We had absolutely no industry to speak of. We remained a completely agricultural economy, importing virtually all our requirements of finished goods, and paying for these with the export earnings of the agriculture crops which we were exporting to the United States.
We had no motor vehicle, fuel, and the industry that could keep an army mobile and moving, we had no munitions and weapons industry that could equip it with arms and the logistics it required, no pharmaceutical industry that could provide its sick and wounded with drugs and medicines, no textile industry that could clothe it, no electronics and telecommunication industry that could enable it to communicate; no food industry that could supply it with canned goods; no watch industry that would enable it to keep time. We certainly had neither chemical nor steel industry. We could not even produce our own bicycles, flashlights and batteries.
Alejandro Lichauco, “The IMF-World Bank Group: The International Economic Order and the Philippine Experience,” September 3, 1976
Filed under: Escritura, Historia Tagged: Alejandro Lichauco, Colonial Economy, Colonialism, Imperialism, Philippine Economy, Philippines, US Imperialism
