Reflections on the Human Condition - Api-fellowships.org

comprehensive ones to short-term political ones.
Machado stressed, “the most evident change is that
factions are losing their extra-political character and
are being transformed into quite specialized political
organizations. This reflects a change in the central
element of the faction from an extended family or
alliance of families into an electoral machine, composed
of an individual leader and his followers, that has been
built for specifically political purposes.” (Machado:
1971, 1183) Wolters also pointed out that “a new type
of politicians emerged, some of whom were drawn
from the old prominent landowning families (but with
other interests), while others had less distinguished
origins and non-agricultural economic interests. These
businessmen/politicians were dependent on funds
from political sponsors or from the state treasury for
financing their campaigns. They used their political
positions to advance their own commercial interests
and those of their allies (by obtaining licenses, building
contracts, credit or preventing audits, etc.)”. (Wolters:
1984, 188)
Patrimonialism
After the fall of the Marcos administration, scholars
paid attention to the existence of long surviving
local political clans. This approach is still based on
the patron-client framework but its emphasis is on
the Philippine elite families’ way of accumulating,
maintaining and passing on to the next generation their
private wealth and political positions (their patrimony)
through rent-seeking activities, coercion, and violence.
The representative work of this framework was McCoy
(1994) whose familial approach hypotheses are: “(a)
that family-based oligarchies are, to state the obvious, a
significant factor in Philippine history; (b) that relations
among these elite ‘families’ have a discernible influence
on the course of Philippine politics; (c) that elite families,
organized on complex patterns of bilateral kinship,
bring a contradictory mix of unified kinship networks
and a fissiparous, even volatile, factionalism into the
political arena; and (d) that the interaction between
powerful rent-seeking families and a correspondingly
weak Philippine state has been synergistic”. (McCoy:
1994,19) Such characterization is also consistent with
Migdal’s earlier thesis that the Philippines is a weak
state within strong social organizations, warlords, and
political dynasties. (Migdal, 1988)
Bossism
Sidel’s bossism approach shared with the patrimonialism
approach the emphasis on violence, fraud, and vote-
THE STATE, DEVELOPMENT AND GLOBALIZATION
267
buying aspects of local bosses. Sidel used the term
“bosses” to refer to predatory power brokers who achieve
monopolistic control over both coercive and economic
resources within a given territorial jurisdictions or
bailiwicks. Bossism, in turn, refers to the interlocking,
multi-tiered directorate of bosses who use their control
over the state apparatus to exploit the archipelago’s
human and natural resources. (Sidel: 1999, 19)
His understanding of Migdal’s thesis differed from
McCoy’s. While quoting Evans (1989), Sidel argued
that “the Philippine state appears relatively weak in its
failing as a ‘developmental state’, it has also been shown
to be somewhat stronger in its capacity as a ‘predatory
state’, for “those who control the state apparatus seem to
plunder without any more regard for the welfare of the
citizenry than a predator has for the welfare of its prey”.
(Sidel: 1999, 146) In his case studies, Sidel described the
rise and fall of short-lived politicians without their own
economic basis but backed by higher-level politicians in
Cavite and the surviving political clans that successfully
established local economic bases through their political
positions in Cebu.
NEW TRENDS IN LOCAL POLITICS AND THE
LIMITS OF THEORY
The 1987 constitution and the Local Government Code
(LGC) of 1991 have given more autonomy to local
government units. The Code devolved functions of the
central government in social services such as health,
social welfare, agriculture, tourism, environment, and
public works. It also broadened the local governments’
fiscal space by increasing their taxation powers, and
making it easier to access commercial bank, Official
Development Assistance (ODA), and Built-Operate-
Transfer (BOT) schemes.
Significant changes in relation to local politics and
development would be: introduction of term limits of
local electorates (three years per term, three consecutive
terms only;) broadened administrative authorities
of local chief executives with consent of the local
councils i.e. appointive power, reorganization of local
government structure; separation of executive and
legislative (the local chief executive used to be also the
chairperson of the local council;) and reduced national
agencies’ restrictive authorities on local budget and
development planning. The LGC also guaranteed
direct participation of people in local politics; especially
People’s Organizations (POs), NGOs, and private
sectors have been given seats in various local committees
such as the local development committee and the local
health committee.
Ref lections on the Human Condition: Change, Conflict and Modernity
The Work of the 2004/2005 API Fellows