A Letter From the Publisher

By Richard B. Thomas

This week's cover story on the Philippines' remarkable liberation from the autocratic rule of Ferdinand Marcos is only the latest chapter in TIME's decades-long coverage of the strategically located archipelago. As early as 1923 the magazine was writing about Filipino politicians and their determined agitation for independence from U.S. rule. In 1935 the U.S. granted the islands semiautonomous status, and TIME's cover story on Manuel Quezon, the first President of the Philippine Commonwealth, noted that in moving Manila toward eventual independence, the U.S. was being "far from purely benevolent": it would mean not only unloading a heavy financial liability but a strategic responsibility that was "impossible to defend."

That statement proved prescient. After the brutal Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II, Americans read in a TIME cover story about MacArthur's triumphant 1944 return and the battle of Leyte Gulf. The Philippines finally gained full independence in July 1946. As a cover story on the occasion observed, President Manuel Roxas took over a war-shattered country with "no national economy, no export trade. Next to Warsaw, Manila is the world's most devastated city." Two decades later, in a laudatory account of President Marcos' efforts to beef up the Philippine economy, stave off the Communist-dominated Huk rebellion and give the nation a sense of identity, TIME suggested that in a country with a "perennial need for heroes, Marcos -- with luck -- could meet that need."

Last week Marcos' luck finally ran out. As Filipinos joyously welcomed a new hero, President Corazon Aquino, TIME was once again very much on the scene. Hong Kong Bureau Chief Sandra Burton, along with Manila-based Reporter Nelly Sindayen, had witnessed most of the events of the past 2 1/2 years that led up to last week's revolution, from Opposition Leader Benigno Aquino's assassination in August 1983 to the emergence of "Cory" Aquino from shy widowhood to the Philippines' highest office. They were joined by Bangkok Bureau Chief James Willwerth and Tokyo Bureau Chief Edwin Reingold in covering the story. Given the magnitude of the country's achievement -- and its daunting problems -- TIME's interest in and coverage of the Philippines is certain to remain intense for decades to come.