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

THE MAKING OF THE PHILIPINES’ NEW RICH 299
For convenience, I use Manila in preference to Metro Manila, one subdivision of
which goes under the same name.
1 See, for example, the cover stories in the Asian Business Review, July 1995 (‘From
CotCase to Serious Regional Contender’), and The Economist, 11 May 1996. In
1997, the OECD declared its approval of the Philippines by describing it as a
‘dynamic non-member economy’ (FEER, 20 March 1997:20).
2 This quote from the Assistant Director-General of the National Security Council is
repeated almost verbatim by Jaime Zobel de Ayala, CEO of the giant Ayala
Corporation (Philippine Business 1994, 1(2):38).
3 In the years immediately after the overthrow of the Marcos regime, GNP growth
increased markedly; it declined in the early 1990s; then steadily increased, and for
most of the period 1996—7 stayed above 6 per cent (FEER 1997 Yearbook: 194;
Asian Business Review, September 1997:19). While economic growth is obvious in
Manila, even more remarkable are the higher growth rates in a number of provincial
cities, notably Cebu City and General Santos City in the central and southern
Philippines.
4 For a fuller treatment of this history, see Pinches (1996).
5 As is the case elsewhere in the region, Filipinos have been drawn into production
processes, capital flows, labour markets and consumption practices that are
increasingly dynamic and transnational. At one level these changes have involved the
proliferation of small-and medium-sized businesses; at another, they have seen the
continued dominance of large corporations and conglomerates, the two interlinked by
increasingly complex subcontracting, franchise and service relationships (see Harvey
1989:141—72).
6 For this estimate, see Ball (1996:70) and FEER (30 March 1995:43). Relative to their
past employment in the Philippines, as well as to their peers and friends, the great
majority of overseas contract workers can also be described as new rich. I do not
focus on them in this chapter because, for the most part, they remain a part of the
working class and are looked upon as such by those who identify with the elite and
middle classes. But see Pinches 1992a and n.d.
7 Though little systematic research has been done, in the 1990s business magazines
and newspapers have published numerous profiles of new capitalist entrepreneurs
(see below).
8 There were also regional distinctions: the mestizo sugar barons of Negros developed
a distinctive ethnic identity as Negrense (Lopez-Gonzaga 1991).
9 Though, for nationalists, there has always been some ambivalence over selfidentification
as mestizo. Just before his execution by the Spanish, national hero Jose
Rizal, referred to by most historians as mestizo, rejected this label, insisting that he was
‘indio puro’ (pure indigenous Malay Filipino) (Fernandez-Armesto 1996:58).
10 These dynasties are variously known and celebrated through public religious ritual,
political events, the social pages of magazines and newspapers, and the philanthropic
or public service organisations a number of them have set up. Many have
commissioned and published detailed family histories for limited circulation. On the
political and economic character of some of these families see Koike (1993),
Hutchcroft (1991) and McCoy (1994).
11 See Ileto (1979); Kerkvliet (1990); Pinches (1992a, 1992b).