Parity rights

The provision granting American citizens and corporations the same access to Philippine natural resources and public utilities as Filipino nationals. It contradicted Article XIII of the 1935 Constitution, so implementing it required amending the constitution of a country that was days from becoming independent.

The mechanics are the part worth remembering. The United States Congress offered US$800 million in postwar rebuilding funds contingent on ratification of the trade act carrying parity, and the Philippine Congress ratified on 2 July 1946, two days before independence. The constitutional amendment needed three quarters of both houses, a threshold reached only after nine legislators from leftist and opposition parties were disqualified on fraud allegations, which the Philippine Supreme Court upheld on challenge. Voters approved it on 11 March 1947, 79 to 21 percent, on 40 percent turnout.

Source: The Bell Trade Act, formally the Philippine Trade Act of 1946, authored by Representative C. Jasper Bell. Compiled record: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Trade_Act . Senator Claro M. Recto led the nationalist opposition to the arrangement. The 1955 Laurel-Langley Agreement later revised the terms, ending United States control of the peso exchange rate and making parity reciprocal.

First used in: 1.5 · Ruin, and the pardon nobody voted for