A recent article in The Economist magazine was titled “The Philippines has the most persistent poverty in Southeast Asia”. The author attempted to identify the problem of why the Philippines has done such a mediocre job of poverty reduction in comparison to our neighbors.
The subhead was, “But the government of Rodrigo Duterte is paying the poor some attention,” giving the impression that the current administration is doing a better job than previous governments.
The primary cause of our failure is “Low growth: Between 1980 and 2005 the average annual increase in GDP was just 0.63 percent, a pathetic pace by regional standards.” Undoubtedly, that is a primary contributor to the dismal numbers of long-term poverty reduction.
However, the actual focus of the article and the conclusion of why Philippine poverty reduction is such a failure follows. “The [economic] growth is concentrated in Manila and the two neighboring provinces, which generate around 60 percent of the country’s output.” We are being told something that we have all known for a long time. We even have a term for it: “Imperial Manila.”
The article then goes on to discuss provincial Philippines: “Jobs in rural areas are scarce. Unfair systems of land ownership left over from colonial times are largely to blame. Powerful families have kept huge estates through their political influence; the family of former presidents Corazon and Benigno Aquino is a case in point.”
Birth rates are also much higher in the provinces with “the average woman in Leyte will have 3.5 children during her lifetime. Her counterpart in Manila will have just 2.3.” The author continues with examples of the differences between Imperial Manila and the rural areas. “Many in the provinces do not speak Tagalog, the national language, let alone English.”
The Economist article concludes, “The popular perception of him [Duterte] as an outsider willing to fight against the elites of Manila has some grounding in reality.” Some will see this as a justification for the President’s call for federalism.
The argument that no one knows what “federalism” would mean to the Philippines is weak. Simply put, it clearly means that the local government has more—perhaps final—authority to raise revenues and to decide expenditures. The idea is that a government that is closer to the people and the local problems can make better decisions.
On paper, that looks to be a good idea. However, the reality—and our concern—is that the line between federalism and “feudalism” can be easily blurred.
The belief that the Philippines has moved beyond the mentality and structure of the “provincial warlord” is dangerously naïve. No better example is the Maguindanao massacre. The feudalism of medieval Europe was the family of the primary landholder giving the peasants just enough sustenance to work the fields but not enough to give them the strength to rise up against the Lord of the Manor. Not much has changed in the past thousand years.
Interestingly and maybe just coincidental (or not) is that the best effort at poverty reduction has occurred in countries—China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand—with very strong and controlling national governments.
Federalism may be an important step to break the hold and power of Imperial Manila. But unless the rule of law can overcome the warlords, we are not going to accomplish anything positive.
1 comment
A thought provoking read,