ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a reluctant farewell of President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. Southeast Asia’s rush to wealth spread down to other levels of society. In the fast-growing suburbs of the capital cities, swollen armies of middle-tier bureaucrats erected air conditioned stucco mansions sporting Corinthian pillars and barbecue pits. Some of their peers in the military did the same, especially in Thailand and Indonesia. Free market Southeast Asia enters the closing years of the 20th century largely bereft of new ideas, saddled with growing populations and watching in resentful fascination as market dynamism fashioned elsewhere widens the gap between the region’s unchanged role as a receiver of technology and the West’s (and Northeast Asia’s) authentic, technological competence. Ironically, Marcos led the way down the development road that other Southeast Asian economies have since travelled. He carried his country into ruinous debt to finance vanished dreams.
