Study Guide Questions on the Historical Roots – Self Government Periods

1.   What was our experience in self-government during the 1898 Philippine Revolutionary
Government? What kind of government and bureaucracy did the Aguinaldo government set-up?
How different and/or similar was it from the government established by the Spanish colonizers?
Why was this so?
2.   During the Commonwealth Government, were we really given the opportunity by the
Americans to learn the "delicate art of self-government", one of their benevolent objectives for
colonizing us? What conditions made the Americans to give us a commonwealth status? Was
President Quezon able to introduce reforms more suited to the needs of our country? Why or
why not?
3.  The Philippines was one of the most devastated countries during WW 2 and then the US
decided to give us independence. How did we emerge from the economic and physical
devastation? What were the policies that the country continued to implement despite the
advantages these continued to give to the Americans? What were the major governmental and
administrative reforms introduced from 1947-1965? Were they substantive to address the
problems of a newly independent country?
Then under Marcos, what happened to our government and the PAS especially during martial
law? What were his real motives in declaring martial law? What were the major administrative
reforms instituted by Marcos? The most significant measure was the Integrated Reorganization
Plan, which was implemented under PD #1.  It was a well studied reorganization plan but what
happened in its implementation? Another one was the merging of the Presidential Economic
Staff and the National Economic Council to become the NEDA. 
How was the political neutrality and independence of the civil service destroyed by the Marcos
government? What were the major issues and problems that negatively affected the PAS during
that dark period in our history? 
4.  Then came the Cory Administration. How different was her government from that of 
Marcos? Then we had Ramos, Estrada, GMA, PNoy. What were the conditions prevailing when
they assumed the Presidency and how did they respond to these conditions? What were their
respective Programs of Govt and Development Plans? What were the major policy and
administrative measures introduced? Were radical changes made by each President in order to
address the major problems of the country? How successful were they?