How CIA has been meddling in Philippine presidential elections

FRESH from the presidential elections just past, I can’t help recalling this passage from an article on the web titled “CIA Electoral Interventions: A Philippine Experiment.” I came across the article during the campaign and it sank in my mind because it dealt with a subject matter that is little known to Filipinos, particularly the current young, and yet appears now to have been with us for over half a century.

The passage goes: “In 1954, US President Dwight Eisenhower appointed a panel to make recommendations regarding covert political action as an instrument of foreign policy. The Report concluded: ‘If the US is to survive, longstanding American concepts of ‘fair play’ must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counterespionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated means than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy.’ (Report of the Special Study Group—Doolittle Committee—on the Covert Activities of the Central Intelligence Agency, 30 September 1954 – https://www.cia.gov/)