Colonial hangover

The June 12 Independence Day holiday should have given many of us time to pause and wonder what went wrong over the past 80 years since we supposedly became independent from a colonial power. 

Are the Americans to blame for the kind of democratic government they left us? Could the Americans have done more to leave a governable country with a robust economy than they actually did? Do we even have the ability to govern ourselves today?

I recall reading somewhere that the Americans imposed strict land reform in Japan in the short time that they ruled the country after World War II. That became the base of the defeated country’s economic reconstruction that catapulted it into the world’s second largest economy in no time. 

In our case, the Americans forged an alliance with our traditional landed oligarchy to govern the country. This partnership with the local elites made it politically impossible for the Americans to implement Japanese-style land reform here.

In occupied Japan, Gen. Douglas MacArthur as the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, used land reform to strip power from the hands of wealthy aristocrats behind Japanese imperialism and militarism. 

Land reform shattered the tenant-landlord system. This radical restructuring fueled Japan’s rapid economic rise.

For one thing, it created a domestic consumer market. Millions of farmers with new found disposable income created a domestic market for manufactured consumer goods like appliances and cars.

Increased agricultural productivity freed up rural labor, providing workers who, in turn, powered the booming manufacturing and tech sectors.

By wiping out extreme rural poverty, land reform insulated Japan from the communist insurgencies sweeping across Asia. That provided a very stable political environment that attracted long-term domestic and foreign industrial investments.

In our case, the failure to implement genuine, comprehensive land reform during the American colonial period and the lukewarm attempts by successive independent Philippine administrations powered the world’s longest running Mao-style communist insurgency that is yet to be fully extinguished. 

Our version of land reform impoverished farmers and poses a continuing threat to national food security. It will be better to abolish land reform as we know it and give farmers more economic freedom to use their land as they see fit.

Our failed land reform followed the footsteps of the failed attempt of the American colonial government to sell friar lands to the farmers. The Americans ended selling to wealthy local families, strengthening the economic hand of the landowning elite and leaving the problem of rural landlessness unresolved.

Because wealth and status remained tied to vast landholdings rather than industrial output, local elites (like the Zobels, the Ortigases, the Elizaldes, the Madrigals, the Cojuangcos and the Negros sugar barons) reinvested into risk-free real estate and agricultural monopolies rather than high-risk, high-reward manufacturing sectors.

The Laurel-Langley Agreement further locked the Philippines into an unfavorable economic position that discouraged independent industrial growth.

The agreement maintained preferential tariff quotas for Philippine agricultural exports (like sugar) into the US market. 

The easy money from this economic arrangement made our elite unimaginative and lazy, keeping the country as a supplier of raw commodities rather than developing a diversified, value-added manufacturing base.

Regarding our political system, a paper published by the New York University observed that “The democratic system that was instituted by the US was built on foundations of social and economic inequality; this had a lasting effect on the socio-political condition of Filipino people, and consequently, on the state of democracy in the Philippines.”

The US colonial administration established a system where provincial families controlled regional politics, giving rise to political dynasties. The so-called American democratic processes were used to reinforce traditional, dynastic authority. 

The American political model of the late 19th and early 20th centuries — the era during which the US colonized the Philippines — was also very corrupt. 

It was defined by political machines, bossism and the “spoils system” (where political victors rewarded supporters with government jobs and contracts). 

This blended with the pre-existing Filipino system of political patronage, embedding corruption into the foundation of the state that still plagues us today. 

Political scientist Benedict Anderson famously described the Philippine political system as a “cacique democracy.” In this view, the legacy of American colonialism was the creation of a national oligarchy.

Before the American period, wealthy elites (caciques) only held localized power under Spanish rule. 

By introducing a national congress and a centralized presidency without introducing land reform or creating a strong bureaucratic meritocracy, the US allowed these local oligarchs to capture the national government. 

This is why we now suffer from a political culture where state resources, public funds and legislative power are routinely used to preserve family wealth and influence. Examples: the Marcoses, the Romualdezes, the Dutertes, the Cayetanos, the Ejercito-Estradas, etc.

Today, the American and Philippine political systems face gridlock, rising executive power and legal delays. This shows how deeply the Philippines internalized the American governance model. 

In the US, major infrastructure like California’s high-speed rail has been bogged down for years by litigation and environmental lawsuits. 

Similarly, in the Philippines, critical infrastructure projects face massive delays due to prolonged right-of-way(ROW) disputes, local government injunctions and legal appeals from displaced landowners.

I am not sure there is any way out of our political and economic mess without a drastic change in our Constitution and in the quality of political leaders we elect. 

Cory Aquino had her chance for revolutionary change but she was of the landed elite and couldn’t be expected to be a traitor to her class. 

We are certainly leaving a messy inheritance to our future generations who are now growing up badly educated, ill-fed and with no idea how a democracy is supposed to work. 

But for so long as we are alive, the struggle goes on because we love our country, no matter how difficult it seems to love it now. We shouldn’t be comfortable with this colonial hangover defining our present and our future.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco