Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

278 MICHAEL PINCHES
more recently have many become animated with the confidence that at last they
too belonged to a nation that is heading down the road to dragonhood.
This position has been most widely expressed in government and business
circles, and among those with newly acquired wealth. Within the middle and upper
layers of Philippine society, there is clearly a new optimism, and considerable
consensus around the Ramos regime’s Philippines 2000 platform, which has the
nation achieving Newly Industrialising Country status by the year 2000. The rhetoric
of national development is hardly new, and it is not as if the Philippines has not
experienced earlier periods of comparatively rapid growth. Nevertheless, it is
significant that while the developmental rhetoric of the Marcos years was closely
orchestrated by the state, in recent years it has been coming from a range of
sources, most notably from within the growing bourgeoisie and middle classes
(Pinches 1996). Since 1986 there has been a proliferation not only of daily newspapers,
but also of local business and society journals with titles such as Manila
Inc., Philippine Business and Asia Lifestyle. They regularly speak with optimism
about ‘economic take-off’, entrepreneurial success stories and growing prosperity.
Some of their commentators speak of the Philippines’ ‘leapfrogging from an
agricultural stage to the post-industrial stage’ (Talisayon 1994:27). 2 In the
influential Philippine Business, for example, the Rizal Commercial Banking
Corporation runs a regular page called ‘Dragon Forecast’. In one issue, it describes
the future of the Philippines with confidence:
The trek to dragonhood will take many small steps, from one day to another,
not one giant leap… That’s how big dragon Japan and the new dragons like
Singapore got to be where they are today. And that’s how we ourselves are
going to find our way to dragonhood… Just like what happened in Japan,
mini-booms in regional growth centers will create ripple effects, spreading
progress to the outer rims in concentric circles.
(1994, 1(3):27)
There are some who are deeply sceptical about the claim that the Philippines has
entered a new era of growing prosperity. Critics rightly point to the massive
poverty that persists both in the countryside and cities, and one only has to talk to
factory or department store workers to discover that many Filipinos are missing
out on the benefits that are said to come with increased national economic growth
figures. Yet even critics acknowledge that growth is taking place, and that there are
increasingly visible layers of people who are prospering. The optimism and
developmental rhetoric that is to be found in the Philippines today may not
accurately represent the state of the nation, but nor is it complete fantasy. It is
most indicative of the experience and ideology of the country’s new rich.
While economic growth figures give some insight into the transformation that
has been taking place in the Philippines, a clearer indication of the increase
in private wealth among a growing minority of Filipinos is to be seen in the
changing landscapes of the major cities. 3 In Manila and Cebu City, the two largest