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"Ruel F. Pepa’s Insights & Illusions is a collection of critical essays/papers presented at various institutional venues on various occasions, and these span the multi-hued fields of politics, economics, ecology, and education in the Philippines. That the choice of these major fields in our national life fills up Pepa’s Insights & Illusions is not the only remarkable aspect of this collection; what is even more telling is how Pepa suffuses these treatises of critical reflection with a sense of muted outrage, as it were, over the glaring gaps in our collective capacities —which have enlarged seemingly over the centuries and conspired to bog us down just as fast as we can pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.
Citation preview
1
INSIGHTS AND ILLUSIONS In Philippine Politics, Economy, Ecology and Education
by
Ruel F. Pepa, Ph.D.
Published by
Zetetics Reseach Center for Asia
2
Insights and Illusions in Philippine Politics, Economy, Ecology and Education
Ruel F. Pepa
Copyright Ruel F. Pepa 2011
Published by Zetetics Research Center for Asia at Smashwords
3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION by Carlos Bueno
POLITICS
Feudalism and Colonialism—Alive and Kicking in the 21st Century: A More
Reticent View of the Present Philippine Political Landscape
A Reflection on an Issue More Basic and Pressing than Exploring the
Advantages and Disadvantages of Presidentialism or Parliamentarism
Election as a Democratic Instrumentality Appropriated in Philippine Politics
via the Agency of the Commision on Elections (COMELEC)
People Empowerment: The Genuine Variety of It
ECONOMY
A Re-Assessment of Certain Aspects of Post-War Philippine Economy in the
Light of the Classic Theories of Economic Development
A critical look into the crux of Philippine Economic development vis-a-vis
economic planning, deregulation, privatization and decentralization
The Socio-Politico-Ecomomic Changes Happening in the Philippines and their
Effects on the Business Organization
ECOLOGY
The Philippines in the Eye of the Fury of Nature’s Catastrophic Blows
EDUCATION
Philippine Higher Education, Quo Vadis?
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5
INTRODUCTION
by Carlos S. Bueno
Ruel F. Pepa’s Insights & Illusions is a collection of critical essays/papers
presented at various institutional venues on various occasions, and these span the
multi-hued fields of politics, economics, ecology, and education in the Philippines.
That the choice of these major fields in our national life fills up Pepa’s Insights &
Illusions is not the only remarkable aspect of this collection; what is even more
telling is how Pepa suffuses these treatises of critical reflection with a sense of
muted outrage, as it were, over the glaring gaps in our collective capacities —
which have enlarged seemingly over the centuries and conspired to bog us down
just as fast as we can pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.
One might even think that the treatment Pepa’s scathing attacks on our
shortcomings brings in these critical essays and papers may be summed up in one
word: incendiary. But having known for a long time the persona that wielded the
pen, I believe that Pepa’s critical analyses and somewhat-Quixotic jousts at what
have been plaguing us ever since we embarked upon our nationhood really burns
brightly — but only to enlighten, and not to disparage unfairly or without basis. He
criticizes not to show that he is superior and above it all, but rather as an
expression of his own frustrations over the fact that we can’t seem to create the
needed critical mass that could power our development into overdrive, and send us
to the next higher levels of consciousness and consensus and convictions — as a
people. The insights that Pepa offers in these essays and papers are well-buttressed
by his arguments and reasoning; the illusions that he unmasks in no uncertain
6
terms strike a chord and resonate deep in our beings… because we instinctively
recognize ourselves in what Pepa has painted in his vast landscape of those fields
in our national psyche.
Writing is an art; thinking is a discipline. Pepa brought these two together to bring
the two different notions of insight and illusion into a collection of subject matter
where these two notions throb with alacrity and sagacity, with the immediacy of
current events and with the backing of historicity. And because Pepa is first and
foremost a philosopher (and an ever-continuing student of philosophy), the
philosophic undercurrents of his treatises are always well-defined and bounded in
the various contexts of his different subjects. If the reader — for no other reason
than mere curiosity — carefully reads through these writings of Pepa and discovers
sharing a lot of common ground with what he says, Pepa himself would not at all
be surprised, as he expects it. For him, these discussions are a way of confronting
our own selves and admitting to the indictments against us that are largely also of
our own doing.
As it is often said, it’s a hard or difficult thing to do — but somebody’s got to do it.
This is precisely what Pepa offers us in Insights & Illusions: he has boldly laid out
for us to see and grasp the various insights into the things that truly affect us, in an
effort to also free us from our illusions of those very same things that Pepa has
taken to task for our benefit. Whether or not he succeeds in convincing us to take
his points of view is, to me at least, not nearly as important as the impetus that
grips the reader to delve into the discussions and arguments and counter-arguments
in the flux fields of our politics, economics, ecology and education within Pepa’s
collection of treatises — and to seek to truly comprehend, and thus be enlightened.
7
Carlos Silverio Bueno had previously been a co-instructor of Dr. Pepa, handling mass communication
and English subjects at the former Trinity College of Quezon City (now Trinity University of Asia). He
got his AB Mass Communication degree from TCQC in 1987; but his primary, secondary and college
education (first in general science, then in journalism) was at Silliman University in his hometown of
Dumaguete City, Oriental Negros. Earlier, he had worked there as a radio broadcaster for six years before
changing residence to Quezon City in late 1985. After graduating he taught fulltime at TCQC for one
year, then joined the Department of Agrarian Reform in May 1988, where he drafted the enactment
speech of President Cory Aquino for the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (RA 6657) that was
signed on June 10, 1988. Later on he served as director for policy reform and advocacy under the Social
Reform Council, Office of the President in 1996, which eventually became the National Anti-Poverty
Commission (NAPC) upon merging with the Presidential Commission to Fight Poverty (PCFP) and the
Presidential Commission on Countryside Development (PCCD) in 1998. He went back to teaching
fulltime at TCQC in 2001, but quit in 2003 to pursue freelance writing and technical consultancies with
various government and international agencies and NGOs. A former varsity soccer football player at SU,
his varied interests include motocrossand cross-country dirt bike riding, and dabbling in airsoft electric
guns and gas blow-back pistol shooting.
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POLITICS
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Feudalism and Colonialism—Alive and Kicking in the 21st
Century: A More Reticent View of the Present Philippine
Political Landscape
[A paper presented in the 2009 Sociology Forum held on 10 September 2009 at the
University Training Center of the Mariano Marcos State University(MMSU) in
Batac, Ilocos Norte ]
A. A General Overview
Despite all the trappings of modern democratic mechanics—the superficial
exteriorities institutionalized as official components of Philippine politics—the
landscape of our realpolitik is still—as it has long been in generations—
predominated by two vigorous sets of dynamics—socio-culturally feudal and
economically colonial. About the socio-cultural dynamics, Prof. Jose Ma. Sison
initially stresses in the text of his lecture at UP-Diliman on 25 April 1986 entitled
“Crisis of Philippine Culture” that
“ . . . [C]ulture is not simply the ideological reflection of current
forces and contradictions in the economy and politics. It is also the
accumulation of notions, customs, habits and the like which date
as far back as prehistory, and which persist in current
circumstances for so long as there are carriers and they are part
of the social psychology of the people.”
In this light, simply reflecting on the attitude of local elected leaders toward
themselves reveals a common feudal character whose acquired meaning in ages
has seemed to be as natural as it is mouthed with confident spontaneity: they are
the “fathers” or the “mothers” of their respective constituencies—villages,
municipalities, provinces, even the nation itself. Something essentially crucial is
12
overshadowed and actually blotted out in this attitude: that in a genuinely
democratic political milieu, an elected local (even national) government leader is
fundamentally a public servant. The democratic political culture signifies the
leadership of a public servant and not of a “father” or a “mother” of a local (or
national) government unit. The latter being patriarchal/matriarchal is obviously
feudal. Observing how political leadership is carried out in local government units
further reveals how the barangay chair or the mayor or the governor acts and
dispenses authority like a landlord (and worse still, like a taskmaster) who behaves
toward his/her constituents as if they are his/her tenants (and worse still, as if they
are his vassals or slaves). In the process, the latter are always beholden to the
powers that be as this condition of political relation is intensified socio-culturally
by the value of utang na loob which is inherently and automatically spawned in its
vicious—and hence, corrupt—aspect in the context of this mode of power
dispensation. And the trail of corruption in government is thus inaugurated.
Corruption, if viewed in this framework, is no longer an appalling phenomenon but
a logical corollary of a political culture where double standard morality is well
entrenched in the hands of the “feudal” masters who cannot be immoral. In this
condition, they are the framers and definers, the interpreters and dispensers of
morality that, of course, naturally benefits their social and economic circumstances
expressed in their whims, caprices and wishes. Affected directly by this “political”
morality is society’s economic facet. Economic advantages and opportunities are
therefore automatically bestowed upon, enjoyed and, in most cases, monopolized
by the “feudal” elites invincible in their coats-of-mail of power. This condition is
controlled by a cabal of conspiratorial manipulators of a locale’s economic
ambience. By and large, they are the ones who call the economic shots being in
13
charge of the general run of businesses and practically all income-generating
ventures, regardless of whether these enterprises are legitimate or otherwise.
In this basis, it is not always necessarily the case that the “elected” official should
be a member of the elite bloc; it has been witnessed so many times that an outsider
may be “elected” as long as s/he is logistically supported by the said syndicated
alliance’s established machinery. Being elected in this framework further cultivates
the viciousness of utang na loob as the “elected” official becomes constrained by
the present circumstances to return to her/his patrons the favor that sustained
his/her nomination, campaign, and ultimate “victory”. In many instances, a
coalition of businessmen whose power rests in their obvious advantages of sheer
economic nature likewise exerts massive influence in the political field as “king
makers”. The whole situation is constitutive of a system wherein the dynamics of
feudalism sustain the mechanics of a capitalistic economy and a politics that
appropriates the nominal components of democracy. The entire scenario is
cordially accommodating to colonial conditionality where a foreign politico-
economic power can legitimately gain a foothold in the domestic arena through a
mutually beneficial partnership with local businessmen and business alliances
that—as has been established earlier—are likewise the political powers that be. In
Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance, the distinguished
MIT linguist, philosopher and political analyst Noam Chomsky asserts:
“The fundamental assumption that lies behind the imperial grand
strategy, often considered unnecessary to formulate because its
truth is taken to be so obvious, is the guiding principle of
Wilsonian idealism: We—at least the circles who provide the
leadership and advise them—are good, even noble. Hence, our
interventions are necessarily righteous in intent, if occasionally
clumsy in execution. . . .”
14
In this reality, the feudal dynamics accommodate the legitimization of colonial—
i.e, neo-colonial, to be more exact—presence seen through transnational
investments monitored and safeguarded by well-placed “elected” local officials in
both the executive and legislative branches of government serving the imperialist
interest of foreign powers. This particular phenomenon is an absolute realization of
how feudalism is wedded to colonialism in a marriage of convenience politically
and economically empowering and hence advantageous to both the local power
elites and the neo-colonial dominators—an unholy conspiracy that expectedly
smashes to smithereens the sovereign platform of a purportedly independent
country.
B. Personality Politics Dominates the Feudal Power Culture Scheme
The evolutionary trail of political maturity in a social circumstance runs from the
most primitive to the most sophisticated with personality politics as the most
primal, party politics in-between and program politics the most mature. Philippine
politics as we have it in its 21st-century condition is yet dismally of the personality
type. What distinctively stands out in this type of politics is the promotion of
personalities over and above political parties and national development programs.
Personality politics is characteristically feudal for in a feudal society, the person,
achievements, exploits, authority and wealth of a feudal lord are utterly highlighted
beyond anything else. This reality obviously operates in the regular and ordinary
course of current Philippine political set-up and we may cite a myriad of instances
to sustain our present contention.
1. One of TESDA’s scholarship grants is known as “Pangulong Gloria
Scholarships”
15
2. Along roads and highways, we find announcements like “This road widening
project is made possible under the auspices of the administration of Gov. So and so
or Mayor So and so.”
3. Acronyms that reflect the initials of an incumbent local official, e.g., Serbisyong
Bayan (in Quezon City where the incumbent mayor’s initials are SB for Sonny
Belmonte); Linisin at Ikarangal ang Maynila (in the city of Manila where the
incumbent mayor is Lim).
A local government official will surely take advantage of every possible and given
opportunity to promote his/her personal advantage in the political arena and in the
process amplify his/her political clout aimed at establishing and perpetuating a
political domain that outlives his/her own political career but extends further to
his/her progeny thereby putting up in the process a political dynasty. It is thus
definitely and absolutely a feudal state of affairs.
Pre-martial law Philippine politics saw the dominance of a two-party electoral
scenario where the Liberals did battle with the Nacionalistas. But the whole
situation was not the real thing but simply a semblance of true party politics for
what was actually highlighted was not the parties themselves and their respective
platforms but the famous, even controversial, personalities within them as
candidates who have achieved popularity of showbiz proportion. This is precisely
the reason why it was a “no-sweat” act for a prospective candidate to cross over
party lines.
Nothing has actually changed in post-martial law politics. In fact, more
complications have gotten in as the two-party system was overshadowed by a
multiple-party system bereft of solid and genuinely practicable pro-people
development platforms. This state of affairs has actually demolished the
16
preconditions of what should have been called party politics but has instead made
personality politics rampant and hence institutionalized as the name of the political
game in the present dispensation—a primitive type of politics in the post-modern
Western world.
C. Colonial Economic Hegemony Supportive of and Reliant on Feudal Power
Culture
The power base of a “post-modern” feudal leadership is reinforced by its colonial
alliance which in the case of the Philippines is chiefly with the foremost global
superpower, the United States of America. The US does not only impose its
economic hegemony over the Philippines but such, as always, is in intrinsic
simultaneity with political supremacy. The US Department of Defense housed at
Pentagon as well as the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) constantly keep an
eye on the Philippine political scenario to make sure that the ones positioned in the
national government will precisely toe the US foreign policy line. This situation of
brazen meddling is only an aspect of a larger political intervention of imperialistic
magnitude as the Balikatan Exercises continue on regularly through the blessings
of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) forged between the governments of the
Republic of the Philippines and the United States of America. The eminent US-
based scholar, culture critic and political analyst, E. San Juan Jr, in his After
Postcolonialism: Remapping the Philippines-United States Confrontations,
remarks:
“The passage of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) at the end of
the twentieth century signifies not a ‘return of the repressed’ but a
symptom of the loss of memory, a historical amnesia that disavows
the unspeakable barbarism and carnage that masked itself in
‘brotherly spirit.' For Filipinos, however, it is a ritual of trying to
remember. . .”
17
In the guise of providing special training opportunities toward the modernization of
the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the US contingents in the said military
exercises also get themselves involved in actual counter-insurgency operations
along with the AFP and in the process act as protectors of both the economic and
political interests of the US in the Philippines. E. San Juan Jr, reminds us that
“Not yet a decade since the U.S. military bases were forced to
withdraw in 1991 by nationalist demand, the passage of the
Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Republic of the
Philippines and the United States in February 1998 marks the
return of imperial power in a more total repudiation of Filipino
sovereignty. . . . [T]he VFA grants the ex-colonizer extra-
territorial rights and privileges exceeding the privileges that the
United States once enjoyed in the day of the Laurel-Langley
Agreement and parity rights.”
The latest news-making development about this which landed on the pages of the
New York Times is the decision of US Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates
“ . . . to keep an elite 600-troop counterinsurgency operation
deployed in the Philippines despite pressure to reassign its
members to fulfill urgent needs elsewhere, like in Afghanistan or
Iraq, according to Pentagon officials.
. . .
“Special Operations Forces are the most highly skilled in the
military at capture-and-kill missions against insurgent and
terrorist leaders. Within their ranks, Army Special Forces, known
as the Green Berets, have for decades been training allied troops
on their home soil and conducting counterinsurgency missions.”
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/world/asia/21military.html?_r=1)
This is imperialism of the first order. In this sense, US colonial hegemony supports
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the local feudal power culture, on the one hand. Re this, Carol Pagaduan-Araullo
comments in her BusinessWorld column, Streetwise, entitled “Standing on the
Wrong Side of History” (August 28,2009):
“Even the infrastructure projects carried out by US troops and
the medical-dental missions they conduct are clearly for counter-
insurgency purposes contrary to the usual government and US
embassy press releases that these merely underscore and reinforce
the continuing “good relations” between the two countries.
“Unnamed officials spoke of pressure on the Pentagon to shift the
[Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines] ( JSOTFP) to
Afghanistan or Iraq. This is a clear indication that US forces are
overstretched and unable to simultaneously wage and quickly win
wars in two global regions as envisioned in the US
neoconservatives' "Project New American Century" under Pres.
George W. Bush . The decision to maintain the JSOTFP
underscores both the strategic and tactical importance of
maintaining US military presence in the Philippines and implies
that the permanent US presence is both for local as well as global
and regional reasons.
“Despite the rhetoric of “Change”, the Obama administration is
at base continuing the geopolitical thrust of consolidating US
hegemony in the world with minor changes in approach and
methods, e.g. talking with “rogue states” instead of threatening
them with preemptive first strike option, without necessarily
giving up that option. This includes continuing and strengthening
US military presence overseas.
“Specific to the Philippines, this translates to increasing military
aid and so-called training exercises and permanent US military
presence as exemplified by the JSOTFP deployment and forward
operating sites in Mindanao despite the 1991 Philippine Senate
decision to terminate the RP-US Military Bases Agreement.”
19
On the other hand, the Philippine feudal order keeps the US capitalist requirements
going by providing the latter with raw agricultural, marine, forest, and mineral
resources, even human labor resources. Hence, the path of Philippine economy to
go capitalist is out of the question. In this connection, E. San Juan, Jr. observes:
“What is at stake is really control over the natural resources and labor power of the
Filipino people via the destruction of their national sovereignty and territorial
integrity.”
It is the power of US imperial control that has kept Philippine economy
retrogressively subservient to US colonial interests in a feudal socio-cultural
environment. In other words, it is actually US imperialism (“the highest stage of
capitalism”, according to Lenin) that has forced Philippine economy to be colonial
and remain feudal in its socio-cultural conditionality. Noam Chomsky affirms that
“The goal of the imperial grand strategy is to prevent any
challenge to the ‘power, position, and prestige of the United
States.’ The quoted words are not those of Dick Cheney or Donald
Rumsfeld, or any of the other statist reactionaries who formulated
the National Security Strategy of September 2002. Rather, they
were spoken by the respected liberal elder statesman Dean
Acheson in 1963.”
D. A Radical Dismantling of US Hegemonic Control: The Singular Saving
Grace of Philippine Socio-Politico-Economic Milieu
In the face of this incontrovertible reality, the more enlightened sector of the
population which consists of the proletariat, the petit bourgeois professionals,
academics and businessmen, the progressive segment of the clergy, as well as the
small entrepreneurs advocating national industrialization are the cutting edge to
appropriately initiate and eventually realize a radical transformation of the socio-
cultural and economic dynamics that animate the present state of affairs of
20
Philippine politics. In operational terms, this radical transformation is systemic and
structural aimed at dismantling US hegemonic control over the Philippines as it
becomes clearer that the most crucial issue at hand is the final and total
achievement of the nation’s authentic sovereignty. How? When? These are the six-
million-dollar questions we need to seriously consider next.
However, the better next step before we get to the “how” and “when” concerns is
to look for concrete models of erstwhile colonies in the international community—
countries that have defied, resisted, rebelled, fought and finally triumphed over
their former colonial masters and are now sovereign in the most realistic sense of
the word. It is of prime significance to realize that revolutionary actions leading to
the final emancipation of a nation do not necessarily start off with the daring guts
of the people but with a pure inspiration from which genuine courage is
astonishingly developed even in the basest case of utter cowardice.
The most critical challenge at this point in time is for us to earnestly start looking
for these models. This writer is of the opinion that they are just around.
(c) Ruel F. Pepa, PhD
21
A Reflection on an Issue More Basic and Pressing than
Exploring the Advantages and Disadvantages of
Presidentialism or Parliamentarism
I think it is safe to assume that each of us here has more or less operational notions
about the advantages and disadvantages of either the presidential or the
parliamentary form of government in theoretical and/or conditional/contextual
terms. The Philippines has normally had an actual experience of how a presidential
government is being run since the time the United States of America introduced it
to our political life as a nation. It was only during the Martial Law interregnum
under the Marcos regime that we had had an experience of how government is run
via a parliamentary system—an “abnormal” type of parliamentary government
during an abnormal stage of our nation’s evolution. As we study the governments
of our Asian neighbors, both proximate (in the ASEAN region) and distant (at least
the East Asian countries, at most the whole of Asia), most—if not all—of them
have the parliamentary form of government. Obviously, it is only in the Philippines
where we find a functional presidential form of government with all its nuances
and uniqueness acquired through time by way of adaptations and ramifications.
Our Asian neighbors could therefore provide us with a point of comparison and
assessment to reflect on the merits and weaknesses of the presidential system on
the one hand and the parliamentary system on the other. The situation, in fact, has
been taken advantage of by certain interest groups to pursue an agenda that, if
realized, would bestow them an enormous advantage to control the general
political landscape of the nation thereby perpetuating themselves and their minions
in the present era and in that to come. An assessment of whether a presidential or a
22
parliamentary form of government is better in the context of the Philippine
political experience is not actually reflective of the inherent strengths or flaws in
either system but really an appraisal of why a system would succeed or fail in the
context of the level of political maturity we have achieved at this point of our
collective political consciousness’ development.
Theoretically, we say that all so-called democratic countries are either presidential
or parliamentary in terms of government system on the basis of a condition that
relates the head of government to the constitutive system.
. . . The presidentialist form evolved first in the United States. It
replaces monarchs with presidents elected for a fixed term. They
have the authority (at least nominally) to manage the
governmental bureaucracy. Some comments on the historical
situation that led the "Founding Fathers" of the U.S.
"Constitution" to reproduce the powers of the king of England
while rejecting the principles that legitimated the monarchy will
be discussed below.
Concurrently, an elected assembly was created to co-exist with the
president on the basis of a principle referred to as the "separation
of powers." This principle has been reproduced in all
presidentialist regimes -- I use 'presidentialist' in preference to
'presidential' because many parliamentary regimes also have
presidents and it is easy to confuse them (Riggs 1994a). However,
by "presidentialist" I do not imply an "imperial presidency,"
which has also become a meaning of "presidentialist." To avoid
confusion, I often insert "separation-of-powers" to characterize
the type of system I have in mind.
By contrast, in parliamentary regimes, a balancing rule prevails
that produces the fusion of executive/legislative authority in some
kind of cabinet. The cabinet and its leader, a prime minister,
needs the support of a parliamentary majority to stay in power
23
with two fundamental consequences. Because the constitutive
system in such regimes is fused -- i.e. the chief executive is
accountable to the elected assembly and can be discharged by a
vote of no-confidence -- deadlock between the two branches can
be avoided. Moreover, control over the bureaucracy is enhanced
by the fusion of powers -- officials are not held responsible to a
multiplicity of centers of authority. This means that they can
administer more effectively and also that they can be controlled
more effectively. /*/
Practically looking at the general experiences of so-called democratic countries in
the world today, it could further be theoretically claimed that the parliamentary
system is more or less a better democratic system than the presidential. In view of
this, we could safely infer that in the context of a democracy, the parliamentary
system has more survival mileage over and ahead of the presidential system. This
view, however, should not be taken at its face value in the context of the Philippine
experience. One important consideration in the theoretical analysis cum evaluation
quoted above is the ideal notions presented that apparently are implicative of their
relative significance to the high level of political evolution achieved by the most
successfully run parliamentary governments in the modern (or even in the
postmodern) world.
The Philippine context is a very complicated one. I would like to believe that at
this stage of the country’s political evolution in its experience of democracy, either
a presidential or a parliamentary system of government is bound to fail. In fact, we
have experienced the failure of the presidential system. But the advocacy of certain
interest groups to push for the change to parliamentary by way of a charter change
is not the result of a deep and serious consideration of the failure of the
presidential. Our more reflective citizens have the unified notion that such agenda
is pushed for the concealed attempt to perpetuate certain “endangered” political
24
personae in power and not really to strengthen the democratic principles. In the
first place, it is lamentable to note that we as a nation have not actually deeply
immersed ourselves into the genuine arena of a democratic political life. What we
have come to know about the essence of democracy is only theoretical and hence
superficial.
As a basic thought, both the parliamentary and the presidential systems are two
aspects of what we call representative democracy. A real misunderstanding is
present if there is no way for us to see the link, if not an outright identity, between
representation and delegation. In a true democracy the representatives of the
people are at the same time their delegates. What we presently see in the workings
of our so-called democratic government are alleged “representatives” of the people
whose agendas that they carry to their respective government loci are not
necessarily the people’s agendas but these so-called representatives’ own agendas
to serve their personal interests as well as the interests of their affiliations, whether
business or civic or whatever. The basic issue that we need to seriously attend to in
consideration of genuine democracy is whether the people in general are truly
participants in the running of government. In other words, the issue is: Is our
democracy participatory or not? Participatory democracy is authentic democracy
and we have all the possible agencies in non-government and people’s
organizations to get the people involved in governance. Whether the system of
government is presidential or parliamentary, the most important consideration that
we see at this point is the crucial participation of the people in running the
government that they have democratically put up to serve their general welfare and
interests.
It is therefore useless and futile to simply draw all the theoretical advantages and
disadvantages of either the parliamentary of the presidential system of government
25
without any consideration of how a nation can actually and deeply experience the
operationalization of the principles of authentic democracy which are popular
sovereignty, political equality, popular consultation and majority rule.
/*/ “PresidentiaIism vs. Parliamentarism: Implications for the Triad of Modernity”
by Fred W. Riggs. http://www2.hawaii.edu/~fredr/6-lap9a.htm
©Ruel F. Pepa 2006
26
27
Election as a Democratic Instrumentality Appropriated in
Philippine Politics via the Agency of the Commision on
Elections (COMELEC)
-I-
The free election of government officials in a country is said to be a classic legacy
of democratic politics. In the context of the Philippines, it is a legacy of what we
have come to know as the American brand of democracy. Generations before the
Americans came to colonize the country after more than three centuries of Spanish
colonization, US democracy had already been an institution in its own right where
elections happened at all levels of government and hence were an institution in
themselves. Through time, a general impression has been created in the minds of
the peoples of different countries that in one way or another have been
substantially influenced by US politics largely through its imperialistic foreign
policies. The Philippines is one of them. In Benedict Anderson’s “Elections in
Southeast Asia,” the author mentions that
National-level elections were introduced in the Philippines by its
American conquerors in 1907. The immediate background for
this innovation was Asia’s first modern revolution, the successful
insurrectionary movement launched in 1896 against Spanish rule
which began in the environs of Manila and later spread through
much of Luzon and tangentially into parts of the Visayas. While
the movement was led largely by small-town notables and
provincial gentry, it also involved widespread participation of the
popular classes, and by women and adolescents, as well as by
adult males. Hence the Americans’ counter-revolutionary
28
intervention required a ruthless military campaign which may
have cost up to a quarter of a million Filipino lives. (Anderson, pp.
272-273)
I would like to believe that the Philippines is the country most influenced by US
politics to the point of actually having been “brainwashed” to think that the single
measure of a democratic political way is the regular holding of elections at all
levels of government. In fact, the general feeling of the adult population segment
when Marcos declared martial law in 1972 was democracy died because no more
elections would be held henceforth. In a sense, there is some theoretical truth to
such a feeling and belief. I myself am prone to believe that theoretically,
involvement in elections is a very concrete manifestation of a people’s actual taste
of democratic life in the politics of a nation. Choosing the leadership of one’s
barangay, municipality, province or country should create in a person a feeling of
importance for being a part of a nation’s political dynamics. If this situation is a
reality, it could be confidently said that democracy is truly alive and well. This is
what we call true people’s power—a political condition where the majority reign
and where they reign, elections are the best channel.
Free elections are certainly not all there is to democracy; but in
every modern nation that is generally called democratic, free
elections are, as they always have been, the basic device that
enables the people to control the rulers. In short: No free
elections, no democracy. (Ranney, p.158)
-II-
It had not been the case in the distant past from the time of primitive communalism
to the time of feudalism. During those days, brute force exercised in warfare, both
internal and external, always with the intent of the powerful to overrun the weak
and characterized by elements of greed, deceit and murderous drives, catapulted
29
leaders of immense power. Those early stages of social development were in a
political climate that bred a highly stratified social context also known as caste
system. The nobility occupied the highest stratum while denizens of less-than-
human recognition inhabited the lowest.
The latter were the farmers and workers who bore the burden of society’s
economic productivity in a situation of exploitation that pushed them to poverty,
hunger, sickness and even death. They were a major factor in sustaining the
economic base of society, yet they were the most dehumanized and disempowered
in terms of political signification. They gave the most of what they could in a
society’s economy, yet they had been pushed to the outer fringes of their society’s
politics and government. In fact, a relevant case in point as we discuss this matter
is the society of the ancient city-state of Athens during the time of the first classical
philosophers. Those who belonged to the lowest rung of the Athenian society were
not even considered citizens. Hence, ancient democracy as it was inaugurated in
Athens during that time was not the democracy we know today.
Later within the same wide temporal scope, political power established through
sheer brute force was sustained by the succeeding generations of immense wealth
of geographic scope characteristic of the magnificent monarchies that ruled the
world. If the caste systems were inaugurated in the earlier generations, they were
strengthened and institutionalized during this period. The advent of true
democracy, its guiding principles and ideals, was yet a distant possibility whose
reality was not even dreamt of by the most idealistic political theorist of the era.
As people in feudal societies of the past realized more and more the value of their
humanity, freedom became an ideal to be pursued for such freedom was the only
way whereby their humanity could authentically be expressed. In the inter-
30
subjective sense, an individual’s freedom was as important and inviolable as any
human being ‘s freedom in a society. This was the germinal seed of what later on
developed into what we now call democracy where individual freedom to be
meaningful in the social context should not only be guaranteed but in the process
should also be subjected to certain principles that will promote general human
welfare and flourishing. In simple terms, we say that the adult populace of a
society, under normal circumstances, is given importance, empowered and granted
certain political responsibilities to make the society healthy, strong, progressive
and dynamic. At this point of modern time, the general will of the people,
regardless of their economic situation in life plays a highly responsible and active
role in politics and the best expression of it should be in the choice of their
leadership through the instrumentality of fair and free elections.
One of the requirements for a free election is what is often called
universal suffrage: that is, the rule that all adults have an equal
opportunity to vote. However, this principle has never been
interpreted to mean that everyone in the community must have
the right to vote. No democratic nation has ever permitted ten-
year-old children to vote and no democratic theorist has ever
called their exclusion undemocratic. Most democratic nations also
exclude aliens, people confined to mental institutions, and
criminals in prison, and a few people think this violates the
principle of universal suffrage. (Ranney, p. 160)
-III-
In the context of the Philippines, the importance of elections is enshrined in the
1987 Constitution being a political right known as the right of suffrage. In Article
V Section 1 of the said charter , we find the following provision:
Suffrage may be exercised by all citizen of the Philippines not
otherwise disqualified by law, who are at least eighteen years of
31
age, and who shall have resided in the Philippines for at least six
months immediately preceding the election. No literacy, property,
or other substantive requirement shall be imposed on the exercise
of suffrage. (The 1987 Philippine Constitution)
Suffrage, however, is more than election. It also includes plebiscite, referendum,
initiative and recall. (cf. de Leon, pp. 144, 145). The agency in the Philippines
constitutionally mandated to oversee, manage and administer elections from the
most basic political unit to the national is the Commission on Elections
(COMELEC). Again, referring to the 1987 Philippine Constitution, the
COMELEC is one of the constitutional commissions along with the Civil Service
Commission and the Commission on Audit.
Constitutional commissions are independent bodies (cf. Article IX Section 1 of the
1987 Constitution).
In the exercise of their powers and functions, they are supreme
within their own sphere and may, therefore, be considered, in that
respect, coordinate and co-equal with the President, Congress,
and the Supreme Court. Like the other organs of the government,
however, their acts are subject to scrutiny by the Supreme Court
on certiorari. (de Leon, p. 273
Regarding the purpose of the COMELEC, de Leon (p. 296) comments:
The purity of elections is one of the fundamental requisites of
popular government. It is obviousl that the sanctity of the ballot
and the free and honest expression of the popular will can best be
protected by an independent office whose sole work is to enforce
laws on elections. The Commission on Elections is organized for
that purpose. The intention is to place it outside the influence of
political parties and the control of the legislative, executive, and
judicial organs of the government. It is an independent
32
administrative tribunal, co-equal with the other departments in
respect to the powers vested in it.
-IV-
However, the kind of democracy we have in the Philippines is simply a semblance
of what we find in truly democratic states. We may have the political structure of
democracy but the cultural orientation of the Filipinos has not been given the
chance to inhabit the inner chambers of such structure. Perhaps the forces that
prevent them to do so are just so strong or the structure itself could be illusory and
hence non-existent. In the political evolution of the Filipino people, they have not
really broken away from their feudal past and they have not really imbibed yet the
democratic way of life. And if democracy in our context is flawed, so are its
instrumentalities as they operate and function in practically all political exercises
we engage in even the elections we have had since the first time they were
experienced by our American-inspired ancestors. Because of our colonial and
feudal past, we presently have a very peculiar kind of political experience where
the essence of such past and the forcible ramming of theoretical democracy of
American design down our throats have not actually found a connecting point of
harmony. This is basically the reason why the Philippines has not achieved yet
political stability and economic strength. The artificial blending of colonial
feudalism and superficial US-brand democracy more aptly termed by the Irish
historiographer Benedict Anderson “cacique democracy” is actually a parody, for
how can feudal lords—even warlords—or “caciques” become politically dominant
in a truly democratic social arrangement? As we have determined earlier, the entire
set-up has totally engulfed the way the instrumentalities of democracy function in
the Philippines to the detriment of the nations economy, government and culture.
33
In the same vein, Philippine elections are therefore as less democratic as they can
be for generally, warlords are the ones calling the political shots in both the
municipal and provincial levels of government. Only those who have “guns, goons
and gold” have the supremacy to run in elections, making every election a contest
of cacique powers. And where do we find the masses? They are simply as
disempowered as they always are—sycophants to candidates or simple nobodies.
In places wallowing in poverty, vote-buying is a common thing and the general
order of the day is, the more money a candidate has, the better are the chances of
winning an election. Besides this, cheating is rampant in all parts of the country
during the conduct of actual elections as well as during the counting of votes. Even
if the major mandate of the COMELEC is to safeguard the sanctity of the ballots
and protect the purity of the electoral process, this mandate has never been
effected. The resonance of violent drives characteristic of ancient power play are,
in fact, still heard in the sounds of gunfire during the heat of campaigns, during the
election proper, even during the post-election period.
Democracy is corrupted in the graft and corruption found in government people
and offices. Hence, we have all the reasons to say that even the political
instrumentalities—and the electoral process is one of them—of a government that
has continually corrupted democracy are themselves tools of corruption and
deception aimed to perpetuate corrupt people in power. Related to this, Anderson
comments:
Naturally enough, the form of electorism introduced [in the
Philippines] was modeled, even if parodically, on America’s own.
It is useful to recall that, in the first decade of the twentieth
century, the United States had arguably the most corrupt form of
electorism among all the industrial powers. Not only were women
excluded from the vote, but so were millions of adult non-white
34
males. Poll taxes and gerrymandering were widespread, to the
benefit of court-house cliques and urban machines. Violence, in
the South and the West, was far more a part of electoral politics
than in advanced Western Europe. Furthermore, the United
States of that era was quite peculiar in the general absence of a
national-level professional bureaucracy, such as had emerged in
Britain, Sweden, Germany, or France. (p.273)
We are therefore not surprised if in reality even the very agency that is mandated to
make elections credible becomes itself an instrument employed by the forces of
corruption and deceit to destroy the very foundation of democracy
REFERENCES
Anderson, Benedict. The Spectre of Comparisons, Nationalism, Southeast Asia,
and the Word. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. 1998, 2004.
De Leon, Hector S. Textbook on the Philippine Constitution (2005 Edition).
Quezon City. Rex Printing Company, Inc. 2005.
Ranney, Austin. Governing: An Introduction to Political Science. Singapore:
Prentice-Hall Pte Ltd. 1999.
35
People Empowerment: The Genuine Variety of It
People empowerment becomes essential only in the context of praxis, i.e.,
theorizing on the basis of experience/practice and making the theory applicable to
experience to test its correctness and usefulness. First and foremost, the true
prophets of people empowerment must therefore be keenly aware of the reality of
widespread disempowerment that has gripped a society or a nation. In this
situation, the call for people empowerment gains the character of genuineness if
and only if these very prophets themselves are the ones who lead movements to
break the fetters of oppression and exploitation that openly manifest gross people-
disempowerment in all levels of social involvement. All other considerations
besides this point become pure and simple propaganda whose true character is
disorienting, deceiving and deteriorating to further disempowerment.
A national leadership who on the one hand has been repeatedly calling for people
empowerment but on the other had has been trying to disempower the social fiber
of a nation by promoting labor exportation and foreign exploitation of local
resources is nothing but a mouthpiece of farcical commitments and false promises
which are attributes of a blatant betrayal of an impoverished people. The call for
people empowerment can never be genuine in a situation where survival is the
game and the rules are for it perpetuation. When the leading option of the people is
still survival beside the hard reality of a downtrodden dignity, people
empowerment is but an unreachable destiny.
Genuine people empowerment is located in a socio-political space where survival
has already been transcended and dignity is what matters most. People are truly
empowered if the decisions and choices they make are expressions of their dignity
36
and not their desperate wish to survive. Genuine people empowerment is truly
manifest if the people do what they do because it is an expression of their highest
principles and not because they are forced by the powers that be to do it and they
are doing it because they do not want to perish. Genuine people empowerment is
the strength of the people’s will to assert their humanness amidst a dehumanizing
situation.
37
ECONOMY
38
39
A Re-Assessment of Certain Aspects of Post-War Philippine
Economy in the Light of the Classic Theories of Economic
Development
Post-war Philippine economy has passed through the rough and circuitous roads of
development conditioned by certain socio-political and cultural factors which have
led to its slow-moving and sluggish pace. Immediately after the country’s
liberation from Japanese occupation (courtesy of the US), the Philippines was
relatively on top of the Southeast Asian (in fact, Asian) economic ladder fir a short
period of time—of course, until Japan finally fully recovered from war devastation
through the inflow of massive US war reparation aid and later the
institutionalization of industrial and commercial presence to stabilize and make
dominant Japan’s economy not only in Asia but even globally. At the point of
Japan’s economic stabilization, the Philippines comfortably found itself in the
second spot which was definitely still highly satisfactory from all angles of
evaluative concern.
The ensuing years saw the initial but painful period of Philippine political
evolution that directly affected the economy as well as the socio-cultural apparatus.
The period was generally characterized by political manipulations that began to
hurt the country’s economic foundation through the exploitative maneuverings of
US hegemony. This factor put in place all conditions which later pulled the
Philippines further down the path of political decadence and more seriously that of
economic retardation. This particular point was concretely shown a few years after
the resolution of the Korean War when the Philippines gradually slipped down the
economic ladder from the place second only to Japan to the third below Malaysia,
40
to the fourth below China, to the fifth below South Korea, to the sixth below
Thailand and to the seventh below Vietnam this time considering that Vietnam had
been literally razed to the ground after the utter devastation it suffered through the
longest and costliest war a country ever experienced in the 20th century. But the
like the proverbial phoenix that rose from the ashes, Vietnam in the 21st century is
indubitably a very stable economic force to reckon with.
Roughly, it is a sober admission of practically all reasonable and level-headed
viewpoints that US hegemony by way of imperialistic programming has a direct
hand in what the Philippines has gone through in its social, political, economic and
even cultural journey as a suffering and struggling people.
It is nevertheless of interesting significance at this point to track down and reflect
on the most prominent phases, features, characteristics and influences of certain
Philippine economic formations through which a clearer and more meaningful
assessment could be effected and advanced. In doing so, a battery of theoretical
formulations and models are readily on hand, giving special credence and
professional assent to the reflection and discussion intended in this paper.
Specifically, the present reflection/discussion is limited to the respective
parameters of classic theories of development as follows; (1) the linear-stages-of-
growth models, (2) theories and patterns of structural change, (3) the international-
dependence revolution, and (4) the neoclassical, free-market counterrevolution.[1]
Towards the end of Todaro and Smith’s Chapter 4 discussion, the present-day
relevance and importance of these models and theories should properly be noted
and explicitly recognized, even reconciled in spite of the differences
You may wonder how consensus could emerge from so much
disagreement. Although it is not implied here that such a
consensus exists today or can indeed ever exist when such sharply
41
conflicting values and ideologies prevail, we do suggest that
something of significance can be gleaned from each of the four
approaches that we have described. For example, the linear-stages
model emphasizes the crucial role that saving and investment
plays in promoting sustainable long-run growth. The Lewis two-
sector model of structural change underlines the importance of
attempting to analyze the many linkages between traditional
agriculture and modern industry, and the empirical research of
Chenery and his associates attempts to document precisely how
economies undergo change while identifying the numeric values of
key economic parameters involved in that process. The thoughts
of international-dependence theorists alerts us to the importance
of the structure and workings of the world economy and the many
ways in which decisions made in the developed world can affect
the lives of millions of people in the developing world. Whether or
not these activities are deliberately designed to maintain
developing nations in a state of dependence is often beside the
point. The fact of their dependence and their vulnerability to key
economic decisions made in the capitals of North America,
Western Europe, or Japan (not to mention those made by the IMF
and the World Bank) forces us to recognize the validity of many
of the propositions of the international-dependence school. The
same applies to arguments regarding the dualistic structures and
the role of ruling elites in the domestic economies of the
developing world.
Although a good deal of conventional neoclassical economic
theory needs to be modified to fit the unique social, institutional,
and structural circumstances of developing nations, there is no
doubt that promoting efficient production and distribution
through a proper, functioning price system is an integral part of
any successful development process. . . .
The Linear-Stages-of-Growth Model
42
The linear-stages-of-growth model is an outgrowth of the Cold War politics of the
1950s and 1960s. It has two successive theories. The first was advanced by the
American economic historian Walt W. Rostow, while the second is the Harrod-
Domar model which injects to the Rostow model “the mobilization of domestic
and foreign savings in order to generate sufficient investment to accelerate
economic growth.”[3] Rostow described “the transition from underdevelopment to
development . . . in terms of a series of steps or stages through which all countries
must proceed.”[4] As cited in Todaro and Smith, Rostow’s opening chapter in The
Stages of Economic Growth mentions of the five categories within one of which
may be identified societies in the economic dimensions where they specifically
belong. These five categories according to Rostow are: (1) the traditional society,
(2) the pre-conditions for take-off into self-sustaining growth, (3) the take-off, (4)
the drive to maturity, and (5) the age of high mass consumption.[5]
In the light of the Rostow growth model, Philippine economy has not even yet
positioned itself on the take-off platform, which is actually the third stage. More
reasonably, it could be surmised that Philippine economy at this point in time is
still located in the “preconditions” stage. Clearly, we have passed the traditional
stage considering that we have all the simulacra of a modern western society in
terms of technological and commercial amenities which are factors that make us
aware of the pre-conditions that will allow us to take off into self-sustaining
growth. However, we as a people in general have not even really experienced yet
the actualities of such pre-conditions in concrete ways. What we only experience
so far is a distant glimpse of the take off. In other words, through the successive
terms of post-war government leaders, we have always said we are almost there
time and again. But in no specific historical moment have we ever been quite there.
There is so much of the features of a capitalist society amidst us in terms of
43
industry and technology but never can we deny the fact that vestiges of traditional
society still linger and forcefully exert an enormous effort to retard social, political
and hence economic formations and mobility. A habitus has actually developed in
the people’s general culture that at the same time has seemingly created a hopeless
domestic situation. Prof. Jose Ma. Sison in this light may therefore be justified to
make the initial assessment that Philippine society in reality is semi-feudal and
semi-colonial. If we look into the intertextuality of the Rostow model’s categories
and Alvin Toffler’s “waves’ profusely discussed in his trilogy.[6] Toffler’s first-
wave or agricultural society is in-between Rostow’s traditional society and the
“pre-conditions” stage which Toffler identifies as the initial formation of the
industrial era. The “take-off” stage of Rostow can hence be figured out in Toffler’s
second-wave of industrial society, because a genuinely economic take-off in the
context of modern Western society may be realized once all the components of
industrialization are in place. The rest of Rostow’s stages are of course the major
conditions to bring about what Toffler calls “the third wave” or “post-industrial”
society in the age of information.
Going back to the discussion of the linear-stages-of-growth model, the Harrod-
Domar variety zeroes into the concrete operationalization of Rostow’s take-off
stage. The Harrod-Domar growth model contends that no take-off may happen
unless there is an actual mobilization of domestic and foreign savings via
investment.
Every economy must save a certain proportion of its national income, if only to
replace worn-out or impaired capital goods (buildings, equipment, and materials)
However, in order to grow new investments representing net additions to the
capital stock are necessary.[7]
44
Basically, Philippine government recognizes this very well as evidence by the
presence of export processing zone areas (EPZAs) in different parts of the country.
The single major problem we find in this state of affairs is the subordinated
location of the Philippines in relation to the more superior foreign investors on the
negotiation table. In other words, the Philippines is always at the mercy of foreign
investors in the face of a “take-it-or-leave-it” implication. Because of massive
unemployment in the domestic scene, Philippine government has naively placed
the country in a situation of utter desperation granting arrogant foreign investors
much leeway to utterly call the shots in negotiations which ultimately lead to the
inauguration of foreign investment entities whose main purveyors are dye-in-the-
wool capitalists armed only with what we know as “portfolio investments.”
The whole situation takes advantage of the country’s cheap labor and available
liquid capitalization provided by domestic banks and the savings of existing local
businesses “recruited” as partners of these foreign investors. The grave downside
of this scenario leads to the downgrading of most of the professional and technical
skills readily available among the locals considering the high-level training and
education that Filipinos have undergone in a variety of specialized fields of
productive endeavors. In relation to portfolio investment, the only investment
carried by a foreign investor is her/his successful performances in her/his country
of origin and/or other places. No liquid capitalization is brought into the country
and the investor relies solely on locally available capitalization. A large percentage
of the profit therefore goes to the foreign investor and very little to the domestic
coffer.
The “tragic” consequence possible in this situation is when the so-called profit of
the investor is not returned to the cycle of the domestic economy but instead
brought out of the country for whatever purpose the investor deems it necessary in
45
favor of her/his selfish interest at the expense of the locally-generated
capitalization which has only accrued very minimal interest.
Todaro and Smith are not ignorant of these consequences:
The main obstacle to or constraint on development, according to
this theory, was the relatively low level of new capital formation in
most poor countries. But if a country wanted to grow at, say, a
rate of 7% per year and if it could not generate savings and
investment at a rate of 21% of national income . . . but could only
manage to save 15%, it could seek to fill this “savings gap” of 6%
through either foreign aid or private foreign investment.
Thus the “capital constraint” stages approach to growth and
development became a rationale and (in terms of cold war
politics) an opportunistic tool for justifying massive transfer s of
capital and technical assistance from the developed to the less
developed nations. It was to be the Marshall Plan all over again,
but this time for the underdeveloped nations of the developing
world.[8]
Further, Todaro and Smith comment:
The Rostow and Harrod-Domar models implicitly assume the
existence of these same attitudes and arrangements in
underdeveloped nations. Yet in many cases they are lacking, as
are complementary factors such as managerial competence,
skilled labor, and the ability to plan and administer a wide
assortment of development projects. But at an even more
fundamental level, the stages theory failed to take into account the
crucial fact that contemporary developing nations are part of a
highly integrated and complex international system in which even
the best and most intelligent development strategies can be
nullified by external forces beyond the countries’ control.[9]
46
Structural-Change Theory
Todaro and Smith Say that “[s]tructural-change theory focuses on the mechanism
by which underdeveloped economies transform their domestic economic structures
from a heavy emphasis on traditional subsistence agriculture to a more modern,
more urbanized and more industrially diverse manufacturing and service
economy.”[10] Philippine economy fits well into this model considering the fact
that Philippine economy is definitely underdeveloped and in its present experience,
there have been efforts in the country to move things up from traditional
subsistence agriculture to at least the level of modernization and urbanization. Two
theoretical approaches are considered in the structural-change model: the Lewis
theory of development and the Chenery “patterns of development” analysis.
The Lewis model assumes that two sectors constitute the underdeveloped
economy: “. . . a traditional, overpopulated rural subsistence sector characterized
by zero marginal labor productivity—a situation that permits Lewis to classify this
as surplus labor in the sense that it can be withdrawn from the agricultural sector
without any loss of output—and a high-productivity modern urban industrial sector
into which labor from the subsistence sector is gradually transferred.”[11] The
Lewis model is therefore after the full realization of high productivity in the sector
of modern urban industry which the model assumes to be the concrete goal of
genuine economic progress in a country. The modern urban industrial sector may
actually expand its productivity via the transfer into it of labor coming from the
rural subsistence agricultural sector. And since the modern industrial sector offers
wages 30% higher than average rural income, the situation becomes very inviting
for traditional agricultural sector workers to leave their rural origin and migrate to
the urban setting.
47
In the Philippine experience, the Lewis model did not yield a more rosy promise of
economic progress as it disempowered the agricultural sector in particular and
hence Philippine economy in general. The urban magnet of “the good life”
precluded the empowerment and stabilization of agricultural productivity which if
genuinely pursued could have provided the foundation for agro-industrialization.
Hence, it would in turn have become the foundation of national industrialization.
The Lewis model creates a lopsided situation in an underdeveloped economy by
way of a polarization of sectors that leaves the agricultural sector a wasteland and
the industrial sector at the mercy of foreign investments, at least in the context of
Philippine experience.
The Lewis model truly enhances capitalist industries in a country which in the final
analysis amounts to the rise of the GNP. But in a capitalist situation, it is only the
capitalists who benefit by way of enormous profits. Hence, the wealth of the nation
as reflected in the GNP does not actually prove “the good life” of individual
families, much less of individual persons in the country because, as it happens in
the Philippines, there has always been an absolutely unequal distribution of wealth.
In this connection, the late Harvard economist Hollis Chenery came up with a
theory that expresses the realization that “increased savings and investment are
perceived . . . as necessary but not sufficient conditions for economic growth.”[12]
This theory is operationalized in the structural-change model which stresses both
domestic and international development constraints. “The domestic ones include
economic constraints such as a country’s resource endowment and its physical and
population size as well as institutional constraints such as government policies and
objectives. International constraints on development include access to external
capital, technology, and international trade. Differences in development level
among developing countries are largely ascribed to these domestic and
48
international constraints. . . . [T]he structural-change model recognizes the fact that
developing countries are part of a highly integrated international system that can
promote (as well as hinder) their development.”[13]
This so-called “highly integrated international system” affirms and provides a solid
foundation of economic analysis and evaluation for the advancement of another
economic development theory expressed in at least three models.
The International-Dependence Theory
Todaro and Smith score the point that “[d]uring the 1970s, international-
dependence models gained increasing support especially among developing-
country intellectuals, as a result of growing disenchantment with both the stages
and structural-change models. While this theory to a large degree went out of favor
during the 1980s and into the 1990s, versions of it have enjoyed a resurgence in the
early years of the twenty-first century, as some of its views have been adopted,
albeit in modified form, by theorists and leaders of the anti-globalization
movement.”[14]
The theory has seen expressions in three models: (1) the neoclassical dependence
model, (2) the false-paradigm model, and (3) the dualistic-development thesis.
The neocolonial dependence model is basically Marxist in its assumptions. “It
attributes the existence and continuance of underdevelopment primarily to the
historical evolution of a highly unequal international capitalist system of rich
country-poor country relationships.”[15]
In the case of the Philippines’ underdeveloped economy, Jose Ma. Sison, in a
lecture delivered at the University of the Philippines (UP) on 15 April 1986
entitled “Historical Roots of the Philippine Crisis,” documents the following:
49
The defeat of the Philippine revolution resulted in the direct colonial rule of
modern imperialism or monopoly capitalism, the highest stage of capitalism, over
the Philippines. Capitalism in the US had advanced from the stage of free
competition in the 19th century to that of monopoly capitalism in the 20th century.
Monopolies had become dominant in the American economy. Bank capital,
traditionally merchant, had merged with industrial capital. US capitalism was
impelled to export not only its surplus commodities but also its surplus capital. In
the competition among capitalist powers, the United States was looking after its
own monopoly interests. Through monopolies, trusts, syndicates, cartels and the
like the United States had moved into a world epoch of intense struggle for
colonial and semi-colonial domination. The struggle for a re-division of the world
among the colonial powers led to war.16]
Todaro and Smith concur thus:
. . . [T]he neo-Marxist, neocolonial view of underdevelopment
attributes a large part of the developing world’s continuing and
worsening poverty to the existence and policies of the industrial
capitalist countries of the Northern Hemisphere and their
extensions in the form of small but powerful elite or comprador
groups in the less developed countries. . . . Revolutionary struggles
or at least major structuring of the world capitalist system are
therefore required to free dependent developing nations from the
direct and indirect economic control of their developed-world and
domestic oppressors.[17]
Again, in the case of the Philippines, Sison further records by way of another
lecture delivered at UP on 22 April 1986 entitled “Crisis of the Neocolonial State”
the confirmation of what has previously been said by Todaro and Smith:
50
Under conditions of much-worsened economic crisis, the political
crisis of the ruling system also worsens to the point of armed
conflict among factions of the ruling classes. The lessening of
economic loot for the factions intensifies their political struggle.
The economic crisis results in widespread social unrest and in the
rise of an armed revolutionary movement. . . [18]
Getting to the second model—the false-paradigm model—of the international-
dependence theory brings us face-to-face with “a less radical international-
dependence approach to development which . . . attributes underdevelopment to
faulty and inappropriate advice provided by well-meaning but often uninformed
biased and ethnocentric international ‘expert’ advisers from developed-country
assistance agencies and multinational donor organizations. These experts offer
sophisticated concepts, elegant theoretical structures, and complex econometric
models of development that often lead to inappropriate or incorrect policies.[19]
Post-war Philippines has seen the proliferation of religiously oriented international
NGOs of American Protestant origin like World Vision, World Relief and World
Concern among others. Non-religious entities of the same intentions allegedly to
support national socio-economic development efforts likewise came in so that the
Philippines has accommodated a myriad of so-called development consultants and
advisers to make the country a better place to live in for its local inhabitants. But
generally, the country has also experienced the reckless implementation of
innumerable development programs and projects based on misplaced, inaccurate
and groundless advices provided by pseudo-experts coming from developed
countries and whose local presence has been made possible by the aforementioned
international development organizations operating in the country.
51
The truth of the matter is none of these international organizations have genuinely
lifted the Philippines from underdevelopment and poverty. In fact, it could be
reasonably opined that what these organizations brought to the country is not true
development but exploitation which has further pulled it deeper hardship and
poverty. More extreme and radical views even claim that development
organizations have been intentionally fielded into the country by agents of US
imperialism to perpetuate in it social, political and economic disempowerment.
Out of this reality came the dualistic development thesis of the international-
dependence theory. Todaro and Smith advance the notion that “[i]mplicit in
structural-change theories and explicit in international-dependence theories is the
notion of a world of dual societies or rich nations and poor nations and, in the
developing countries pockets of wealth within broad areas of poverty. Dualism is a
concept widely discussed in development economics. It represents the existence
and persistence of increasing divergence between rich and poor nations and rich
and poor peoples on various levels.”[20]
Though the models that represent the international-dependence development
theory legitimize the theory itself by way of a reality check, Todaro and Smith
cannot afford to end their discussion of the theory without a very important caveat:
If we are to take dependency theory at its face value, we would
conclude that the best course for developing countries is to
become entangled as little as possible with the developed countries
and instead pursue a policy of autarky, or inwardly directed
development, or at most trade only with other developing
countries. . . . [T]he key to successful development performance is
achieving a careful balance among what government can
successfully accomplish, what the private market system can do,
and what both can best do together.[21]
52
The Neoclassical Counterrevolution: Market Fundamentalism
The neoclassical counterrevolution theory which purveys market fundamentalism
challenges not only the international-dependence theory but more so the exorbitant
government interference with economic activities whose major locus is the market.
The theory is carried out through free markets, public choice and market-friendly
approaches. Todaro and Smith observe that
In developed nations, this counterrevolution favored supply-side macroeconomic
policies, rational expectations theories, and the privatization of public corporations.
In developing countries it called for freer markets and the dismantling of public
ownership, statist planning, and government regulation of economic activities[22]
Further, Todaro and Smith comment that “it is this very state intervention in
economic activity that slows the pace of economic growth. The neoliberals argue
that by permitting competitive free markets to flourish, privatizing state-owned
enterprises, promoting free trade and export expansion, welcoming investors from
developed countries, and eliminating the plethora of government regulations and
price distortion in factor, product and financial markets, both economic efficiency
and economic growth will be stimulated.”[23]
As the neoclassical counterrevolution theory comes out, developing countries like
the Philippines are now in a more definitive position to realize the fact that the
enemy which is exploitative monopoly capitalism is concretely found in the free
markets which are not really free at all but controlled and regulated not by national
government but by the minions and the local agents of monopoly capitalism. In
this light, the call of neoclassical counterrevolution for freer markets and the
dissolution of public ownership, centralized planning and regulated economic
53
activities by government is nothing but a myth meant to deceive in the context of
developing countries where monopoly capitalism can never actually operate unless
there is a conspiratorial agreement between foreign investors and the local
comprador big bourgeois who are enormously, extensively and excessively
supported, represented and promoted by and in the government machineries, both
national and local, of a developing country. Hence, all the theses and approaches
that constitute the neoclassical counterrevolution theory are nothing but bubbles in
the air in the circumstances of developing countries. In fact, it could even be
inferred at this point that this theory has been advanced as an ultimate saving act to
extend the life of monopoly capitalism in its dying moments.
In a developing economy like that of the Philippines characterized by semi-feudal
and semi-colonial condition, Sison rightly observes that “[t]he comprador big
bourgeoisie is the dominant class in the relations of production. It determines the
semi-feudal character of the economy. As the chief trading and financial agent of
US monopoly capitalism, it lords over the commodity system and decides the
system of production and distribution.”[24] Sison further comments that “[u]pon
the behest of US monopoly capitalism and inaccordance with their own class
interest, the comprador big bourgeoisie opposes and prevents the comprehensive
industrialization of the Philippines and shares with the landlord class the fear of
land reform.”[25]
As a parting shot, let this reflection, though “impressionistic” in tone and temper
be a re-affirmation of the international-dependence revolution theory as the only
genuine expression of a realistic analysis and evaluation of the present conditions
and future realizations of developing economies including that of the Philippines.
54
NOTES
[1] Michael P. Todaro and Stephen C. Smith, Economic Development (8th
Edition), (Singapore: Pearson Education South Asia Pte Ltd, 2003), p. 111.
[2] Ibid., pp. 132-133.
[3] Ibid., p. 113.
[4] Ibid., p. 112.
[5] Loc. Cit. From Walt W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-
Communist Manifesto (London: Cambridge University Press, 1960), pp. 1, 3, 4,
and 12.
[6] Cf. Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock (1971), The Third Wave (1981), and
Powershift (1990). All have been published by Bantam Books, New York.
[7] Todaro and Smith, p. 113.
[8] Ibid., p.115.
[9] Ibid., p.116.
[10] Ibid., p.114.
[11] Ibid., pp. 116-117.
[12] Ibid., p. 121.
[13] Ibid., p. 122.
[14] Ibid., p. 123.
[15] Ibid., p.124.
[16] Ruel Pepa and Dennis Paul Guevarra, A Compendium of Readings in
Philippine History: A Critico-Transformative Approach (Quezon City: Trinity
College of Quezon City, 2006), pp. 130-131.
[17] Todaro and Smith, p.124.
[18] Pepa and Guevarra, p. 146.
55
[19] Todaro and Smith, p. 125.
[20] Ibid., p. 126.
[21] Ibid., p. 127.
[22] Ibid., p. 128.
[23] Loc. Cit.
[24] Pepa and Guevarra, p. 139.
[25] Ibid., p. 140.
56
57
A critical look into the crux of Philippine Economic
development vis-a-vis economic planning, deregulation,
privatization and decentralization
Introduction
In the modern socio-political dispensation, national governments have assumed a
direct hand in the economic development of countries as an act of providing order
to endeavors and undertakings that purportedly aim to serve the well-being and
improve the lives of people. It doesn’t however mean that governments have
always been successful in achieving this explicitly pronounced intended purpose.
Tadaro and Smith remark:
National governments have played an important role in the
successful development experiences of the countries in East Asia.
In other parts of the world, including some countries in Africa,
Latin America and the Carribean, and the transition countries,
government appears to have been more of a hindrance to
development than a help, stifling the market rather than
facilitating its role in growth and development.[1]
In developed countries where the broad majority experiences a life of relative
contentment in a situation of economic prosperity, we find a narrow chasm that
separates the rich and the poor. (In fact, “the poor” in a developing—or
underdeveloped—society evokes an understanding different from what the same
concept mean in a developed society.) We can imagine an ideal scenario of
economic productivity generally driven by an enthusiastic group of entrepreneurs
and an army of satisfied proletarians that spontaneously perform collaboratively,
cooperatively and coordinately with less government policy intervention. As we
have said, this is a situation conditioned by economic prosperity and hence social
58
contentment. But on the opposite side, we can also imagine the breaking down of
“the good life” in a comfortably prosperous setting as history reminds us of certain
large-scale economic crises in emerging powers like the US of the early 20th
century when the stock market crash of October 1929 led to the Great Depression
of the 1930s. In the early 1990s, the US experienced another economic setback in
the form of a recession. Another case in point was the economic crisis that hit
South Asia also in the early 1990s heavily damaging the emerging economies of
Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, and, in some ways, Malaysia. This is where we
find government policy intervention reconsidered. The eminent economic guru of
Nobel Prize in Economics fame, John Kenneth Galbraith, comments:
However intervention by the state may be condemned in the age
of contentment, it has been relatively comprehensive when the
interests of the contented are involved and relatively limited when
the problems are those of the poor. In consequence, one may
reasonably conclude that a recession or depression is much less
likely to trigger redemptive government action than in the past.
Intervention to provide employment and alleviate enhanced
poverty and suffering is far less likely than hitherto. The
contented electoral majority is or has been made relatively secure;
it can watch the adversity elsewhere with sympathy but with no
strong call for corrective measures[2]
In this connection, it is at this point deemed important to critically examine the
controversies that surround the relationships between government policy
intervention and private market activities in the economic development process. In
other words, we find the burden of our present concern in the area of realizing the
contextual conditions that properly make relevant private market disposition on the
one hand and government policy dispensation on the other. Todaro and Smith
observe:
59
The problem is one of achieving the proper balance between private markets and
public policy. In early years, a perception of the state as a benevolent supporter of
development held sway, at least implicitly; but the record of corruption, poor
governance, and state captive by vested interests, in so many developing countries
over the past few decades, has made this view untenable as a “positive” or
empirically accurate description of government. More recently, a negative view of
government has predominated, but it too has been based more on theory than fact
and has failed to explain the important and constructive role that the state has
played in many successful development experiences, particularly in East Asia.
Finally, a middle ground is emerging, recognizing both strengths and weaknesses
of public and private roles, and providing a more empirically grounded analysis of
what goes wrong with governance in development and the conditions under which
these flaws can be rectified.[ 3]
A. Economic Planning
Todaro and Smith define economic planning “as a deliberate governmental attempt
to coordinate economic decision making over the long run and to influence, direct,
and in some cases even control the level and growth of a nation’s principal
economic variables (income, consumption, employment, investment, saving,
exports, imports, etc.) to achieve a predetermined set of development objectives.”[
4] In economic planning, it is thus assumed that government plays an indispensable
role to stabilize, normalize, and hence strengthen a country’s economy by
regulating domestic economic activities as well as standardizing economic
programs by way of certain policies intended to protect the general interests of the
general public engaged in both areas of production and consumption. Todaro and
Smith further note:
60
Proponents of economic planning for developing countries argued
that the uncontrolled market economy can, and often does,
subject these nations to economic dualism, fluctuating prices,
unstable markets, and low levels of unemployment. In particular,
they claimed that the market economy is not geared to the
principal operational task of poor countries: mobilizing limited
resources in a way that will bring about the structural change
necessary to stimulate a sustained and balanced growth of the
entire economy. Planning came to be accepted, therefore, as an
essential and pivotal means of guiding and accelerating economic
growth in almost all developing countries.[5]
A myriad studies done in various parts of the world on developing economies
prove head over heels what proponents of economic planning claimed according to
Todaro and Smith. In the case of Philippine economy, it is a somewhat more
complicated matter considering that the Philippine society is basically semi-feudal
and semi colonial whose economy is of mixed character, i.e., a mixed economy
characteristic of a developing country. Mixed economies “are characterized by the
existence of an institutional setting in which some of the productive resources are
privately owned and operated and some are controlled by the public sector.”[6]
Philippine “mixed economy” operates uniquely in a socio-political setting that
renders obsolete the demarcation line separating the private and the public sectors.
Patronage politics has “legitimized” the entire socio-political landscape which is
heavily controlled by the comprador big bourgeoisie and the big bureaucrat
capitalists—the intertwined major economic force that has intensified economic
dualism in the country. In this case, Philippine politics gets under the aegis of
capitalist patrons, on the one hand, and Philippine economy, on the other hand,
gets protected by the bureaucratic demigods. In the lecture “Crisis of the Semi-
Feudal Economy” delivered by Prof. Jose Ma. Sison at the University of the
61
Philippines in Diliman on 18 April 1986, Sison clarifies that “[t]he comprador big
bourgeoisie is the dominant class in the relations of production. It determines the
semi-feudal character of the economy. As the chief trading and financial agent of
US monopoly capitalism, it lords over the commodity system and decides the
system of production and distribution.”[7] The big bureaucrat capitalists, Sison
further says, are “big compradors and big landlords who have stood our as such by
using their public offices, privileges issued by the state, state banks, and state
enterprises to amass private capital and land. In Philippine history, the most
outstanding example of bureaucrat capitalism would be that of the fallen Marcos
regime.”[8] In simple terms, it is not quite inaccurate to say that the Philippine
socio-politico-economic formation is controlled by a conspiratorial powerhouse.
Those in control of the economy are directly or indirectly the same people who call
the political shots at least in the executive and legislative branches of government.
B. Calling for Deregulation?
Given this reality, the ideals of being simply emancipated from severely
burdensome government regulations and control is definitely precluded. Such an
ideal call is actually realized only in a democracy where those who truly control
governance are the sovereign people whose political empowerment cannot be
assailed by an elite block. What we have in the Philippines is a pseudo-democracy,
a semblance or a simulacrum of popular rule wherein the mechanics of a
democratic state are operational but the dynamics are certainly expressive of a
habitus of subservience to the ruling elite. State bureaucrats cannot in whatever
way open an iota of possibility to relinquish its tight grip on the economy and
allow the flowering of high-level competition in domestic and commerce much
less in industrial productivity.
62
But whatever the case maybe, government regulation will always play a necessary
role even in the private markets of a liberally democratic country. Deregulation is
therefore either an imagined alternative of a difficult road to travel on. Galbraith
remarks:
But while government in general has been viewed as a burden, there have been, as
will be seen, significant and costly exceptions from this broad condemnation.
Excluded from criticism, needless to say, have been Social Security, medical care
at higher income levels, from income supports and financial guarantees to
depositors in ill-fated banks and savings and loan enterprises. These are strong
supports to the comfort and security of the contented majority. No one would
dream of attacking them, even marginally, in say electoral contest.[9]
Taking our lessons from the American experience, deregulation in several ways
derailed major economic sectors so that in the fragile economy of a developing
country like the Philippines, no concrete large-scale benefit can be had once we go
the way of deregulation full-speed ahead. Galbraith informs us on how
deregulation failed in US:
Perhaps the worst financial devastation has been the nation’s airlines. Here an ill-
considered deregulation—faith once again in the market in a public-service
industry where utility regulation is normal—has been combined with corporate
raiding and leveraged buyouts on an impressive scale. The results have been heavy
debt, the bankruptcy of several of the larger airlines, the folding up of Eastern
Airlines and of Pan Am, a chaotic muddle of fares and available routes, an inability
to replace aging equipment and, in the end, quite possibly an exploitative
monopoly by the survivors.[10]
Further, Galbraith says:
Then with the age and culture of contentment, there came the new
overriding commitment to laissez faire and the market and the
63
resulting movement toward general deregulation. The commercial
banks, once released from regulation, greatly increased the
interest rates there available to depositors, which meant that if the
similarly deregulated S&Ls were to compete, they would need to
pa higher rates to their depositors. Sadly, however, these
payments would have to be met by the low rates then in place on a
large and passive inventory of earlier mortgage loans.”[11]
In this connection, economic planning and hence government regulation is
reaffirmed at this point buttressed by the realization of the fact that the imperfect
market, like government, fails. Todaro and Smith point out the “three general
forms in which market failure can be observed: The market cannot function
properly or no market exists; the market exists but implies an inefficient allocation
of resources; and the market produces undesirable results as measured by social
objectives other than the allocation of resources. Market failures can occur in
situations in which social costs or benefits differ from the private costs or benefits
of firms or consumers; public goods, externalities, and market power are the best
known examples.”[12]
C. What About Privatization?
We now focus our attention on fully-regulated, wholly-owned and exclusively-
controlled government corporations whose service instrumentalities are aimed to
facilitate the public in terms of power sourcing and distribution, water and sewage
management, transportation conveyances, and communication deliveries. In the
Philippine context certain areas of public facilitation have already been transferred
to private ownership, operation and control.
Generally, the only expressed rationale for the privatization of state-owned public
service facilities is to fully enhance and upgrade the efficiency and effectiveness
64
factors in the delivery of said services to the public. The obvious picture the whole
situation leaves us with is a grossly ineffective, inefficient, mismanaged and
absolutely corrupt government system that in the final analysis is going nowhere
but to the dogs. At the end of the day, no one is the loser except the Filipino people
themselves who have been led to a dark road of confusion and uncertainty because
at this very point of their so-called national life, they have no one to turn to. On the
one hand, government is so inefficient and hence unreliable. In other words, we
cannot expect genuine public service from government whose main interest is
focused largely on the self-gratification of its people. And that is precisely the
reason why government has failed miserably to manage its responsibilities to the
public. In well-managed and highly efficient governments of developed
countries—and this I personally experienced in some Scandinavian countries I
visited—there is an explicit performance of responsible public service in major
state-owned instrumentalities of facilitation like in transportation, communication,
water and sewage management, and power provision.
On the other hand, once public service facilities have been handed over to the
private sector, the people are now faced with monopoly capitalism in operation and
a developing country like the Philippines will inevitably be swallowed by the
mouth of intensifying poverty considering the fact that the privatization of public
service facilities may only be effected in negotiation with well-entrenched
comprador big bourgeoisie in the land. The main concern, therefore, of the owners
of these privatized public service corporations is the classic capitalist objective of
profit-generation through exorbitant service charges to which the people cannot
complain at all.
D. Leveling the Field through Decentralization
65
The late eminent German-turned-British economist and social critic of the 70s,
Ernst F. Schumacher, entitled his bestseller Small is Beautiful. It could be
construed to have created an impetus for big-deal thinkers to reconsider their
vantage point and place more importance on the depth and high-definition
projection of small, specific concerns of human life. So that even on the issue of
social, political, and economic problematizations, both academic and professional
theorists have learnt to value and appreciate the beauty of small things. In a more
serious tone, the whole pattern of movement at this juncture is form the enormity
of central concerns o the specificity of definite locales by way of a decentralized
approach. Decentralization de-complicates—simplifies, in simple terms, of
course—processes with absolutely no details sacrificed. It is a zeroing into definite
issues and concerns that are genuinely meaningful to real people directly affected
in actual contexts. Looking back to economic planning, decentralization simplifies
it and makes it more relevant to the recipients. In connection with deregulation and
privatization, they seem to become insignificant concerns in the face of
decentralization.
Gunnar Myrdal of Asian Drama and Nobel Prize in Economics fame explains
decentralization as “a synonym [of democratic planning] especially in reference to
political self-government within units smaller than the state. The basic idea is that
of organized corporation between people in the same region or locality, or in the
same industry or occupation.”[13] Myrdal beforehand establishes the notion that
decentralization is actually democratic planning which according o him “is a term
that is popular in South Asia. It embraces many ideas, but the most prominent are
the following: First, ‘democratic planning’ is held to mean that planning and the
policies coordinated in the plans should enlist not only the support of the masses
but also their active participation in preparing and implementing planning.
66
Secondly, it is generally held to mean that this popular participation and
cooperation should emerge voluntarily so that state policies can be carried out
without regimentation or coercion.”[14]
Todaro and Smith’s concurrence revitalizes the notion of decentralization even in
the 21st century:
Decentralization has long been a long-term trend in developed
countries. . . . Decentralization has been steadily gaining
momentum in most European countries. . . .
Recently, trends toward decentralization and greater urban self-
government have been growing in the developing world as
democracy has spread in Latin America, East Europe, and
elsewhere, and the political process has allowed for providing
greater autonomy, notably more fiscal autonomy, for regional and
local levels of government. . . .[15]
The entire decentralized situation in governance strongly encourages citizens’
participation in crucial decision-making undertakings which will spontaneously
and ultimately dissolve in time national government’s serious trouble with
deregulation and privatization because a decentralized state of affairs realizes the
demands of either deregulation or privatization. The celebrated futurist John
Naisbitt attests to this as decentralization was actually experienced by Americans
in the early 1980s:
The failure of centralized, top-down solutions has been accompanied by a huge
upsurge in grassroots political activity everywhere in the United States. Some 20
million Americans are now organized around issues of local concern. About 25
percent of the population of any neighborhood in the country say they are members
of a neighborhood group. Neighborhood groups are becoming powerful and
demanding greater participation in decision making.[16]
67
Conclusion
Considering the geographical formation of the Philippines being an archipelago,
decentralization of governance in a decentralized political, administrative, fiscal,
and market sectors is a challenging matter worthy of serious study. On a positive
note, Philippine economic development could truly be a matter of exciting
consideration if reckoned in a decentralized landscape which will ultimately make
obsolete the hegemonic power of “Manila imperialism” and in the process spawn
the seeds of real economic growth in a multiplicity of centers across the
archipelago from Batanes to Sulu.
However, there is no easy road to complete decentralization. What we are faced
with at this point in time is an awful array of difficulties in the realm of culture that
surely hinders us to fully get to the smooth terrain of successful decentralization.
© Ruel F. Pepa
NOTES
[1] Michael P. Todaro and Stephen C. Smith, Economic Development (8th
Edition), (Singapore: Pearson Education South Asia Pte Ltd, 2003), p. 679.
[2] John Kenneth Galbraith, The Culture of Contentment, (New York: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1992), p. 162.
[3] Todaro and Smith, pp. 679-680.
[4] Ibid., p. 681.
[5] Loc. Cit.
[6] Ibid., pp. 681-682.
68
[7] Ruel F. Pepa and Dennis Paul P. Guevarra, A Compendium of Readings in
Philippine History: A Critico-Transformative Approach, (Quezon City: Trinity
College of Quezon City, 2006), p 139.
[8] Ibid., p. 140.
[9] Galbraith, p. 23.
[10] Ibid., pp. 57-58.
[11] Ibid., p. 62.
[12] Todaro and Smith, p. 683.
[13] Gunnar Myrdal, Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations
(Abridged Edition), (New York: Vintage Books, 1971), p. 169.
[14] Ibid., p. 168.
[15] Todaro and Smith, p. 714.
[16] John Naisbitt, Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives
(New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1982, 1984), p. 121.
69
The Socio-Politico-Ecomomic Changes Happening in the
Philippines and their Effects on the Business Organization
The agricultural base of Philippine economy has stunted considerably as its
potentials have obviously been ignored by our country’s leaders and economic
planners. The normal course of development that runs from agriculture to agro-
industrialization to industrialization has not been properly consummated because
the country hastily barged into the periphery of industrialization and has since been
frantically involved in the maintenance of an economy that is not fully industrial
but can best be described as a semblance of industrialization, or perhaps it is
simply “pseudo-industrial.” In the whole process, we have been fully dependent on
foreign investments that have put up assembly plants and factories manufacturing
spare parts whose raw materials are imported. The outputs of these plants are
exported not really for the country to gain revenues but for the foreign investors to
accumulate enormous profits.
What could have actually benefited the country economically is a comprehensive
long-term program for agro-industrialization which would afterwards usher in
authentic industrialization with a national character.
As an aftermath of our present tragedy, many of our fellow countrymen have
become overseas contract workers (OCWs/OFWs). These are Filipinos who could
not hack working locally and be paid a meager income in foreign-funded factories
that have been benefiting from cheap labor. The OFW phenomenon has adversely
affected the social fiber of the Philippines. For every parent who goes abroad to
work, a family may gain economically but the price of such a sacrifice is
tremendously high in terms of the family disintegration it creates. Such
70
disintegration causes problems in the strengthening and empowering of morally
upright personalities in growing children that can only happen in a strong family
context.
In the local scene, exploited labor in foreign-funded factories has not raised the
Filipino standard of economic life a bit higher. Poverty still dominates every nook
and cranny of Philippine society. Amid this situation, the polarization of
government in relation to the people is a reality as the former generally serves the
interest of the exploiters and the latter struggle on a daily basis to make both ends
meet. Most of the middle class, however, in our society have been seen on the side
of the economic exploiters and in the process are, likewise, party to the further
oppression of the poor segment of our society.
Even if the country is said to be benefiting from the technological inventions and
innovations of the post-industrial era inaugurated by highly developed nations, we
are still a poor nation. The trappings of development are actually witnessed only
among the few who constitute the upper, upper-middle, middle and lower-middle
classes in a lopsided economy where the distribution of the nation’s wealth is
unequal.
In conclusion, I would like to believe that the situation of business organization in
the Philippines will continue to be subservient to the demands of foreign interests
and the requirements and policies of a government that has long been a partner
taskmaster of these foreign interests. The basic question at this point in time is still
“Who calls the shots?” However, on the positive side, with all the new
technologies of the Third Wave civilization that we have right in our business
organizational arena, we could at least hope that perhaps such development could
somehow lead us to a more comfortable tomorrow, so that amid all the exploitation
71
and oppression we suffer in an environment of corruption, the information
technology still promises the emancipation of the working class and leads it to a
new dimension of awareness that will ultimately end their woes and misfortunes.
© Ruel F. Pepa
72
73
ECOLOGY
74
75
The Philippines in the Eye of the Fury of Nature’s
Catastrophic Blows
Twenty-five and twenty-six September, 2009, Metro Manila and most of Central
and Southern Luzon got a disastrous whipping from a storm locally given the name
Ondoy. A few days later, came another one—this time named Pepeng—that didn’t
almost want to go away and in the process heavily devastated Northern Luzon. It
was not the last as another followed suit—Quedan. Then, the last which was called
Ramil came rushing down to wreck havoc over the provinces of Cagayan and
Isabela. Hundreds of human lives were lost along with the massive destruction and
ultimate loss of properties worth billions of pesos.
The common and typical response of the religious Filipino to tragedies of such
magnitude brings to mind the notion that God is behind it—that it is a
demonstration of God’s chastisement. But the thinking ones retort with a query:
Why would a God, generally regarded to be full of compassion and pity, punish a
country whose majority of its population have long been suffering in intense
poverty—a people who have long been experiencing the exploitation and
oppression perpetrated by an opportunistic government whose unilateral goal is
solely the enrichment of them who run it as well as their subservient minions? The
truth of the matter is, God—for those who believe in God—did not punish the
Philippines in the calamities that have befallen it. Events like these should have
been seen in the context of Nature. And we Filipinos have long been suffering
because we haven’t actually learned to properly deal with Nature which we, in
reality, cannot resist, fight with and defeat. In other words, we Filipinos, as we deal
with Nature, are a bunch of stubborn and imprudent people. We have never learned
and as time goes on, we have continuously ignored certain undeniable realities.
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And this is the very reason why we have never been able to master the ways of
Nature by way of our intelligence despite our humanity that is supposed to be
uniquely endowed with it. It is one thing to be gifted with intelligence and it is
another to be able to use this intelligence in real life.
First: We Filipinos know that the Philippines is an archipelago amidst the Pacific
Ocean and China Sea. That being the case, the Philippines is storm- and typhoon-
prone, and this we know very well. But the six-million dollar question is why have
we failed to make significant steps to protect ourselves against the constant threat
of storms and typhoons year in and year out? Thousands and thousands of houses
are devastated time and again when storms and typhoons enter the Philippine area
of responsibility. Yet, we have never learned to build houses that can stand the fury
of a storm or a typhoon. (Excluded from this consideration are the people of the
Batanes group of islands because they have learned to cope with the typhoons that
regularly visit them by constructing abodes that cannot be whipped and toppled by
storms and typhoons.) A great number of Filipinos in places visited very often by
storms and typhoons are thick-headed enough to put up their houses right along the
seashore. However, city-dwelling squatters rationalize their poverty to advance the
notion that it is almost next to impossibility for them to construct houses that can
stand the fury of typhoons. The most fundamental question we ask is, Why, in the
first place, are they in the city? They are originally from the provinces and the
most basic decision they should make at this most crucial moment of their lives is
to go back to their respective provinces of origin and restart to make the best of
what they can and transform the farmlands into an immense source of agricultural
bounty.
Second: Cities like the ones in the Metro Manila area get flooded even when there
is no storm or typhoon because of the very grave defects in the drainage system
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that has been malfunctioning since time immemorial. What has caused the defects
and the malfunction? Enormous mountains of garbage whose major sources are the
very localities where there are concentrations of squatters, specifically those found
along the banks of vast rivers (e.g., the Pasig River) that flow towards the sea. The
joke that circulates around is: The drainage system of Metro Manila is so terribly
clogged, it only takes ten dogs to urinate simultaneously and the metropolis gets
instantly flooded. The majority of Manilenos are still ignorant of the fact that the
city of Manila is below sea-level. And despite the succession of administrations
that have run the city government, not a single one has seriously taken yet the
determined initiative to get focused on the city’s drainage system.
Third: Filipino stubbornness is yet an unbroken barrier as none has really critically
considered the risk of putting up houses in places that are actually impossible to be
housing areas like in places made into housing subdivisions in the city of Marikina.
Marikina is a valley—an area surrounded by hills and mountains from which the
waters that flood the city originate. Why, in the first place, does it happen? The
hard reality is: the surrounding mountains have long been denuded forests that
have lost the natural formations to barricade the onrush of waters during heavy
downfalls. In this consideration, the local city government should have constructed
first a series of waterway systems to divert the waters away from the valley before
whatever plan to transform portions of it into housing areas was implemented.
Fourth: Since time immemorial, the utter fear, unqualified stupidity and sheer lack
of principle of many Filipinos located in and proximate to uplands and
mountainous areas have led to an outright neglect of large-scale criminal
operations of illegal loggers under the patronage of unscrupulous politicians to
devastatingly rampage the forests. In many instances, these irresponsible Filipinos
are even “allies” of these wicked politicians and illegal loggers. This is the most
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primary factor why formerly lush mountain forests in the Philippines are now
generally denuded. This, in turn, is the main cause of massive inundations not only
in urban but likewise in rural locales.
Filipinos, often in a condition of mourning due to the ferociousness of calamities
that recurrently hit the country, have not essentially learned their lessons. The
general aftermath consistently creates a scenario of mendicancy where queues of
calamity victims are common as people have become habitually too dependent on
relief goods in evacuation areas where they have been hoarded: A people who
wants to be pitied by the rest of the world.
The most important questions that linger now are these: When will the kairos of
the Filipino be realized as s/he ultimately becomes the master of her/his states of
affairs? When will s/he be able to learn to be in harmony with the motions and
flows of Nature without getting into a futile battle against her for the absolute
reason that Nature is formidable and hence a horrendous adversary? When will be
the ripe and imminent time for the individual Filipino to develop a courageous
disposition to stand on her/his own two feet without depending on the mercy of
others? These are questions that challenge the sanity, intelligence and tenacity of
the individual Filipino. It is of the essence here and now to face the challenge at
hand and put an end to a kind of showbiz mentality of the Filipinos which is the
premier culprit why we have consistently failed to see, analyze, evaluate and act on
the present and real circumstances that have long been besetting us.
© Ruel Pepa December 2009
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EDUCATION
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Philippine Higher Education, Quo Vadis?
I. Intensity in Education: A Dialectical Consideration
Education nowadays as well as the process within it is measured more in terms of
extensity than of intensity. Hence, the more relevant burden of academic
scholarship in the present era is to locate the concrete vantage point where
extensity and intensity may fully be coordinated to effect the realization of the
truly educated individual. The lopsided thrust of education and its required features
focuses more on the superficial in the matter, manner and method that it possesses.
This is in the area of extensity and the problem with the unilateral emphasis on it is
the inadvertent isolation of intensity which capitalizes on depth and quality. At the
end of the road, we find extensively "educated" individuals who are more
particularly interested in the degrees attached to their names than in the essential
depth of what they possess in the intellect.
Thinking aloud, it could be surmised reasonably that despite the presence of an
array of multi-degreed academics, the general landscape of national life is still seen
to be retrogressive and less promising. More realistically, the academe and real life
do not match up and fit well together for what is taught in the academe are matters
so artificial, real life does not need them and real life is so concrete the academe,
replete with abstract notions peddled by "schizophrenic" professors, is just a
superfluous nuisance.
The intensity of education lies in the fact that it should be a realistic reflection—a
committed theorizing—on what is actually experienced in life. It should be a
deeper exploration into the dynamics and mechanics of actual life-events
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interconnected among themselves and constitutive of a system that prevails at a
certain moment of ongoing history. Such education can only lead to a better
understanding not of the theory that expresses the understanding but of the
practical life given interpretation by the theory. In this condition and situation, real
authorities are a common sight and their contribution is not to the growing
statistics of half-cooked doctoral degree holders but to the economic vibrancy,
political stability, social empowerment and cultural intensification.
To be more specific at this point of the discussion, the dialectical notion of
progress that characterizes authentic education as an intense reflection of actual
practices in social life should permeate every process operationalized in it in the
forms or instruction, reseach, and extension. In other words, dialectics operates not
only in terms of extensity but in terms of intensity as components of the entire
system complement each other to achieve a higher level of development.
II. Academic Credibility Getting Lost in the Jungle of Absurdity
This is the most infamous idiocy we now encounter in less-credible Philippine
universities and colleges: academics possessed with the guts to brag their graduate
and/or post-graduate degrees as if these are the end-all of their existence—
unmindful of THE WEIGHTIER SUBSTANCE OF SCHOLARSHIP expected of
the schooling that they spent to get their degrees. This circumstance is further
complicated by bestowing these people with the title “Professor.” On a closer look,
the worst is, almost none of them have actually produced serious writings and
research studies of scholarly worth much less, being quoted and/or cited in
prestigious refereed journals and volumes of deep sophistication.
The eyes of pride and arrogance light up as these pretenders are addressed
“Doctor” or “Professor.” But in reality, their conceit and haughtiness emanate from
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the higher salaries they get by virtue of the academic degrees they boast. They are
the paper tigers of the academe. The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) is
the only institution that recognizes their importance (if they are truly important);
not the more trustworthy scholars and scholarly societies based in more credible
academic locales. No reason is therefore engendered to persuade “the authentics”
to offer lectureship stint to “the pseudos.” The real won’t dare.
This condition in the Philippines has been so rampant and hence alarming. In the
face of this reality, “academic excellence” claimed by most universities and
colleges has gone equivocal and hence meaningless.
III. Basking Under the High-Noon Sun of Hardcore Delusion
Some second-rate private universities and colleges in the Philippines are now
levitating under the magical spell of the Commission on Higher Education’s make-
believe power after these institutions have been granted an autonomous status by
the latter. Hubris is the most appropriate term for the spirit that has possessed
them. A certain type of delusion has overpowered their leaderships in the belief
that they are now in league with the illustrious Ateneo and De La Salle. What a
horrendous hallucination!
The irony of the present circumstances is they are in a state of unequalled “high”
despite the hard reality that they cannot actually lay a solid claim to an array of
distinguished honest-to-goodness scholars from among their stockpiles of
“doctored” degree holders. Ateneo’s and De La Salle’s doctorate degree holders
are authentic scholars who have produced academic outputs of high scholarly
worth published in notable scholarly journals, local and international. Ateneo’s and
De La Salle’s academic scholars have read papers and lectured in prominent
conferences and forums, local and international.
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But the present situation of these mediocre institutions is still salvageable given the
condition that they will soon wake up to reality. Face-to-face with reality, they can
soberly locate themselves right at the place where they can start off: the call to
challenge genuine scholars and the guts to weed out incompetence in their faculty
ranks.
IV. A Postscript for Serious Rumination
The following quote from a letter by a certain Michael Riggs
(http://freeenergynews.com/Directory/Beware/Bearden_Bogus_PhD/#Comment_m
criggs) is worth reflecting as it challenges us to reconsider a lot of misguided
thoughts on higher education:
“While one may not agree with me, the definition of a diploma mill
is an educational facility where one meets minimal, structured,
educational requirements in order to acquire a degree. While I do
not wish to belittle the efforts of those who have gone through the
prescribed educational processes required, by say, the top 100
universities, I would say that based on the end result, our top-rated
universities definitely meet the definition of diploma mills, including
any "top" university you wish to select. Let me explain why I would
say this.
Modern-day academia, (and thus the university system) is an
unbroken loop of self-regulating, self-perpetuating, self-promoting,
ego-centric elitists where the prime qualifications for maintaining
"impeccable credentials" is to hold the faith, retain those concepts
learned by rote, and be able to repeat them as taught. And I'm
supposed to be impressed? Keep in mind, once you attain that Ph.D,
you don't have to accomplish one single thing, and you don't have to
make any contribution in understanding our world in order to be
considered one of the establishment elite. Within academia, it is
sufficient to theorize some minor facet of a known and familiar
science, do some tests, document the same, and then,( and this is the
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key element,) do whatever it takes to get your results published.
After all, publication to physicists and scientists is the ultimate goal.
Never mind that your obscure work will never be read, never mind
that your determinations are meaningless. Just get published. Ride
the current and don't make waves. And this approach is meaningful
and superior?
The only thing that should matter to anyone is the end result. The
result of our newly graduating Ph.D's is that they have the basics,
but until one may contribute to our collective knowledge, or
successfully accomplish a breakthrough, then all they have done is
spend time in a specified regimen.
Our current educational system is stagnant, and is turning out
stagnancy. That is why we are doing the same old things with
brighter, newer equipment.”
© Ruel F. Pepa, May 2010
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