Guns, Goons and Gold: Perspectives on Philippine Politics
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Lecture slides for an undergraduate class on Philippine Politics and Governance I taught between 2003 and 2005. The title (and content) is a nod to the prevailing perception of what politics in the Philippines is all about. These slides were prepared using Powerpoint XP. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://brianbelen.blogspot.com http://brianbelen.wordpress.com
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Guns, Goons and Gold: Perspectives on Philippine Politics
- 1. Guns, Goons and Gold: Perspectives on Philippine Politics
- 12. -end-
Editor's Notes
- Learning Objectives: 1.) To arrive at a better understanding of the dynamics within Philippine politics. 2.) To become acquainted with two analytical frameworks for understanding Philippine politics.
- “ Trapo” Strictly speaking, a trapo (traditional politician) is one who behaves according to this view.
- It is important to stress that the relationship, although based reciprocity, is neither even nor necessarily favors one side over the other. Circumstances often dictate which of the two sides (i.e. patron or client) held all the cards during the relationship. For example, clients would become beholden to their patrons if their patrons literally took care of them cradle to grave; hence, they would feel obligated to “bring home the bacon” of votes and the like come election time. Alternatively, patrons would be constrained to give into their clients especially when in office because of the support their clients give them during elections. This is what Wurfel means when he says that public trust sometimes has to take second fiddle to personal obligations in Philippine political culture.
- Patrons (and clients) see patronage ties as a means of expanding their fictive kin. You must recall that in Philippine society, patterns of obligation and trust are fundamentally based on who one considers “close,” including of course the family. The compadre system, of which patronage is part, enables one to expand his/her “political family.” As a corollary, it should be clear why clients need only one patron: a patron more or less covers all his/her client’s needs. More, failure to do so would mean that the patron might lose his status as such and thus his client’s loyalty (remember the pragmatic nature of Philippine politics). From this, we might also glean that it takes significant amount of resources to be a patron. This is partly the reason why Philippine politics is generally dominated by select political families and dynasties – precisely because only they have the resources to pull it off. This also explains, in part, why Wurfel says that public trust plays second fiddle to private interests: once in office, patrons must sometimes resort to making use of official resources to meet clientelistic obligations.
- The bottom-up approach, as espoused by Doronila, does not contradict the traditional view of Philippine politics. Rather, it seeks to point out the inadequacy of the traditional approach by highlighting the other end of the equation.
- Civil society sometimes takes over state functions where the state cannot deliver. Precisely in the context of Doronila’s New Paradigm, the point is that there are cases where the state is reduced to ineffectiveness because of the infighting between political families and trapos . Hence, civil society steps in to take over and cater to those sectors marginalized by lack of state action.