ABSTRACT
Throughout most of 1989 it seemed that the “mini-Marshall Plan” for the Philippines would be the most prominent story about that country. It had been two years since the August 1987 failed coup attempt, and the cycle of establishing new electoral democracy was completed in March 1989 with the barangay elections. Journalists and diplomats tend, with some exceptions, to avoid the term “mini-Marshall Plan” to designate the current programme for enhanced aid to the Philippines. The change to the Multilateral Aid Initiative or Philippine Assistance Program is interesting, considering that in the inception stages the programme was explicitly compared with the Marshall Plan for Europe after World War II. The original Marshall Plan is used as reference point in part because it was so successful from the viewpoint of United States. Thus, American foreign policymakers would couch new initiatives, such as Alliance for Progress in Latin America in the early 1960s, in terms of repeating the Marshall Plan success.
