By Diego Morra
Philippine politics is money politics. It is the politics of the principalia that worked hand-in-glove with the Spanish colonial rulers and whose members became landlords commanding the loyalty of the serfs (even as Spain abolished slavery) that comprised their private army. This principalia, to which the likes of Emilio Aguinaldo and his generals belonged, shifted loyalty to the Americans after the bogus “Battle of Manila.”
The generals automatically became landlords in Nueva Ecija, taking over thousands of hectares of land as “backpay” for their “revolutionary service.” Thus, the talk about Aguinaldo seeking 10,000 hectares of land from the US as compensation persists. In fact, at least three towns in Nueva Ecija were renamed in honor of Aguinaldo generals—Llanera, Natividad and Tinio—despite the fact that majority of the battles won in the province were due to the bravery of Tagalog farmers and the Ilocano, Ifugao, Kankanaey and Aeta warriors. They liberated Bongabon, Gapan and a number of places where the Guardias Civil fled for their lives. Indeed, the ilustrados and members of the principalia were the officers but the fighters who won battles were plebeians.
From the Americans, the members of the principalia got schooled on the “proper” use of taxes and the crafting of the budget with pork barrel (from the barrels laden with pork fat and beef tallow, or the salted bacalao of the Spaniards), which the American politicians introduced in 1920. Indeed, Philippine politics was overdetermined by the control of local landlords who were transformed into vassals in the principalia, the feudal system inflicted by Iberian bosses and the heartless accumulation by American capitalists on the pretext of “benevolent assimilation.” The landlord class in the US possessed political power and they never contemplated on emancipating the very source of their wealth—the Blacks—all snatched from Africa as 75% draft animals and 25% human beings. Indeed, the Civil War was about “liberating” the Blacks from the cotton fields of the South to become workers in the industrialized North.
Politics is money and the rule of the filthy lucre has been scandalously enshrined in America by the Citizen United decision of the US Supreme Court (SC) in 2010, which declared that corporations have rights just like American citizens, and it can donate as it pleases to any politician, any cause they deem just and any candidate who supports corporate profiteering, dismantles regulations and throw environmental rules down the nearest landfill. This explains why spending billions for the candidacy of the mindless Donald Trump was necessary since he representatives the worst corporate scoundrel the planet has ever seen. As it is in the US, so must it be in these shores. Here, what used to be the anchors of the two-party system—the Liberals and Nacionalistas—are not the same political parties that were organized to take over the government as the Americans granted the country “independence” while enjoying national treatment under the parity rights.
Now, three “political parties” exist—the Nacionalista, the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) and the National Unity Party (NUP.) The PDP is still a contested organization, with Sen. Kokoy Pimentel questioning how the party that his father, the late Senate President Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel, organized during martial and nurtured for decades. PDP is still embroiled in a legal dispute and Pimentel hopes the Supreme Court (SC) would simply toss the validity of the claim that the Dutertes now have a franchise over the party. The Alyansa pasa sa Bagong Pilipinas (ABP) is not a party but a queer alliance designed as a vehicle for the disparate elements that Ferdinand Marcos Jr. recruited to fill up his senatorial slate.
The NP, NUC and NPC are the parties of plutocrats. NP is owned by the billionaire Manny Villar, which Forbes claimed to be the country’s richest man on the basis of overvalued landholdings and myriad forms of assets that are largely idle, as well as his control of 134 water districts out of about 500 such districts nationwide through PrimeWater, a company that has been condemned in Cavite, Bulacan, Bacolod, Quezon, Laguna and other provinces for bad service. While the water districts in PrimeWater joint ventures have been losing money, PrimeWater, now tagged as CrimeWater by critics, has been raking in billions. Guess who paved the way for these joint ventures? Villar’s son, Mark, now a senator, headed the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) that supervised the water districts during Duterte administration.
The International Observers’ Mission (IOM) of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) noted that Villar has made no bones about consuming desire to expand his wealth while his wife, son and daughter are in Congress, ready, willing and committed to push the dynastic family’s interest above all else, never mind the criminal culpability of PrimeWater in failing to deliver safe water at all times to millions of consumers in their service areas or persistent reports about their takeover of areas covered by agrarian reform, including irrigated land in Iloilo. The Villars are also on the carpet for developing subdivisions with 1-1/2 lane roads while their employees have been grumbling about low pay. The NPC and NUP fare no better as they are controlled by plutocrats.
Ramon Ang is the power behind the NPC and is the head honcho of San Miguel Corp. (SMC), which he inherited from his boss, the late business tycoon Eduardo Cojuangco. Ang is known in the Cojuangco household as the excellent mechanic who maintained the luxury cars of Cojuangco in tip-top shape when he fled following the ouster of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986. Ang now controls the NAIA through a management deal of the airport but he has failed to make MRT-7 run as right-of-way (ROW) issues hobble the project while the SMC enclave in Bulakan, Bulacan still has to complete its airport and racetrack for Ferraris in the enclave. Ang is supposed to be the white knight for the Philippine Daily Inquirer but he also abandoned CNN Philippines. NUP is the preserve of Ricky Razon, who is said to have Bongbong’s ear, controls the Malampaya oilfield, Manila Water and a number of Bloomberry and Solaire casinos aside from International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI) that has numerous port management operations worldwide. He has taken over a casino and golf course in South Africa and numerous investments overseas. The head of Maharlika Investment Corp. (MIC), Joel Consing, which manages the country’s sovereign wealth fund (SWF), used to work for Razon. #
