An Anarchy of Families

An Anarchy of Families is a book of essays about the political families who rule the Philippines. Compiled by historian Alfred McCoy this book attempts to peer behind the doors of the cutthroat and warring oligarchs who run the show in this country.

An Anarchy of Families

I have not read this book but I have read the preface which is available online. Click the link under the cover to read it yourself. In the span of 16 pages Professor McCoy gives a brief overview of the families who dominate the country and how they were able to amass vast amounts of wealth and power. How did this happen? By controlling rents which allowed them to gain a monopoly on certain markets.

From the extant literature on the Philippine state, two key elements seem to have contributed most directly to the formation of these powerful political families: the rise of “rents” as a significant share of the nation’s economy and the emergence of the independent Republic as a problematic postcolonial state. Simply put, rents—restrictive state licenses that allow holders to gain a monopoly or oligopoly over a particular market—have served to strengthen a few fortunate families at the expense of both economic growth and government revenues. As John Sidel put it so succinctly, “State formation in the Philippines . . . permitted the survival of private, personal control over the instruments of coercion and taxation.” 

Professor McCoy writes that the United States' introduction of electoral democracy

created a new class of provincial politicians and a national legislature that opened state resources for privatization by established and emerging families, which knitted themselves, during the middle decades of the twentieth century, into a national oligarchy.

He also posits that a weak central state has contributed to the oligarchs ability to plunder the country with impunity.

Surveying the nations of Southeast Asia for a point of comparison, the Philippines combines four aspects in ways that others do not—rival elite families, a weak central state, a hybrid capitalism, and a protracted experience of elections. Although the Philippines has had powerful elites for over two centuries, it has never enjoyed the aristocratic lineage or bureaucratic support found elsewhere in Southeast Asia—introducing an element of conflict, even volatility, into this continuity. In contrast to Thailand’s strong monarchy or Indonesia’s bureaucratic elites, the Philippine state has remained weak and incapable of controlling the powerful families that plunder its assets, rule its provinces, and contend for control of national politics.

After discussing the historical origins of the oligarchy through the decades prior to and after the establishment of independence Professor McCoy turns his pen to the post-Marcos era and the election of Cory Aquino. He characterises the Republic before Marcos as relying on the three G's of guns, gold, and goons while crony capitalism was the main feature during the Marcos regime.  The forces which have dominated the post-Marcos era he terms as the four C's continuity, criminality, Chinese, and celebrity.

Professor McCoy writes that the presidency of Cory Aquino, despite the mandate of change, was only a continuation of the oligarchy.

The element of elite continuity was soon evident in the administration of Marcos’s rival and successor, Cory Aquino. Amid the high political drama of Marcos’s flight into exile, President Aquino took power in February 1986 with contradictory political agendas—a mandate for change and a personal plan for restoring the status quo ante Marcos. Mindful of the abuses of the Marcos era, Aquino’s Constitutional Commission adopted articles designed to break, for all time, the influence of “political dynasties” through both universal term limits and a specific prohibition on relatives “within the fourth civil degree of the President” holding any public office. 

Despite these aspirations, in her first year as president Aquino restored both provincial dynasties to political office and Manila’s oligarchs to control of leading corporations. During her presidency, the media, ignoring her elite background, made much of her rise from housewife to chief executive. Born in 1933 into the powerful Cojuangco family, Corazon Cojuangco led a secluded life at religious schools until 1954 when she married Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr., scion of the rival political family in her home province of Tarlac. Showing the significance of his union, President Ramon Magsaysay was principal sponsor at their wedding mass and Salvador “Doy” Laurel, the groom’s closest friend and the bride’s future vice president, was veil sponsor. From her father, Cory inherited both substantial wealth and provincial power. From her husband she acquired the aura of associa- tion with the nation’s most charismatic leader. Through these family ties, she was related to nine other oligarchic families, including the Antonio Cojuangcos, who owned the nation’s telephone monopoly; the Yabuts, who dominated Makati City; the Tanjuatcos, who combined an industrial conglomerate with political office; and the Oretas, who fused real estate dealing and local politics in suburban Malabon.

That a housewife named Cory should move into Malacañang Palace was remarkable. That a Cojuangco married to an Aquino should become president was not. 

During her term not only were many elite families restored to power in Congress but Aquino also restored corporations to the old oligarchy many of whom where her family and friends.

More broadly, by the end of Aquino’s term in 1992 the restored Congress was virtual congeries of elite families, with 32 percent of the representatives children of established politicians and 15 percent “third- or fourth-generation politicians.”

Paralleling this restoration of elite families, President Aquino returned expropriated corporations to Manila’s old oligarchy—many of them relatives, classmates, compadres, and close friends. To cite the best-known example, the Lopez family, which had suffered exile, expropriation, and imprisonment under martial law, flew back to Manila after Marcos’s fall to reclaim its corporations—the Manila Electrical Company (Meralco), the Manila Chronicle, and TV Channel 2. In the struggle between a dictator and a single family, the family had survived and the dictator had not, an indication of how deeply this oligarchy is embedded in Philippine society.

Discussing crime he says the criminal syndicates made

Manila a metropolis, akin to Shanghai in the 1930s or Havana in the 1950s, where criminal bosses exercised enormous influence.

The police protected the illegal juenteng lottery which raked in billions and filled the pockets of many politicians giving crime bosses considerable influence and direct access to the President during the terms of Estrada and Arroyo.

Moving onto the Chinese he says

Manila’s Chinese emerged in the post–Marcos era as powerful entrepreneurs who had a pressing need to become involved, for the first time, in Philippine politics.

McCoy discusses the ascendancy of the Chinese in business and concludes by surmising that their influence will only continue to grow through intermarriage with Filipino oligarchical families.

It his discussion of the last C, celebrity, that is most poignant especially considering the trajectory Philippine politics has taken in the decade since this preface was written in 2009.

With the weakening of patronage networks, national elections have become more genuine expressions of the popular will, allowing pop culture icons to parlay their celebrity into successful campaigns for both the Senate and the presidency. Just as land, lineage, and erudition were once credentials for joining the national elite, so now a good jump shot or a telegenic personality seems to be an equally valid qualification. 

Once a forum for statesman distinguished in law and politics, the Senate, elected nationally, has become a collection of basketball players, television personalities, movie stars, and failed coup plotters. During the 1990s, two former basketball stars, Freddie Webb and Robert Jaworski, were elected to the Senate solely on name recognition in this hoop-crazed nation. By 2008, six among the twenty-four senators had won office through celebrity—three as former film and television stars (Loren Legarda, Lito Lapid, and Ramon Revilla, Jr.) and three for notoriety in their military service (Gregorio Honasan, Panfilo Lacson, and Antonio Trillanes IV). Similarly, in 1998 Joseph Estrada was the first, though probably not the last, movie star elected to the presidency. Indeed, only three years after his ouster the action star Fernando “Ronnie” Poe, Jr., challenged Gloria Arroyo for the presidency and might well have won without the systematic fraud that assured her reelection. 

Ultimately, the blending of crime and celebrity in ways seemingly ephemeral yet somehow substantial is slowly changing the country’s political culture and the character of its ruling elite. Just as the once august Senate has become an odd collection of criminals, media celebrities, sports stars, and coup plotters, so the presidential palace has lost its luster. In an earlier generation, the ambitious used celebrity to gain access to the presidential palace, but now some would use the palace to achieve celebrity. While President Cory Aquino held office with the propriety and privacy that marked the old elite, her daughter made the palace a stage on which shed her identity as Ms. Kristina Bernadette Cojuangco Aquino and become instead “Kris Aquino”—the star of blood-soaked slasher films, the queen of gossip on daytime TV, and the object of fan-magazine fascination for her succession of steamy affairs with basketball players and action stars, replete with sexually transmitted disease, encounter sex, and babies legitimate or illegitimate. 

Through the sum of such change, the oligarchy is no longer comprised of austere aristocrats such as Manuel Elizalde, Sr., Oscar Ledesma, or Eugenio Lopez, Sr., and is instead becoming an eclectic collection of gambling bosses, media stars, smugglers, telecom rent seekers, real estate wheeler-dealers, and Chinese taipans. It is by no means clear whether this changing elite is a manifestation of dynamism akin to, say, that of India or instability comparable to, say, that of Colombia. 

He concludes by noting the dynamic nature of the Filipino oligarchy which is always adapting in a bid to retain their hold on power.

In conclusion, there can be no conclusion to the ever-changing history of such a dynamic social stratum. Looking back over the past two hundred years, the Filipino elite, both provincial dynasties and the national oligarchy, has changed con- stantly in both composition and character. Looking forward twenty years, it seems likely that this oligarchy will adapt to maintain its sole defining attribute— the continuity of control over the Philippine economy and society. 

The persistence of oligarchic power is, moreover, made possible by both negative and positive factors, that is, not only the active pursuit of power by elite families but also the relative weakness of countervailing social forces. Instead of insulating the state from oligarchic influence, the judiciary is often compromised by corruption or political pressure. Adding to the oligarchy’s political influence, the traditional role of the middle class as an insulating factor between the elite and the masses has been diminished by a complex of socioeconomic forces.

McCoy also notes that the oligarchy has ultimately done very little for the common people.

Confusing charity with philanthropy, the country’s oligarchy has failed to transfer significant capital to the public sector in ways that would create educational and cultural institutions accessible to the middle class. While America’s Gilded Age industrialists, for example, cleansed their money by means of philanthropy, building public libraries and private universities, the Filipino oligarchs have not developed the habit, producing relatively small public institutions incapable of sustaining a larger, more lively middle class. Many members of the elite publicize their generosity in granting a few scholarships, Teodoro Yangco in an earlier era, Lucio Tan today. But this is an insignificant share of their assets, far from real philanthropy.

McCoy's analysis and conclusions are compelling especially in the light of what we read in the newspapers every day. Legarda, Revilla, and Lapid, who are named above as having won seats in the Senate because of their celebrity, have recently returned to the Senate on that same basis. Lapid being a star of Ang Probinsyano and Revilla being acquitted of plunder only to dance on TV to the delight of the masses. Panfilo Lacson, who is a man not without controversy, is also back in the Senate which only serves to prove the Senate is a revolving door of twelve years in, three years out, repeat.

The current Senate also has a comedian, Tito Sotto, as its President. With boxer Manny Pacquiao moving easily from sports star to Representative to Senator it would not be a surprise if he landed the Presidency. Duterte has vouched for him in that role.

Aside from celebrities cronies of the President have also made it into the Senate most notably Bato and Go both who ran and were elected solely because of their connection to Duterte. Surprisingly though the oligarchy did see a shake up when Osmeña in Cebu, Estrada in Manila, and Eusebio in Pasig City all lost their seats to newcomers though Sotto, who won in Pasig, comes from a long established political family.

For all his attempts to make himself appear to be a common man President Duterte comes from a political family as well. Vicente Duterte, his father, was Governor of Davao from 1959-1965.  The Duterte children are following in the family tradition with daughter Sara being Mayor of Davao and son Paolo now a member of the House. There are many who hope Sara will follow her father into the Presidency.

For all the hate they receive from the people political dynasties are too deeply entrenched to ever be pried apart from the Philippine political system. This list of families proves just how true that is. Is it any wonder that a law banning dynasties continues to be dead in the water?