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

THE MAKING OF THE PHILIPINES’ NEW RICH 279
urban centres, there has been a marked surge in the construction of expensive
residential subdivisions, town houses and condominiums with such names as
North Olympus and Richville Mansion. Residential property values have soared.
More and more land is being devoted to expensive golf courses and there has been
a dramatic increase in the numbers of shopping malls and restaurants. Manila now
has at least twenty major shopping malls and many smaller ones. Cebu City’s
mayor boasts that one of the city’s new malls is the fourth largest in the world, and
that the Megamall in Manila is the third largest. While, in part, the malls simply
cater to a growing urban population and reflect a world-wide shift in the spatial
organisation of shopping and leisure, they are also associated with heightened
spending power in the Philippines. In addition to their cheap mass-market
commodities, they are noteworthy for a wide range of luxury goods, designer-label
boutiques, expensive gift and specialist novelty shops, coffee lounges, restaurants
and fitness clubs. Finally, the clogging of Manila’s and Cebu City’s roadways has
rapidly deteriorated as a direct consequence of the huge increase in late model
private cars and taxis. According to one market researcher, about half of the cars
in Manila are less than two years old.
In this chapter I focus on the main layers of people who are commonly equated
with this growth: the new rich. In particular, I consider the contradictory ways in
which they are represented in reference to the country’s old elite, to whom they
pose a considerable cultural challenge.
THE RISE OF THE PHILIPPINE NEW RICH
Over the past decade and a half, most commentators have represented the
Philippines as a society that has undergone little substantial change since the
1960s, except for the interlude of a plundering dictator and his popular overthrow.
As I have argued elsewhere, there are major deficiencies in this characterisation
(Pinches 1996, 1997). Despite the lack of spectacular or sustained economic
growth over this period, the Philippines has undergone continuing capitalist
transformation in ways structurally similar to what has been taking place in most
other countries in the region. As has been the case elsewhere, this transformation
has seen the emergence of peoples who can be described as newly rich (Pinches
1996).
While this chapter concentrates mainly on those new rich who have risen to
prominence since the overthrow of the Marcos regime in 1986, it should be noted
that there have been earlier generations of new rich whose presence has
contributed to the social and cultural dynamics of the contemporary era. At the time
of independence in 1946, the Philippines was predominated over by a landed
oligarchy whose wealth and power centred primarily on agricultural production
and access to political office. In large part, the families who made up this oligarchy
behaved as feudal aristocrats, and most were better known for their high living and
political prowess than for their economic acumen. During the 1950s and 1960s,
some sections of the landed oligarchy became urban capitalists through