The Lopezes of politics

It is hard to argue with academic theses that focus on political and business clans in the Philippines, particularly if it is one on the storied Lopezes of Iloilo, which are the subject of Mina Roces’ treatise on kinship politics published last year by the De La Salle University Press. The bibliography and end notes can be as comprehensive as the specific chapters themselves.

The advantage of academe is that there is a naturally detached viewpoint, because there are no evident vested interests involved except for the subsequent thesis defense and academic degree-in-waiting.

Kinship Politics in Post-War Philippines: The Lopez Family, 1946-2000 attempts to trace the rise and fluctuating fortunes of this fabled clan, the exposition situated in the context of the ever-changing face of democracy, Philippine-style, since the granting of our independence by the Americans to the most recent changeover of power a little over a year ago.

For the most part Roces succeeds through exhaustive documentation, citing studies and investigative reports, complete with tables of the Lopezes’ myriad business concerns through the decades as well as a detailed family tree commencing from the Lopez patriarch (like many entrepreneurs a Chinese immigrant) on down to practically the latest generation.

The author’s noting how there was no love lost between the Lopezes and the Macapagal administration of the early to mid-1960s makes for interesting speculation at how the powerful family will fare under the present dispensation.

On the other hand, the well-wrought influence of the former Vice President Fernando Lopez on the political and business climate in the decade preceding Martial Law is evident in the growing business empire of the family, though his brother Eugenio tried valiantly to isolate financial concerns from the politics of the time.

Granted, we get brief histories of the origins of such institutions as ABS-CBN (alak-babae-sugal-cabaret-babae na naman in those days, according to streetsmart kids), Meralco, and the now defunct Manila Chronicle, which in their heyday became part of the landscape.

The ostentatiousness displayed during some of the Lopez gatherings was a signal of the growing polarization of society, which no doubt helped spur nationalist consciousness and the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ own "revolution from the center" in his fight against the rising oligarchy.

The irony of it all was that the left and the so-called oligarchs, outmuscled by the Marcos military machinery, found themselves both being clamped in prison and/or hunted down like game in the kanayunan and forgotten urban alleys.

Geny Lopez, the deposed Vice President’s nephew, was even part of a daring escape from a Marcos prison with now Sen. Sergio Osmeña III, which episode was made into a movie with Osmeña’s dramatic role no doubt in contrast to the low-key portrayal of the Lopez character. This, Roces noted, helped the senator win his seat in the legislature, and in like manner boosted Geny’s own stature as a nationalist economist with an eye open to the global picture.

But in the long haul this is not so much the story of the Lopezes as it is of the changing face of Philippine politics and how it struggles between patronage and pakikisama and the ideally Western model of walang kamag-anak, walang kaibigan.

Roces however rightly points out that the West, in particular the Americans, are not above the politics of compromise themselves if it would be in their interest, citing such awkward moments in bilateral relations as then US Vice President George Bush the elder dispatched to the country by US President Ronald Reagan to toast Marcos’ "adherence to democracy."

The author laments too that even with Marcos overthrown, the succeeding administrations were not exactly exemplars in furthering our political maturity, with President Corazon Aquino accused of abetting her Kamaganak Inc. and President Fidel Ramos, for all his rah-rah antics for Philippines 2000, scored for his military posse.

As for the unlucky Estrada, 13th President of the Republic, we all know what happened to him, his government come tumbling down like the chandelier in a Malacañang room on his first day in office, proof that the fates and/or the Filipino would not stand for kinship politics nor Marcos ghosts seeping out of the woodwork.

Months after EDSA II, one would understandably not be so optimistic about the present administration, despite its repeated vows of transparency and motherhood statements of accountability. We may have heard it all before: the palakasan system and the coddling of a favored few.

That is why the Lopezes stand out in the political and business scenes, their being able to ride out different administrations and even prosper with the minimum of controversy, even if they cannot be exempt from the very Pinoy utang na loob.

And while the Lopez family members have apartments in Rockwell and their business concerns having branched out to cable TV and water concession, among others, it would appear that Roces’ study speaks well of a family whose money was inevitably tied with the politics of the times.