Whenever I develop a game, I am always looking for ways to make the narrative shine. Usually, that involves consistent terminology, clear rules, concise player aids, and suggestions on what tweaks can be made to help the game get out of the way of the player, and allow for full immersion in the story. Occasionally more major changes occur, and while painful, these almost always improve the end result.

People Power is one of the latter cases. Ken Tee (the designer of People Power) has always had a strong personal story in mind for People Power, but playtesters were not experiencing the narrative in the way Ken intended. One major hurdle was the MNLF (Moro) faction, which ended up being dropped, but the main narrative issue with People Power was the victory condition for the Government. While many COIN factions use Victory conditions centered around Support for the Government (US in Fire in the Lake, Batista in Cuba Libre, France in Colonial Twilight), the Marcos regime was fundamentally unlike these governments.

Ferdinand Marcos was elected President of the Philippines in 1965. He came from a family with a history of political involvement, and had built his career on his reputation as a decorated war hero and guerrilla fighter against the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during WW2. After the war, Marcos began a long political career, first as a special prosecutor investigating collaboration with Japanese occupiers, then serving multiple terms in the Filipino House of Representatives and Senate before becoming President.

Marcos had a turbulent Presidency through most of his first two terms, presiding over an expansion of the military, involvement in the Vietnam War, and election fraud. In order to attempt to secure a second term, Marcos spent massively on social projects, causing a balance of payments crisis – in short, the government was unable to continue financing its debt, leading to massive inflation. By the start of Marcos’ second term in 1969, social unrest in response to the balance of payments crisis had escalated. Students led protests at Marcos’ State of the Nation address in January 1970, which led to six more major protests in what has been termed the “First Quarter Storm.” The violent repression of social unrest, and a coinciding Constitutional crisis, caused many moderate reformers to abandon the political process, and led to significant radicalization, including many joining the fledgling New People’s Army (the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines).

The threat to the Marcos regime led to the declaration of martial law and the consolidation of power by Marcos. After abolishing term limits in a 1973 referendum, Marcos consolidated power by granting himself emergency powers designed to outlast the end of martial law, and building a network of loyal associates through graft and patronage, the most famous of which are the so-called “Rolex 12”. Two of these insiders, Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos, would later be instrumental in Marcos’ downfall. Marcos continued in the office of President, lifting martial law in 1981 and subsequently being ousted from the Presidency by the People Power revolution in 1986, after 21 years in office. After his removal, the various claims of fraud and graft were validated: not only did US Customs documentation reveal that the Marcos family flee with over US$15 Million in gold, clothing, jewelry, and Filipino bank notes, but Filipino government records revealed a long history of diverted foreign aid, government kickbacks, slush funds, and fraud.

This type of overtly kleptocratic Government faction is new to the COIN series, and was a difficult one to model. Eventually, Ken and I settled on using a familiar set of Victory conditions in a new way. In Fire in the Lake, ARVN wins through COIN Control of spaces and building Patronage. In People Power, the Marcos Government seeks those same ends, but has new tools available to do so. Unlike ARVN, Marcos is able to perform Civic Action and immediately convert that to Patronage. This is a precarious situation, as Support in People Power is more transient than in Fire in the Lake, having only a single level. Once a space falls to Neutral, it is much easier for the Reformers and NPA to contest Control.

This small change has a major impact on the tempo and tone of the game. The pretense of attempting to govern well is long gone, and the Government seeks only to line the pockets of their associates. A Government player must know when to contest Control and when to retreat to safer spaces after stripping Support from key areas to generate Patronage. Like the Marcos Administration, the Government’s focus will likely shift to Patronage as the Reformers and NPA make inroads in various provinces and cities. The Filipino government has estimated that over US$10 Billion in wealth was stolen through corrupt means in the final years of the Marcos Administration, most of which was never recovered. To that end, the Government uses the Enrich action to build Patronage, rather than the ARVN Govern, and while for ARVN Patronage represents something more subtle than mere corruption and graft, the Government faction in People Power has no such pretensions.

The story of People Power is the story of the fall of the Marcos regime and the reasons why it ended. “Laban” means “fight” in Tagalog, and was adopted as the shortened name of the “Lakas ng Bayan” (People’s Power) political party formed by Benino Aquino, Jr before his assassination in 1983. His widow, Corazon Aquino, eventually won the 1986 Presidential election as the leader of this same party. The fight of the Filipino people for freedom from corrupt oppression, and the various means undertaken to achieve this goal, have become a model for how successful nonviolent campaigns are conducted.

For a brief overview of the scale, scope, and techniques of the Marcos’ Government’s graft, I recommend reading this article from the Chicago Tribune.

For a more thorough and academic treatment, I recommend Ferdinand Marcos and the Philippines: The Political Economy of Authoritarianism by Albert F. Celoza.

In the next Chapter, we’ll discuss the new model of Support in People Power.

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