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INSIGHTS AND ILLUSIONS In Philippine Politics, Economy, Ecology and Education

by

Ruel F. Pepa, Ph.D.

Published by

Zetetics Reseach Center for Asia

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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

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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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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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. . . .”

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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”

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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

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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. . .”

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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.”

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

76

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