[A-List] Philippines: the price of imperialism

[Michael Keaney]

Philippines: More pain, no gain
Asia Times, September 30 2004
Editorial

In a statement printed in the Philippine Star newspaper on September 21,
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo urged her fellow citizens to
"suffer the pain now and experience the gains two years hence [rather] than
postpone the pain and die a painful  economic death two years from now".

The pain hapless, ordinary Filipinos are told to suffer comes in the form of
new tax measures to the tune of P80 billion (about US$1.43 billion) a year
Arroyo has asked Congress to enact posthaste. The sum amounts to 1.8% of the
country's 2003 gross domestic product (GDP). The promised gain is uncertain
at best: passage of the measures might forestall a threatened sovereign
credit downgrade from the country's present rating, already two notches
below investment grade.

Big bloody deal, say a large majority of Filipinos. A mid-September survey
by the Manila-based Pulse Asia polling organization found that 78% of
respondents "see no need to impose new taxes as long as the government
strengthens its tax-collection efforts".

It's time to bell the cat. Who's to blame for running up the country's
massive public debt to more than 70% of GDP, in spite of which abject
poverty continues to increase; in spite of which some 27 million Filipinos
(one-third of the population) have to subsist on less than a dollar a day;
in spite of which Filipinos in ever-larger numbers are forced to leave the
country to make a living and support the relatives they leave behind?

In an upcoming five-part series, Asia Times Online's Pepe Escobar explores
both the makings and the makers behind the social catastrophe a once rich
and promising nation (called "the next Japan" 40 years ago) has become. We
won't preempt his findings but will note some equally astonishing and
disturbing, but incontrovertible, facts.

Unsustainable demographics. The total population of the Philippines will
reach nearly 84 million by the end of 2004. After slowing somewhat in the
1980s and '90s, the population growth rate has once again accelerated to
2.36% per annum, or a doubling rate of just 30 years. The total population
could exceed 200 million well before 2050. However, the Catholic Church, to
which the great majority of Filipinos belong, continues to prohibit
contraception.

Declining per capita income. High population and mediocre GDP growth make
for a noxious mix. In real (inflation-adjusted) peso terms, GDP per capita
has remained virtually unchanged since 1980 (P12,619 vs P13,139 in 2003). In
US dollar terms, it peaked at $1,180 in 1996, and in 2003 had declined to
$953.

Growing poverty. Incidence of poverty - the inability to provide for basic
food (adequate caloric intake) and shelter - increased from 36.8% of the
population in 1997 to more than 40% in 2002. Thirty-eight percent of
families do not have solid-structure shelter. Access to safe drinking water
declined from 81.4% of families in 1999 to 80% in 2002. Twenty-one percent
of all families and 44% of families in the lower 40% income group have no
electricity.

Super-rich in undiminished control. The Philippines boasts an unenviable
Asian, perhaps global, record among major nations. One family, the Ayalas,
controls 18% of total stock-market-listed corporate assets. Moreover, the
country's top 10 most powerful families control 56.2% of such assets. Just
over 50% of total GDP is controlled by the top 15 families. In sharp
contrast, only 2.8% of listed corporate assets are owned by the 15 top
families in Japan.

These facts in combination define socially, economically and politically
unsustainable circumstances and go a long way in explaining the persistent
political turbulence of the past two decades. Time and again since the first
so-called People Power revolt of 1986 that swept away the Ferdinand Marcos
regime, the hopes and aspirations of the large majority of impoverished
Filipinos have been thwarted. Neither Cory Aquino nor Fidel Ramos, who
lifted Aquino into the presidency before becoming president himself, carried
out the land-reform measures they had promised. What land reform was enacted
was largely a sham. Aquino, who talked about it incessantly, still owns the
huge hacienda that should have been one of the first reform targets. Most
senators and congressmen are rich landowners and members of or hangers-on of
the elite families that control the bulk of the nation's wealth. No one else
can afford to run for office.

When the poor thought they had elected a president who would champion their
cause, he was promptly overthrown by another People Power revolt organized
by the elite families and the Church on charges of corruption, real or
contrived. The person who was installed as president, Arroyo, now has won an
election in her own right. A captive of the de facto feudal powers that be,
she'll prove every bit as unwilling and unable to bring basic social and
economic change as Aquino.

The Filipinos are a capable, well-educated, joyful people. Most who have
settled abroad, escaped the misery of semi-feudal rule, and been given the
opportunity to prosper have done so. But, of course, they can't all emigrate
or become overseas workers. Ultimately, they will need to find the political
means to rid themselves of the oppressive medieval structures that make
their lives on Earth the equivalent of purgatory.