Marcos as Prime Minister.


title: History of the Philippines

text: In 1983, opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. was assassinated at the Manila International Airport upon his return to the Philippines after a long period of exile. This coalesced popular dissatisfaction with Marcos and began a succession of events, including pressure from the United States, that culminated in a snap presidential election in February 1986. The opposition united under Aquino's widow, Corazon Aquino. The official election canvasser, the Commission on Elections (Comelec), declared Marcos the winner of the election. However, there was a large discrepancy between the Comelec results and that of Namfrel, an accredited poll watcher. The allegedly fraudulent result was rejected by local and international observers. Cardinal Jaime Sin declared support for Corazon Aquino, which encouraged popular revolts. General Fidel Ramos and Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile withdrew their support for Marcos. A peaceful civilian-military uprising, now popularly called the People Power Revolution, forced Marcos into exile and installed Corazon Aquino as president on February 25, 1986. The administration of Marcos has been called by various sources as a kleptocracy and a conjugal dictatorship.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Corazon Aquino immediately formed a revolutionary government to normalize the situation, and provided for a transitional "Freedom Constitution". A new permanent constitution was ratified and enacted in February 1987.


title: History of the Philippines

text: The constitution crippled presidential power to declare martial law, proposed the creation of autonomous regions in the Cordilleras and Muslim Mindanao, and restored the presidential form of government and the bicameral Congress.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Progress was made in revitalizing democratic institutions and respect for civil liberties, but Aquino's administration was also viewed as weak and fractious, and a return to full political stability and economic development was hampered by several attempted coups staged by disaffected members of the Philippine military.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Economic growth was additionally hampered by a series of natural disasters, including the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo that left 700 dead and 200,000 homeless.


title: History of the Philippines

text: During the Aquino presidency, Manila witnessed six unsuccessful coup attempts, the most serious occurring in December 1989.


title: History of the Philippines

text: In 1991, the Philippine Senate rejected a treaty that would have allowed a 10-year extension of the U.S. military bases in the country. The United States turned over Clark Air Base in Pampanga to the government in November, and Subic Bay Naval Base in Zambales in December 1992, ending almost a century of U.S. military presence in the Philippines.


title: History of the Philippines

text: In the 1992 elections, Defense Secretary Fidel V. Ramos, endorsed by Aquino, won the presidency with just 23.6% of the vote in a field of seven candidates. Early in his administration, Ramos declared "national reconciliation" his highest priority and worked at building a coalition to overcome the divisiveness of the Aquino years.


title: History of the Philippines

text: He legalized the Communist Party and laid the groundwork for talks with communist insurgents, Muslim separatists, and military rebels, attempting to convince them to cease their armed activities against the government. In June 1994, Ramos signed into law a general conditional amnesty covering all rebel groups, and Philippine military and police personnel accused of crimes committed while fighting the insurgents.


title: History of the Philippines

text: In October 1995, the government signed an agreement bringing the military insurgency to an end. A peace agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), a major separatist group fighting for an independent homeland in Mindanao, was signed in 1996, ending the 24-year-old struggle. However, an MNLF splinter group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front continued the armed struggle for an Islamic state.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Efforts by Ramos supporters to gain passage of an amendment that would allow him to run for a second term were met with large-scale protests, leading Ramos to declare he would not seek re-election.


title: History of the Philippines

text: On his presidency the death penalty was revived in the light of the rape-slay case of UPLB students Eileen Sarmienta and Allan Gomez in 1993 and the first person to be executed was Leo Echegaray in 1999.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Joseph Estrada, a former movie actor who had served as Ramos' vice president, was elected president by a landslide victory in 1998. His election campaign pledged to help the poor and develop the country's agricultural sector. He enjoyed widespread popularity, particularly among the poor. Estrada assumed office amid the Asian Financial Crisis. The economy did, however, recover from a low −0.6% growth in 1998 to a moderate growth of 3.4% by 1999.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Like his predecessor there was a similar attempt to change the 1987 constitution. The process is termed as CONCORD or Constitutional Correction for Development. Unlike Charter change under Ramos and Arroyo the CONCORD proposal, according to its proponents, would only amend the 'restrictive' economic provisions of the constitution that is considered as impeding the entry of more foreign investments in the Philippines. However it was not successful in amending the constitution.


title: History of the Philippines

text: After the worsening secessionist movement in Mindanao in April 2000, President Estrada declared an "all-out-war" against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The government later captured 46 MILF camps including the MILF's headquarters', Camp Abubakar.


title: History of the Philippines

text: In October 2000, however, Estrada was accused of having accepted millions of pesos in payoffs from illegal gambling businesses. He was impeached by the House of Representatives but his impeachment trial in the Senate broke down when the senate voted to block examination of the president's bank records. In response, massive street protests erupted demanding Estrada's resignation. Faced with street protests, cabinet resignations, and a withdrawal of support from the armed forces, Estrada was forced from office on January 20, 2001.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (the daughter of President Diosdado Macapagal) was sworn in as Estrada's successor on the day of his departure. Her accession to power was further legitimized by the mid-term congressional and local elections held four months later, when her coalition won an overwhelming victory.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Arroyo's initial term in office was marked by fractious coalition politics as well as a military mutiny in Manila in July 2003 that led her to declare a month-long nationwide state of rebellion. Later on in December 2002 she said would not run in the May 10, 2004, presidential election, but she reversed herself in October 2003 and decided to join the race anyway.


title: History of the Philippines

text: She was re-elected and sworn in for her own six-year term as president on June 30, 2004. In 2005, a tape of a wiretapped conversation surfaced bearing the voice of Arroyo apparently asking an election official if her margin of victory could be maintained. The tape sparked protests calling for Arroyo's resignation. Arroyo admitted to inappropriately speaking to an election official, but denied allegations of fraud and refused to step down. Attempts to impeach the president failed later that year.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Halfway through her second term, Arroyo unsuccessfully attempted to push for an overhaul of the constitution to transform the present presidential-bicameral republic into a federal parliamentary-unicameral form of government, which critics describe would be a move that would allow her to stay in power as Prime Minister.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Numerous other scandals (such as the Maguindanao massacre, wherein 58 people were killed, and the unsuccessful NBN-ZTE broadband deal) took place in the dawn of her administration. She formally ended her term as president in 2010 (wherein she was succeeded by Senator Benigno Aquino III) and ran for a seat in congress the same year (becoming the second president after Jose P. Laurel to run for lower office following the presidency).


title: History of the Philippines

text: Benigno Aquino III began his presidency on June 30, 2010, the fifteenth President of the Philippines. He is a bachelor and the son of former Philippines president Corazon C. Aquino. His administration claimed to be focused on major reforms that would bring greater transparency, reduced poverty, reduced corruption, and a booming market which will give birth to a newly industrialized nation.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Just as with his predecessor, however, Aquino's administration has been marked with a mix of success and scandal since his inauguration, beginning with the 2010 Manila hostage crisis that caused deeply strained relations between Manila and Hong Kong for a time.


title: History of the Philippines

text: The Sultanate of Panay, the newset of 21 in the country, was formally established covering 10 000 Muslims in the island.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Tensions regarding Sabah due to the Sultanate of Sulu's claim gradually rose during the early years of his administration. Standoffs in Sabah between The Sultanate of Sulu's Royal Army and the Malaysian forces struck in 2013.


title: History of the Philippines

text: In 2012, the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro was signed to create the Bangsamoro Government in Mindanao. In response, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) was assembled by religious extremists with the goal of seceding from the Philippines.


title: History of the Philippines

text: On May 15, 2013, the Philippines implemented the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, commonly known as K–12 program. It added two more years to the country's ten-year schooling system for primary and secondary education.


title: History of the Philippines

text: The country was then hit by Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) on November 8, 2013, which heavily devastated the Visayas. Massive rehabilitation efforts by foreign world powers sending aid, devolved into chaos following the revelations that the administration and that the government had not been properly handing out the aid packages and preference for political maneuvering over the safety of the people, leading to mass deterioration of food and medical supplies.


title: History of the Philippines

text: In 2014, the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro was finally signed after 17 years of negotiation with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a move that is expected to bring peace in Mindanao and the Sulu.


title: History of the Philippines

text: When the United States President Barack Obama visited the Philippines on April 28, 2014, the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, was signed, paving the way for the return of United States Armed Forces bases into the country.


title: History of the Philippines

text: From January 15 to 19, 2015, Pope Francis stayed in the Philippines for a series of publicity tours and paid visits to the victims of Typhoon Haiyan.


title: History of the Philippines

text: On January 25, 2015, 44 members of the Philippine National Police-Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) were killed during an encounter between MILF and BIFF in Mamasapano, Maguindanao putting efforts to pass the Bangsamoro Basic Law into law in an impasse.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Under his presidency, the Philippines has had controversial clashes with the People's Republic of China on a number of issues (such as the standoff in Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea and the dispute over the Spratly islands). This resulted in the proceedings of the Philippines to file a sovereignty case against China in a global arbitration tribunal. Later on in 2014, the Aquino Administration then filed a case to the Arbitration Tribunal in The Hague which challenged Beijing's claim in the South China Sea after Chinese ships were accused of harassing a small Philippine vessel carrying goods for stationed military personnel in the South Thomas Shoal where an old Philippine ship had been stationed for many years.


title: History of the Philippines

text: On December 20, 2015, Pia Wurtzbach won the Miss Universe 2015, making her the third Filipino to win the Miss Universe title following Gloria Diaz in 1969 and Margarita Moran in 1973.


title: History of the Philippines

text: On January 12, 2016, the Philippine Supreme Court upheld the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement paving the way for the return of United States Armed Forces bases into the country.


title: History of the Philippines

text: On March 23, 2016, Diwata-1 was launched to the International Space Station (ISS), becoming the country's first micro-satellite and the first satellite to be built and designed by Filipinos.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte of PDP–Laban won the 2016 presidential election, garnering 39.01% or 16,601,997 of the total votes, becoming the first Mindanaoan to become president. On the other hand, Camarines Sur 3rd District representative Leni Robredo won with the second narrowest margin in history, against Senator Bongbong Marcos.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Duterte's presidency began following his inauguration on June 30, 2016, at the Rizal Ceremonial Hall of the Malacañang Palace in Manila, which was attended by more than 627 guests.


title: History of the Philippines

text: On July 12, 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in favor of the Philippines in its case against China's claims in the South China Sea. The ruling deprived surface features in the contested area of territorial-generating status, effectively deflating China’s nine-dash line territorial claims.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Under his presidency, the government launched a 24-hour complaint office accessible to the public through a nationwide hotline, 8888, and changed the nationwide emergency telephone number from 117 to 911. In addition, he has launched an intensified anti-drug campaign to fulfill a campaign promise of wiping out criminality in six months. By August 2019, the death toll for the Philippine Drug War is 5,779.


title: History of the Philippines

text: On November 8, 2016, the Supreme Court of the Philippines ruled in favor of the burial of the late president Ferdinand Marcos at the "Libingan ng Mga Bayani", the country's official cemetery for heroes, provoking protests from various groups. The burial was done on November 18, 2016, in private. Later in the afternoon, the event was made public.


title: History of the Philippines

text: On May 23, 2017, President Rodrigo Duterte signed Proclamation No. 216 declaring a 60-day martial law in Mindanao following clashes between government forces and the Maute group in Marawi.


title: History of the Philippines

text: In a bid for attaining inclusive economic growth and the improvement quality of life in the country, Duterte launched DuterteNomics, with infrastructure development and industrialization being a significant part of its policy. The Build! Build! Build! Infrastructure Plan, which aims to usher in "a golden age of infrastructure" in the country, began in 2017. It includes the development of transport infrastructure such as railways, roads, airports, and seaports, as well as other infrastructure such as irrigation and flood control projects. The goal of this program is to sustain the country's economic growth and accelerate poverty reduction. The construction industry needs two million more workers to sustain the program. The Build, Build, Build program is made up of 75 projects, which includes six air transport projects, 12 rail transport projects, and four water transport projects. It also includes four major flood management projects, 11 water supply and irrigation projects, four power projects, and three other public infrastructure projects. The country is expected to spend $160 billion to $180 billion up to 2022 for the public investments in infrastructure.


title: History of the Philippines

text: In 2017, Duterte signed the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, which provides for free tuition and exemption from other fees in public universities and colleges for Filipino students, as well as subsidies for those enrolled in private higher education institutions. He also signed 20 new laws, including the Universal Health Care Act, the creation of the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development, establishing a national cancer control program, and allowing subscribers to keep their mobile numbers for life.


title: History of the Philippines

text: Under his presidency, the Bangsamoro Organic Law was legislated into law. It was later ratified after a plebiscite was held. The Bangsamoro transition period began, paving the way for the formal creation of the Bangsamoro ARMM.


title: History of the Philippines

text: In May 2022, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (known by his nickname "Bongbong"), son of former president and dictator Ferdinand Marcos, won the presidential election by a landslide. His vice presidential candidate was Sara Duterte, daughter of then-president Rodrigo Duterte. On June 30, 2022, Marcos was sworn in as the Philippine president and Sara Duterte was sworn in as vice-president. A few weeks after his inauguration as president, The 2022 Luzon earthquake hit Northern Luzon, resulting in 11 casualties and 615 people injured.


title: Isabel Allende

text: Isabel Angélica Allende Llona (; born in Lima, 2 August 1942) is a Chilean writer. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the genre magical realism, is known for novels such as "The House of the Spirits" ("La casa de los espíritus", 1982) and "City of the Beasts" ("La ciudad de las bestias", 2002), which have been commercially successful. Allende has been called "the world's most widely read Spanish-language author." In 2004, Allende was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2010, she received Chile's National Literature Prize. President Barack Obama awarded her the 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom.


title: Isabel Allende

text: Allende's novels are often based upon her personal experience and historical events and pay homage to the lives of women, while weaving together elements of myth and realism. She has lectured and toured many U.S. colleges to teach literature. Fluent in English, Allende was granted United States citizenship in 1993, having lived in California since 1989, first with her American husband (from whom she is now divorced).


title: Isabel Allende

text: Allende was born in Lima, Peru, the daughter of Francisca Llona Barros called "Doña Panchita" (the daughter of Agustín Llona Cuevas and Isabel Barros Moreira, of Portuguese descent) and Tomás Allende, who was at the time a second secretary at the Chilean embassy. Her father was a first cousin of Salvador Allende, President of Chile from 1970 to 1973.


title: Isabel Allende

text: In 1945, after Tomás left them, Isabel's mother relocated with her three children to Santiago, Chile, where they lived until 1953. In 1953 Allende's mother married Ramón Huidobro and the family moved often. Huidobro was a diplomat appointed to Bolivia and Beirut. In La Paz, Bolivia, Allende attended an American private school; and in Beirut, Lebanon, she attended an English private school. The family returned to Chile in 1958, where Allende was also briefly home-schooled. In her youth, she read widely, particularly the works of William Shakespeare.


title: Isabel Allende

text: While living in Chile, Allende finished her secondary studies and met engineering student Miguel Frías whom she married in 1962. They had two children, a son and a daughter.


title: Isabel Allende

text: Reportedly, "Allende married early, into an Anglophile family and a kind of double life: at home she was the obedient wife and mother of two; in public she became, after a spell translating Barbara Cartland, a moderately well-known TV personality, a dramatist and a journalist on a feminist magazine."


title: Isabel Allende

text: From 1959 to 1965, Allende worked with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Santiago, then in Brussels, and elsewhere in Europe. For a short time in Chile, she also had a job translating romance novels from English to Spanish. However, she was fired for making unauthorized changes to the dialogue of the heroines to make them sound more intelligent, as well as altering the Cinderella ending to allow the heroines to find more independence and do good in the world.


title: Isabel Allende

text: Allende's and Frías's daughter Paula was born in 1963; she died in 1992. In 1966, Allende again returned to Chile, where her son Nicolás was born that year.


title: Isabel Allende

text: In 1973, Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. Isabel found herself arranging safe passage for people on the "wanted lists", which she continued to do until her mother and stepfather narrowly escaped assassination. When she herself was added to the list and began receiving death threats, she fled to Venezuela, where she stayed for 13 years. It was during this time that Allende wrote her debut novel "The House of the Spirits" (1982). Allende has stated that her move from Chile made her a serious writer: "I don’t think I would be a writer if I had stayed in Chile. I would be trapped in the chores, in the family, in the person that people expected me to be." Allende believed that, being female in a patriarchal family, she was not expected to be a "liberated" person. Her history of oppression and liberation is thematically found in much of her fiction, where women contest the ideals of patriarchal leaders. In Venezuela she was a columnist for "El Nacional", a major national newspaper. In 1978, she began a temporary separation from Miguel Frías. She lived in Spain for two months, then returned to her marriage.


title: Isabel Allende

text: She divorced her first husband, Miguel Frías, in 1987. During a visit to California on a book tour in 1988, Allende met her second husband, California attorney and novelist William C. "Willie" Gordon. They married in July 1988. In 1994, she was awarded the Gabriela Mistral Order of Merit, the first woman to receive this honor. Allende resides in San Rafael, California. Most of her family lives nearby, with her son, his second wife, and her grandchildren just down the hill, in the house she and her second husband vacated. She separated from Gordon in April 2015.


title: Isabel Allende

text: In 2006 she was one of the eight flag bearers at the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. She presented the talk "Tales of Passion" at TED 2007. In 2008, Allende received the honorary degree Doctor of Humane Letters from San Francisco State University for her "distinguished contributions as a literary artist and humanitarian." In 2014, Allende received the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from Harvard University for her contributions to literature.


title: Isabel Allende

text: Although not as openly political as some of her contemporary writers, she expressed contempt for Donald Trump and his policies following his election in 2016, and she later endorsed Democrat Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential election. She has also regularly defended the record of her father's cousin, Salvador Allende.


title: Isabel Allende

text: Allende started the Isabel Allende Foundation on 9 December 1996, in honor of her daughter, Paula Frías Allende, who fell into a coma after complications of the disease porphyria led to her hospitalization. Paula was 29 years old when she died in 1992. The foundation is "dedicated to supporting programs that promote and preserve the fundamental rights of women and children to be empowered and protected."


title: Isabel Allende

text: Beginning in 1967, Allende was on the editorial staff of "Paula" magazine and the children's magazine from 1969 to 1974, where she later became the editor. She published two children's stories, "La Abuela Panchita" and "Lauchas y Lauchones", as well as a collection of articles, "Civilice a Su Troglodita". She also worked in Chilean television production for channels 7 and 13 from 1970 to 1974. As a journalist, she once sought an interview with poet Pablo Neruda. Neruda agreed to the interview, and he told her that she had too much imagination to be a journalist and should be a novelist instead. He also advised her to compile her satirical columns in book form. She did so, and this became her first published book. In 1973, Allende's play "El Embajador" played in Santiago a few months before she was forced to flee the country due to the coup.


title: Isabel Allende

text: During her time in Venezuela, Allende was a freelance journalist for "El Nacional" in Caracas from 1976 to 1983 and an administrator of the Marrocco School in Caracas from 1979 to 1983.


title: Isabel Allende

text: In 1981, while in Caracas, Allende received a phone call informing her that her 99-year-old grandfather was near death, and she sat down to write him a letter, hoping to thereby "keep him alive, at least in spirit." The letter evolved into a book, "The House of the Spirits" (1982); this work intended to exorcise the ghosts of the Pinochet dictatorship. The book was rejected by numerous Latin American publishers, but eventually published in Buenos Aires. The book soon ran to more than two dozen editions in Spanish and was translated into a score of languages. Allende was compared to Gabriel García Márquez as an author in the style known as magical realism.


title: Isabel Allende

text: Although Allende is often cited as a practitioner of magical realism, her works also display elements of post-Boom literature. Allende also holds to a very strict writing routine. She writes on a computer, working Monday to Saturday, 09:00 to 19:00 "I always start on 8 January", Allende stated; "a tradition she began in 1981 with the letter she wrote to her dying grandfather that would become "The House of the Spirits"."


title: Isabel Allende

text: Allende's book "Paula" (1995) is a memoir of her childhood in Santiago and the years she spent in exile. It is written as an anguished letter to her daughter. In 1991 an error in Paula's medication resulted in severe brain damage, leaving her in a persistent vegetative state. Allende spent months at Paula's bedside before learning that a hospital mishap had caused the brain damage. Allende had Paula moved to a hospital in California where she died on 6 December 1992.


title: Isabel Allende

text: Allende's novels have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold about 74 million copies. Her 2008 book, "The Sum of Our Days", is a memoir. It focuses on her life with her family, which includes her grown son, Nicolás; second husband, William Gordon; and several grandchildren. A novel set in New Orleans, "Island Beneath the Sea", was published in 2010. In 2011 came "El cuaderno de Maya" ("Maya's Notebook"), in which the setting alternates between Berkeley, California, and Chiloé in Chile, as well as Las Vegas, Nevada.


title: Isabel Allende

text: "Latino Leaders Magazine" called her a "literary legend" in a 2007 article naming her the third most influential Latino leader in the world.


title: Isabel Allende

text: Her work has drawn some negative criticism. In an article published in "Entre paréntesis", Roberto Bolaño called Allende's literature anemic, comparing it to "a person on his deathbed," and later called her "a writing machine, not a writer". Literary critic Harold Bloom said that Allende only "reflects a determinate period, and that afterwards everybody will have forgotten her". Novelist Gonzalo Contreras said that "she commits a grave error, to confuse commercial success with literary quality".


title: Isabel Allende

text: Allende said to "El Clarín" that she recognizes that she has not always received good reviews in Chile, stating that Chilean intellectuals "detest" her. However, she disagrees with these assessments:


title: Isabel Allende

text: It has been said that "Allende's impact on Latin American and world literature cannot be overestimated." The "Los Angeles Times" called Allende "a genius", and she has received many international awards, including the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, granted to writers "who have contributed to the beauty of the world".


title: Politics of the United States

text: The politics of the United States function within a framework of a constitutional federal republic and presidential system, with three distinct branches that share powers. These are: the U.S. Congress which forms the legislative branch, a bicameral legislative body comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate; the executive branch which is headed by the president of the United States, who serves as country's head of state and government; and the judicial branch, composed of the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, and which exercises judicial power.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Each of the 50 individual state governments have the power to make laws within their jurisdictions that are not granted to the federal government nor denied to the states in the U.S. Constitution. Each state also has a constitution following the pattern of the federal constitution but differing in details. Each have three branches: an executive branch headed by a governor, a legislative body, and judicial branch. At the local level, governments are found in (counties or county-equivalents, and beneath them individual municipalities, townships, school districts, and special districts).


title: Politics of the United States

text: Officials are popularly elected at the federal, state and local levels, with the major exception being the President, who is instead elected indirectly by the people through the Electoral College. U.S. politics is dominated by two-parties, which since the American Civil War have been the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, although other parties have run candidates. Since the mid-20th Century, the Democratic Party has generally supported left-of-center policies, while the Republican Party has generally supported right-of-center ones. Though, both parties have no formal central organization at the national level that controls membership, elected officials or political policies, thus each party has traditionally had factions and individuals that deviated from party positions.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Almost all public officials in America are elected from single-member districts and win office by winning a plurality of votes cast (i.e. more than any other candidate, but not necessarily a majority). Suffrage is nearly universal for citizens 18 years of age and older.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Ongoing concerns include lack of representation in the U.S. territories and the District of Columbia; fear that the interests of some are overrepresented, while others are underrepresented; a fear that certain features of the American political system make it less democratic, a fear that a small cultural elite has undermined traditional values, and whether policy and law-making is dominated by a small economic elite molding it to their interests. Greater representation given to small states in the Senate and the Electoral College, "first-past-the-post" voting, gerrymandering, etc.—have in recent years had a more extreme effect and have begun to create a disconnect between what the government does (in legislation and court rulings) and what the majority of Americans want.


title: Politics of the United States

text: The United States is a constitutional federal republic, in which the president (the head of state and head of government), Congress, and judiciary share powers reserved to the national government, and the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments.


title: Politics of the United States

text: The federal government is divided into three branches, as per the specific terms articulated in the U.S. Constitution:


title: Politics of the United States

text: The federal government's layout is explained in the Constitution. Two political parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, have dominated American politics since the American Civil War, although other parties have existed.


title: Politics of the United States

text: There are major differences between the political system of the United States and that of many other developed countries, including:


title: Politics of the United States

text: The federal entity created by the U.S. Constitution is the dominant feature of the American governmental system, as citizens are also subject to a state government and various units of local government (such as counties, municipalities, and special districts).


title: Politics of the United States

text: State governments have the power to make laws on all subjects that are not granted to the federal government nor denied to the states in the U.S. Constitution. These include education, family law, contract law, and most crimes. Unlike the federal government, which only has those powers granted to it in the Constitution, a state government has inherent powers allowing it to act unless limited by a provision of the state or national constitution.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Like the federal government, state governments have three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. The chief executive of a state is its popularly elected governor, who typically holds office for a four-year term (although in some states the term is two years). Except for Nebraska, which has unicameral legislature, all states have a bicameral legislature, with the upper house usually called the Senate and the lower house called the House of Representatives, the Assembly or something similar. In most states, senators serve four-year terms, and members of the lower house serve two-year terms.


title: Politics of the United States

text: The constitutions of the various states differ in some details but generally follow a pattern similar to that of the federal Constitution, including a statement of the rights of the people and a plan for organizing the government. However, state constitutions are generally more detailed.


title: Politics of the United States

text: At the state and local level, the process of initiatives and referendums allow citizens to place new legislation on a popular ballot, or to place legislation that has recently been passed by a legislature on a ballot for a popular vote. Initiatives and referendums, along with recall elections and popular primary elections, are signature reforms of the Progressive Era; they are written into several state constitutions, particularly in the Western states, but not found at the federal level.


title: Politics of the United States

text: The United States Census Bureau conducts the Census of Governments every five years, categorizing four types of local governmental jurisdictions below the level of the state:


title: Politics of the United States

text: In 2010, there were 89,500 total local governments, including 3,033 counties, 19,492 municipalities, 16,500 townships, 13,000 school districts, and 37,000 other special districts. Local governments directly serve the needs of the people, providing everything from police and fire protection to sanitary codes, health regulations, education, public transportation, and housing. Typically local elections are nonpartisan — local activists suspend their party affiliations when campaigning and governing.


title: Politics of the United States

text: The county is the administrative subdivision of the state, authorized by state constitutions and statutes. The county equivalents in Louisiana are called parishes, while those in Alaska are called boroughs.


title: Politics of the United States

text: The specific governmental powers of counties vary widely between the states. In some states, mainly in New England, they are primarily used as judicial districts. In other states, counties have broad powers in housing, education, transportation and recreation. County government has been eliminated throughout Connecticut, Rhode Island, and in parts of Massachusetts; while the Unorganized Borough area of Alaska (which makes up about a half of the area of the state) does not operated under a county-level government at all. In areas that do not have any county governmental function and are simply a division of land, services are provided either by lower level townships or municipalities, or the state.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Counties may contain a number of cities, towns, villages, or hamlets. Some cities—including Philadelphia, Honolulu, San Francisco, Nashville, and Denver—are consolidated city-counties, where the municipality and the county have been merged into a unified, coterminous jurisdiction—that is to say, these counties consist in their entirety of a single municipality whose city government also operates as the county government. Some counties, such as Arlington County, Virginia, do not have any additional subdivisions. Some states contain independent cities that are not part of any county; although it may still function as if it was a consolidated city-county, an independent city was legally separated from any county. Some municipalities are in multiple counties; New York City is uniquely partitioned into five boroughs that are each coterminous with a county.


title: Politics of the United States

text: In most U.S. counties, one town or city is designated as the county seat, and this is where the county government offices are located and where the board of commissioners or supervisors meets. In small counties, boards are chosen by the county; in the larger ones, supervisors represent separate districts or townships. The board collects taxes for state and local governments; borrows and appropriates money; fixes the salaries of county employees; supervises elections; builds and maintains highways and bridges; and administers national, state, and county welfare programs. In very small counties, the executive and legislative power may lie entirely with a sole commissioner, who is assisted by boards to supervise taxes and elections.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Town or township governments are organized local governments authorized in the state constitutions and statutes of 20 Northeastern and Midwestern states, established as minor civil divisions to provide general government for a geographic subdivision of a county where there is no municipality.


title: Politics of the United States

text: In many other states, the term "town" does not have any specific meaning; it is simply an informal term applied to populated places (both incorporated and unincorporated municipalities). Moreover, in some states, the term town is equivalent to how civil townships are used in other states.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Like counties, the specific responsibilities to townships vary based on each state. Many states grant townships some governmental powers, making them civil townships, either independently or as a part of the county government. In others, survey townships are non-governmental. Towns in the six New England states and townships in New Jersey and Pennsylvania are included in this category by the Census Bureau, despite the fact that they are legally municipal corporations, since their structure has no necessary relation to concentration of population, which is typical of municipalities elsewhere in the United States. In particular, towns in New England have considerably more power than most townships elsewhere and often function as legally equivalent to cities, typically exercising the full range of powers that are divided between counties, townships, and cities in other states.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Township functions are generally overseen by a governing board, whose name also varies from state to state.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Municipal governments are organized local governments authorized in state constitutions and statutes, established to provide general government for a defined area, generally corresponding to a population center rather than one of a set of areas into which a county is divided. The category includes those governments designated as cities, boroughs (except in Alaska), towns (except in Minnesota and Wisconsin), and villages. This concept corresponds roughly to the "incorporated places" that are recognized in by the U.S. Census Bureau, although the Census Bureau excludes New England towns from their statistics for this category, and the count of municipal governments excludes places that are governmentally inactive.


title: Politics of the United States

text: About 28 percent of Americans live in cities of 100,000 or more population. Types of city governments vary widely across the nation. However, almost all have a central council, elected by the voters, and an executive officer, assisted by various department heads, to manage the city's affairs. Cities in the West and South usually have nonpartisan local politics.


title: Politics of the United States

text: There are three general types of municipal government: the mayor-council, the commission, and the council-manager. These are the pure forms; many cities have developed a combination of two or three of them.


title: Politics of the United States

text: This is the oldest form of city government in the United States and, until the beginning of the 20th century, was used by nearly all American cities. Its structure is like that of the state and national governments, with an elected mayor as chief of the executive branch and an elected council that represents the various neighborhoods forming the legislative branch. The mayor appoints heads of city departments and other officials (sometimes with the approval of the council), has the power of veto over ordinances (the laws of the city), and often is responsible for preparing the city's budget. The council passes city ordinances, sets the tax rate on property, and apportions money among the various city departments. As cities have grown, council seats have usually come to represent more than a single neighborhood.


title: Politics of the United States

text: This combines both the legislative and executive functions in one group of officials, usually three or more in number, elected city-wide. Each commissioner supervises the work of one or more city departments. Commissioners also set policies and rules by which the city is operated. One is named chairperson of the body and is often called the mayor, although their power is equivalent to that of the other commissioners.


title: Politics of the United States

text: The city manager is a response to the increasing complexity of urban problems that need management ability not often possessed by elected public officials. The answer has been to entrust most of the executive powers, including law enforcement and provision of services, to a highly trained and experienced professional city manager.


title: Politics of the United States

text: The council-manager plan has been adopted by a large number of cities. Under this plan, a small, elected council makes the city ordinances and sets policy, but hires a paid administrator, also called a city manager, to carry out its decisions. The manager draws up the city budget and supervises most of the departments. Usually, there is no set term; the manager serves as long as the council is satisfied with their work.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Some states contain unincorporated areas, which are areas of land not governed by any local authorities below that at the county level. Residents of unincorporated areas only need to pay taxes to the county, state and federal governments as opposed to the municipal government as well. A notable example of this is Paradise, Nevada, an unincorporated area where many of the casinos commonly associated with Las Vegas are situated.


title: Politics of the United States

text: In addition to general-purpose government entities legislating at the state, county, and city level, special-purpose areas may exist as well, provide one or more specific services that are not being supplied by other existing governments. School districts are organized local entities providing public elementary and secondary education which, under state law, have sufficient administrative and fiscal autonomy to qualify as separate governments.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Special districts are authorized by state law to provide designated functions as established in the district's charter or other founding document, and with sufficient administrative and fiscal autonomy to qualify as separate governments; known by a variety of titles, including districts, authorities, boards, commissions, etc., as specified in the enabling state legislation.


title: Politics of the United States

text: The United States possesses a number of unincorporated territories, including 16 island territories across the globe. These are areas of land which are not under the jurisdiction of any state, and do not have a government established by Congress through an organic act. Citizens of these territories can vote for members of their own local governments, and some can also elect representatives to serve in Congress—though they only have observer status. The unincorporated territories of the U.S. include the permanently inhabited territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands; as well as minor outlying islands such as Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Atoll, Navassa Island, Palmyra Atoll, Wake Island, and others. American Samoa is the only territory with a native resident population and is governed by a local authority. Despite the fact that an organic act was not passed in Congress, American Samoa established its own constitution in 1967, and has self governed ever since. Seeking statehood or independence is often debated in US territories, such as in Puerto Rico, but even if referendums on these issues are held, congressional approval is needed for changes in status to take place.


title: Politics of the United States

text: The citizenship status of residents in US unincorporated territories has caused concern for their ability to influence and participate in the politics of the United States. In recent decades, the Supreme Court has established voting as a fundamental right of US citizens, even though residents of territories do not hold full voting rights. Despite this, residents must still abide by federal laws that they cannot equitably influence, as well as register for the national Selective Service System, which has led some scholars to argue that residents of territories are essentially second-class citizens. The legal justifications for these discrepancies stem from the Insular Cases, which were a series of 1901 Supreme Court cases that some consider to be reflective of imperialism and racist views held in the United States. Unequal access to political participation in US territories has also been criticized for affecting US citizens who move to territories, as such an action requires forfeiting the full voting rights that they would have held in the 50 states.


title: Politics of the United States

text: As in the United Kingdom and in other similar parliamentary systems, in the U.S. Americans eligible to vote, vote for an individual candidate (there are sometimes exceptions in local government elections) and not a party list. The U.S. government being a federal government, officials are elected at the federal (national), state and local levels. All members of Congress, and the offices at the state and local levels are directly elected, but the president is elected indirectly, by an Electoral College whose electors represent their state and are elected by popular vote. (Before the Seventeenth Amendment was passed, Senators were also elected indirectly, by state legislatures.) These presidential electors were originally expected to exercise their own judgement. In modern practice, though, the electors are chosen by their party and pledged to vote for that party's presidential candidate, (however in rare occurrences they may violate their pledge, becoming what is known as a "faithless elector").


title: Politics of the United States

text: Both federal and state laws regulate elections. The United States Constitution defines (to a basic extent) how federal elections are held, in Article One and Article Two and various amendments. State law regulates most aspects of electoral law, including primaries, the eligibility of voters (beyond the basic constitutional definition), the running of each state's electoral college, and the running of state and local elections.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Who has the right to vote in the United States is regulated by the Constitution and federal and state laws. Suffrage is nearly universal for citizens 18 years of age and older. Voting rights are sometimes restricted as a result of felony conviction, depending on the state.


title: Politics of the United States

text: The District, and other U.S. holdings like Puerto Rico and Guam, do not have the right to choose any political figure outside their respective areas and can only elect a non-voting delegate to serve in the House of Representatives.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Successful participation, especially in federal elections, often requires large amounts of money, especially for television advertising. This money can be very difficult to raise by appeals to a mass base, although appeals for small donations over the Internet have been successful. Both parties generally depend on wealthy donors and organizations - traditionally organized labor helping the Democrats and business donations the Republicans. . Since 1984, however, the Democrats' business donations have surpassed those from labor organizations. This dependency on donors and the political influence it can give them is controversial, and has led to laws limiting spending on political campaigns being enacted (see campaign finance reform). Opponents of campaign finance laws allege they interfere with the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech. Even when laws are upheld, the complication of compliance with the First Amendment requires careful and cautious drafting of legislation, leading to laws that are still fairly limited in scope, especially in comparison to those of other developed democracies such as the United Kingdom, France or Canada.


title: Politics of the United States

text: The United States Constitution never formally addressed the issue of political parties, primarily because the Founding Fathers opposed them; nonetheless, parties — specifically two competing parties or a "two-party system" — has been a fundamental part of American politics since shortly after George Washington's presidency.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Unlike in many other countries, the major political parties in America have no strong central organization that determines party positions and policies, rewards loyal members and officials or expels rebels. A party committee or convention may endorse a candidate for office, but the determination of who will be the party's candidate in the general election is usually done in primaries open to voters who register as Democrats or Republicans.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Furthermore, elected officials who fail to "toe the party line" because of constituent opposition to it, and "cross the aisle" to vote with the opposition, have (relatively) little to fear from their party.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Parties have state or federal committees that act as hubs for fundraising and campaigning, (See, Democratic National Committee, Republican National Committee) and separate campaign committees which work to elect candidates at a specific level, but do not direct candidates or their campaigns. In presidential elections, the party's candidate serves as the de facto party leader, whose popularity helps or hinders candidates further down the ballot. Midterm election are usually regarded as a referendum on the sitting president's performance.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Some (Lee Drutman, Daniel J. Hopkins writing before 2018) argue that in the 21st century, along with becoming overly partisan, America politics has become overly focused on national issues and "nationalized", (and for Republicans, loyalty to Donald Trump), so that even local offices, formerly dealing with local issues now often mention the presidential election.


title: Politics of the United States

text: "Third" political parties have appeared from time to time in American history but seldom lasted more than a decade. They have sometimes been the vehicle of an individual (Theodore Roosevelt's "Bull Moose" party, Ross Perot's Reform Party); had considerable strength in particular regions (Socialist Party, the Farmer-Labor Party, Wisconsin Progressive Party, Conservative Party of New York State, and the Populist Party); or continued to run candidates for office to publicize some issue despite seldom winning even local elections (Libertarian Party, Natural Law Party, Peace and Freedom Party).


title: Politics of the United States

text: Special interest groups advocate the cause of their specific constituency. Business organizations, for example, will favor low corporate taxes and restrictions on the right to strike, whereas labor unions will support minimum wage legislation and protection for collective bargaining. Other private interest groups, such as churches and ethnic groups, are more concerned about broader issues of policy that can affect their organizations or their beliefs.


title: Politics of the United States

text: One type of private interest group that has grown in number and influence in recent years is the political action committee or PAC. These are independent groups, organized around a single issue or set of issues, which contribute money to political campaigns for United States Congress or the presidency. PACs are limited in the amounts they can contribute directly to candidates in federal elections. There are no restrictions, however, on the amounts PACs can spend independently to advocate a point of view or to urge the election of candidates to office. As of 2008, there were 4,292 PACs operating in the US.


title: Politics of the United States

text: The number of interest groups has mushroomed, with more and more of them operating offices in Washington, D.C., and representing themselves directly to Congress and federal agencies. Many organizations that keep an eye on Washington seek financial and moral support from ordinary citizens. Since many of them focus on a narrow set of concerns or even on a single issue, and often a single issue of enormous emotional weight, they compete with the parties for citizens' dollars, time, and passion.


title: Politics of the United States

text: The amount of money spent by these special interests continues to grow, as campaigns become increasingly expensive. Many Americans have the feeling that these wealthy interests, whether corporations, unions or PACs, are so powerful that ordinary citizens can do little to counteract their influences.


title: Politics of the United States

text: A survey of members of the American Economic Association (i.e. the association of professional economists) found the vast majority—regardless of political affiliation—felt the prevalence and influence of special interest groups in the political process led to benefit for the special interest groups and politicians at the expense of society as a whole.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Despite the constitution's First Amendment Establishment Clause ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ..."), religious groups (primarily Christian groups for historical and demographical reasons) have often become political pressure groups and parts of political coalitions. In recent decades, conservative evangelical Protestants have been particularly active within the broader Republican Party. (However, some scholars have argued that this coalition may be starting to split, as of 2008.) This influence has often translated into the passing of laws related to morality and personal conduct. State alcohol and gambling laws, for example, have been found to be more restrictive in states with a higher percentage of conservative Protestant Christians.


title: Politics of the United States

text: The American political culture is rooted in the colonial experience and the American Revolution. The colonies were unique within the European world for their (relatively) widespread suffrage provided to white male property owners, and the relative power and activity of the elected bodies they could vote for. These dealt with land grants, commercial subsidies, taxation, the oversight of roads, poor relief, taverns, and schools. Courts, (private lawsuits were very common) also provided Americans with experience in public affairs and law, and gave interest groups such as


title: Politics of the United States

text: merchants, landlords, petty farmers, artisans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Quakers, Germans, Scotch Irish, Yankees, Yorkers, etc. control over matters left to the royal court, aristocratic families and the established church in Great Britain. Finally, Americans were interested in the political values of Republicanism, which celebrated equal rights, civic virtue, and abhorred corruption, luxury, and aristocracy.


title: Politics of the United States

text: Two pivotal political ideas in the establishment of the United States were Republicanism and classical liberalism. Central documents of American thought include: the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Constitution (1787), the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers (1787–1790s), the Bill of Rights (1791), and Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" (1863).


title: Politics of the United States

text: At the time of the United States' founding, the economy was predominantly one of agriculture and small private businesses, and state governments left welfare issues to private or local initiative. As in the UK and other industrialized countries, laissez-faire ideology was largely discredited during the Great Depression. Between the 1930s and 1970s, fiscal policy was characterized by the Keynesian consensus. After the "Reagan revolution" in the early 1980s, however, laissez-faire ideology once more became a powerful force in American politics. While the American welfare state expanded more than threefold after WWII, it held at 20% of GDP from the late 1970s to late 1980s. In the 21st century, modern American liberalism, and modern American conservatism are engaged in a continuous political battle, characterized by what "The Economist" describes as "greater divisiveness [and] close, but bitterly fought elections." Since 2016, the United States has been recognized as a flawed democracy in the "Democracy Index" by the Economist Intelligence Unit, partially due to increased political polarization.


title: Politics of the United States

text: In foreign affairs, the United States generally pursued a noninterventionist policy of "avoiding foreign entanglements" before World War II. After the war, when America became a superpower, for many decades the country embraced internationalism, seeking allies to contain Communism and foster economic cooperation.


title: Politics of the United States

text: The United States Constitution never formally addressed the issue of political parties, primarily because the Founding Fathers—Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, George Washington—opposed them as domestic political factions leading to domestic conflict and stagnation.