New Left Review I/169, May-June 1988

BENEDICT ANDERSON
CACIQUE DEMOCRACY IN THE PHILIPPINES: ORIGINS AND DREAMS
About this time last year, President Corazon Aquino told a most instructive
lie. Addressing the Filipino-Chinese Federated Chambers of Commerce on 9
March 1987, she described her appearance before them as a homecoming,
since her great-grandfather had been a poor immigrant from southeast
Chinas Fukien province. [1] Doubtless her desperate needgiven the
Philippines near-bankrupt economy and $28 billion external debt [2] to
inspire feelings of solidarity and confidence among a powerful segment of
Manilas business class made some embroidery understandable. But the
truth is that the President, born Corazon Cojuangco, is a member of one of
the wealthiest and most powerful dynasties within the Filipino oligarchy. Her
grandfather, putative son of the penniless immigrant, was Don Melecio
Cojuangco, born in Malolos, Central Luzon in 1871. A graduate of the
Dominicans Colegio de San Juan de Letran and the Escuela Normal, and a
prominent agricultor (i.e. hacendado) in the province of Tarlac, he was, in
1907, at the age of 36, elected to the Philippine Assembly, the quasilegislature established by the American imperialists in that year. [3] One of
his sons (Corazons uncle) became Governor of Tarlac in 1941, another (her
father, Don Jos) its most prominent Congressman. In 1967, one of his
grandsons (her cousin), Eduardo Danding Cojuangco, became Governor of
Tarlac with Ferdinand Marcoss backing, and went on to count among the
most notorious of the Marcos cronies. Another grandson (her younger
brother), Jos Peping Cojuangco, was in those days one of Tarlacs
Congressmen, and is today again a Congressmanand one of the halfdozen
most powerful politicians in the country. Her marriage to Benigno Aquino, Jr.,
at various periods Governor of Tarlac and Senator, linked her to another key
dynasty of Central Luzon. Benigno Aquino, Sr., had been a Senator in the late
American era and won lasting notoriety for his active collaboration with the
Japanese Occupation regime. At the present time, one of her brothers-in-law,
Agapito Butz Aquino, is a Senator, and another, Paul, the head of Lakas ng
Bansa (one of the three main parties in her electoral coalition); an uncle-inlaw, Herminio Aquino, is a Congressman, as are Emigdio Ding Tanjuatco
(cousin), and Teresita Aquino-Oreta (sister-in-law). [4] A maternal uncle,
Francisco Komong Sumulong, is majority floor-leader of the House of
Representatives. Nor was Corazon herself, on becoming President, quite the
simple housewife of her election broadsheets. For thirteen years she had

served as treasurer of the Cojuangco family holding company, which controls

a vast financial, agricultural, and urban real estate empire. [5]

The cacique in our midst

The cacique mentality manifests itself in the civil bureaucracy. The pretense
at being pro-poor while actually using them for narrow personal and partisan
interests poisons our politics.
Sylvia Estrada Claudio
Published 10:00 AM, September 01, 2014
Updated 10:39 PM, September 14, 2014
1
257
Twitter
Reddit
Email
257

Benedict Anderson, in a 1988 article in the New Left Review titled, Cacique
Democracy in the Philippines: Origins and Dreams, talked about how
Philippine state power was, and still is, captured by the feudal elite. The
article predicted much of our disappointments with our government since the
People Power Revolution. Anderson traced the historical roots of elite rule

and noted that the People Power Revolution still ended up with the elite
capture of state power.
Cacique, originally a Spanish word for tribal chieftains, took on a particular
connotation during colonial times. These indigenous chiefs were coopted by
the Spanish to serve as their local overseers. These coopted local elites were
subservient to the Spanish but imperious towards the rest of the native
population. As Anderson notes they became the feudal lords upon the defeat
of Spanish colonialism in the Philippines.
However, while Anderson talked about a history of economic policies meant
only to benefit the elite, we are seeing the bad effect of cacique elitism in
the everyday conduct of society. We see it all the time. People who think that
the ultimate accoutrement of wealth and power is to stop caring about those
who have less while demanding subservience of them.
Even those who come from the poor take on this attitude once they have
made it to the top. Also, wealth and power can be quite relative. In this
extremely hierarchical society, the lower middle class can behave like
caciques, treating their poorer cousins badly.
Cheap copies
Private citizens can be left to their own evil ways as long as they don't
actually abuse people. At best they can be accused of poor taste. After all, if
they insist on pretending they are royalty, they may as well read up on
noblesse oblige. At worse, their reputations will suffer when their employees
begin talking about their unkind and niggardly ways.
Janet Lim Napoles' is a case in point. Rising from the ranks of the lower
middle class, she amassed billions by helping politicians steal the people's
money. With so much money she could now become her true self. And that
true self was expressed in the tasteless materialism of her baby girl, Jeanne.
In contrast she made her staff at JLN Enterprises, some of them her relatives,
work long hours for minimal pay, considering the unseemly amounts they
were earning by stealing.
That is perhaps what those who had wealth and power above her had done
to her when she was on her way up. She was merely mimicking what she
knows of how the wealthy and powerful behave in this country. She was
asking of her inferiors to behave like she had when she was also poor and
powerless. Notice how even now, her staff call her Madam, while detailing
her very uncouth and unladylike thievery.

But this distancing from the poor and the expectation that they will serve,
does its greatest damage when it manifests itself in the civil bureaucracy and
in those professions asked to serve the general public. Here the egregious
pretense that they serve the people whom they actually think should serve
them, leads to maldevelopment and threatens our democracy. Here, the
pretense at being pro-poor while actually using them for narrow personal and
partisan interests poisons our politics.
Indeed the cacique mentality invades even our social institutions. This
rhetoric of being Christian and yet being unable to heed Christ's message,
That which you do unto the least of my brethren you do unto me, threatens
the religious life of our people.
Crude populism
We saw this in the Estrada presidency when Erap Para Sa Mahirap (Your pal
is for the poor) was deployed to paint then candidate Joseph Estrada as one
of the poor, derided by his wealthy enemies who were elitist. In truth, he was
the errant son of a doctor who did not take full advantage of the
opportunities given him to become a better person.
Recently, Senator Nancy Binay played the same populist card when she said
of her father's detractors, Alam naman nilang maitim na kami, e gusto pa
nila kaming tustahin. (They already know we are dark skinned and still they
want to put us in the toaster.) Sounds wonderful until you recall how
imperious she and her brother were to the guards in Dasmarias.
At the very least we can tip our hats to the Binay publicists and to the Binay
ability to obey the propaganda advice. How endearing are those claims
about having our first black Vice President. How not endearing is this crude
invocation of class war for their political interests.
MRT challenge
And now, we have all the heat generated by the challenge issued by netizens
for transportation officials to ride our trains. This, to me, is a duh moment.
You mean to say that those in charge of the trains don't even know what
conditions are like for those who ride it? It is one thing to be given the
privilege of the busy executive, another to allow those privileges to make
you uncaring about the people you are supposed to be serving.
The saddest thing of all is that, Department of Transportation and
Communications Secretary Joseph Abaya took the challenge and failed. He
failed the challenge because he took the train in mid-afternoon and not

during rush hour. He stayed in the less crowded first cabin for 30 minutes. He
was accompanied by the manager of the MRT and did not have to stand in
line just to buy a ticket. Worse, newspaper reports have him wondering what
the fuss about the congested trains was all about.
Secretary Abaya case makes an interesting point regarding our cacique
governance, actually. Before this I knew only one thing about him. I was told
that he was one of the few members of the House of Representatives whose
stance against the RH Bill was respected even by our RH champions. He had
read the bill, understood the issues and had taken his stand not because he
was playing to the bishops. He also seemed to have a reputation for honesty.
My point is that the scourge that is our feudal culture is structural. It goes
beyond well-meaning individuals like Secretary Abaya. How many times have
we heard of progressives, nay even communists, living relatively privileged
lives?
Woe to the ordinary citizen
In barrios and towns across the country we find priests, allegedly the
servants of God, living in opulence and expecting service from the people
they are supposed to serve. In most of these parishes, poverty levels can be
very high and the priest's life of privilege is taken from the wages of the poor
or charity better spent for the poor.
In shops, airplanes, banks and offices everywhere the poor are treated with
disdain by the people who are supposed to treat them with a semblance of
caring. I have watched flight attendants patronize the poor OFW nanny they
had to serve, bank clerks deal sternly with the itinerant vendor wanting to
change money, government workers lose their temper with the ordinary
citizen.
Cacique mentality has a long history from the time of Spanish colonialization,
as Anderson and other scholars have documented. It goes back to a time
friars and carpetbaggers came to the country to control its wealth. That
colonial exercise taught us that merit and righteousness was not rewarded
by power and wealth. Power and wealth kept power and wealth to itself.
Obeisance was rewarded and standing up for oneself was punished severely.
The problem continues as our country attempts to become a democracy
even as it is burdened by the continuation of feudal relations because land
reform remains an unfulfilled dream. The elite remain firmly in control of
government and their children, whether deserving or not, take over from

their mother or father or brother. Power and wealth rather than merit are the
basis for more power and wealth.
On the other hand, the disempowered continue in habits of subservience.
They hope each day to find public servants who are kind, or seek someone
they know in the bureaucracy who they know. They hardly expect that in a
democracy, kindness should be the attitude of every public servant, at every
level, towards each and every citizen.
Seeds of reform
And, in truth, there are indeed public servants who are kind to each and
every citizen that comes their way. We have numerous examples of poor
people who learn from their marginalization and acquire the habits of
solidarity. We see members of our upper class become true servants: doctors
who uphold the dignity of the poorest of their patients; religious who live
their vow of poverty; government officials who serve with utmost respect,
especially those among their constituents who are most dispossessed. And
we have those among government whose executive privileges do not stop
them from having that basic human empathy that is the true source of
democracy.
There are also citizens, like those who issued the challenge to Secretary
Abaya and those who were incensed by the Dasmarias incident. Perhaps
many of these are the same ones who dignify every person they see with
kindness.
I would not underestimate the power of these people and their small and
disparate actions. They are the holders of a true counter-culture of
democratic social relations. Such people and their actions serve as yet
another important element in the struggle for social reform and genuine
democracy that will not be won by our leaders, but rather, by an engaged
citizenry. - Rappler.com
Sylvia Estrada-Claudio is a doctor of medicine who also holds a PhD in
Psychology. She is Professor of the Department of Women and Development
Studies, College of Social Work and Community Development, University of
the Philippines. She is also co-founder and Chair of the Board of Likhaan
Center for Women's Health.

BEGINNINGS OF OUR "CACIQUE DEMOCRACY" aka "ELITE DEMOCRACY"

"The ruling elites know who their enemies are, and their enemies are the
people, the people at home and the people abroad. Their enemies are
anybody who wants more social justice, anybody who wants to use
the surplus value of society for social needs rather than for individual
class greed, that's their enemy."
Michael Parenti, (1933-present)
Hi All,

The continuing past of mass generational poverty with its dire

consequences to the native Filipino majority is perpetuated by this
historically recurring merger of the ruling class and ruling elite.
Overall, generations of underdevelopment and even regression in recent
decades have been our national predicament.
Further deterioration in the quality of our Filipino kind of politics came
with the:
influx of a new breed of incompetents who glibly talked, fooled or
bought the votes to join the ranks of the ruling elite, thanks to their
manipulation of the illiterate and impoverished native Filipino majority;

influx of new breed of competents but emulating the existent

ruling elite, and

the ostrich-like "head-in-the-sand" mentality, attitude and

behavior of our so-called educated --the dwindling native Filipino middle
class which seems to be characterized by "I am OK, I do not care if you are
not OK" and probably planning, linking and wishing to join the ranks of the
ruling elite.

All these realities are compounded by the ruling elite's anti-nationalistic

and /traitorous dealings with their alien supporters (residents or
companies) who in turn serve their own personal/economic interests. Not
even mentioning similar behavior in their negotiations of foreign policies,
foreign trade agreements, military agreements, ad nauseam.

We native Filipinos for several reasons do not know, do not

understand "what's going on" and are kept continually ignorant --in the dark
like mushrooms-- by the ruling elite plus their native and foreign allies. So we
native Filipinos can not see the forest from the trees:

getting lost in the symptoms of our "weak state" i.e. daily and
repeated cases of corruption in government and private business,

of not recognizing the real roots of such,

of continually wondering why a change in governing faces does

not result in real changes for national development.
From what we have seen in our Asian neighbors and elsewhere who started
behind and now have left our country and us native Filipinos "in the dust,"
developmentally speaking, this eradication of illiteracy can be realized
within a generation, IF the will to do so existed.

Witness the eradication by our neighbors who have brought cultural changes,
in fact, even a cultural revolution as during the early 1970s China, by Mao
Tse Tung who encouraged the questioning of the non-progressive aspects
of Confucian teachings, i.e. feudalism, elitism, male chauvinism, etc.; By
how Mustafa Ataturk modernized Turkey from the 1920s through programs
of cultural reforms, compulsory education, lower taxes to the peasantry, etc.
But again, (regarding the IF) since in our case the ruling elite do not identify
with the impoverished native majority and they go on their own merry ways,
what do you think we native Filipinos should do? Furthermore, we native
Filipinos can not and should not expect and believe foreigners to
come and help us despite their declared good intentions, as
Pilosopong Tasio warned us. Our national history bears witness
repeatedly.
Below is a brief essay on the history of our dominant "cacique or elite
democracy," that is, democracy that works only for the rich and powerful
minority.
*****************************************
NOTES TO READERS: Colored and/or underlined words are HTML links. Click
on them to see the linked posts/articles. Forwarding this and other posts to
relatives and friends, especially those in the homeland, is greatly
appreciated. To share, use all social media tools: email, blog, Google+,

Tumblr,Twitter,Facebook, etc. THANKS!! Click the following underlined

title/link to checkout these Essential/Primary Readings About Us Filipino
Natives:
Primary Blog Posts/Readings for my fellow, Native (Malay/Indio)
Filipinos-in-the-Philippines
****************************************

OUR NATIVE "CACIQUE DEMOCRACY" aka "ELITE DEMOCRACY"

- Started with a Collaborative (Quislings) Philippine Leadership

The most important step in establishing a new political system was the
successful coaptation of the Filipino elite--called the "policy of attraction."
Wealthy and conservative ilustrados, the self-described "oligarchy of
intelligence," had been from the outset reluctant revolutionaries,
suspicious of the Katipunan and willing to negotiate with either Spain or the
United States.
Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera, a descendant of Spanish nobility,
and Benito Legarda, a rich landowner and capitalist, had quit Aguinaldo's
government in 1898 as a result of disagreements with Mabini. Subsequently,
they worked closely with the Schurman and Taft commissions, advocating
acceptance of United States rule.
In December 1900, de Tavera and Legarda established the Federalista
Party,advocating statehood for the islands. In the following year they were
appointed the first Filipino members of the Philippine Commission of the
legislature. In such an advantageous position, they were able to bring
influence to bear to achieve the appointment of Federalistas to provincial
governorships, the Supreme Court, and top positions in the civil service.
Although the party boasted a membership of 200,000 by May 1901, its
proposal to gain statehood had limited appeal, both in the islands and in
the United States, and the party was widely regarded as
being opportunistic. In 1905 the party revised its program over the
objections of its leaders, calling for "ultimate independence" and changing its
name to the National Progressive Party (Partido Nacional
Progresista).

The Nacionalista Party, established in 1907, dominated the Philippine

political process until after World War II. It was led by a new generation of
politicians, although they were not ilustrados and were by no means radical.
One of the leaders, Manuel Quezon, came from a family of moderate
wealth. An officer in Aguinaldo's army, he studied law, passed his bar
examination in 1903, and entered provincial politics, becoming governor of
Tayabas in 1906 before being elected to the Philippine Assembly the
following year. His success at an early age was attributable to consummate
political skills and the support of influential Americans.
His Nacionalista Party associate and sometime rival was Sergio Osmea,
the college-educated son of a shopkeeper, who had worked as a journalist.
The former journalist's thoroughness and command of detail made him a
perfect complement to Quezon. Like Quezon, Osmea had served as a
provincial governor (in his home province of Cebu) before being elected in
1907 to the assembly and, at age twenty-nine, selected as its first speaker.
Although the Nacionalista Party's platform at its founding called
for "immediate independence," American observers believed that
Osmea and Quezon used this appeal only to get votes. In fact, their
policy toward the Americans was highly accommodating. In 1907 an
understanding was reached with an American official that the two leaders
would block any attempt by the Philippine Assembly to demand
independence. Osmea and Quezon, who were the dominant political figures
in the islands up to World War II, were genuinely committed to
independence. The failure of Aguinaldo's revolutionary movement,
however, had taught them the pragmatism of adopting a
conciliatory policy.
The appearance of the Nacionalista Party in 1907 marked the emergence of
the party system, although the party was without an effective rival from
1916 for most of the period until the emergence of the Liberal Party in
1946. Much of the system's success (or, rather, the success of the
Nacionalistas) depended on the linkage of modern political institutions with
traditional social structures and practices. Most significantly, it involved the
integration of local-level elite groups into the new political system.
Philippine parties have been described by political scientist Carl Land as
organized "upward" rather than "downward." That is, national followings
were put together by party leaders who worked in conjunction with local elite
groups--in many cases the descendants of the principala of Spanish times-who controlled constituencies tied to them in patron-client relationships.
The issue of independence, and the conditions and timing under which it
would be granted, generated considerable passion in the national political
arena. According to Land, however, the decisive factors in terms of

popular support were more often local and particularistic issues

rather than national or ideological concerns. Filipino political
associations depended on intricate networks of personalistic ties, directed
upward to Manila and the national legislature.
The linchpins of the system created under United States tutelage were the
village- and province-level notables--often labeled bosses or caciques by
colonial administrators--who garnered support by exchanging specific favors
for votes. Reciprocal relations between inferior and superior (most often
tenants or sharecroppers with large landholders) usually involved the
concept of utang na loob (repayment of debts) or kinship ties, and they
formed the basis of support for village-level factions led by the notables.
These factions decided political party allegiance.
The extension of voting rights to all literate males in 1916, the growth of
literacy, and the granting of women's suffrage in 1938 increased the
electorate considerably. The elite, however, was largely successful in
monopolizing the support of the newly enfranchised, and a genuinely
populist alternative to the status quo was never really established. The policy
of attraction ensured the success of what colonial administrators called the
political education of the Filipinos. It was, however, also the cause of its
greatest failure.
Osmea and Quezon, as the acknowledged representatives, were not
genuinely interested in social reform, and serious problems involving
land ownership, tenancy, and the highly unequal distribution of wealth were
largely ignored.
The growing power of the Nacionalista Party, particularly in the period after
1916 when it gained almost complete control of a bicameral Philippine
legislature,BARRED THE EFFECTIVE INCLUSION ON NON-ELITE
INTERESTS in the political system. Not only revolution but also moderate
reform of the social and economic systems were precluded.
Discussions of policy alternatives became less salient to the political process
than the dynamics of personal-ism and the ethic of give and take.