“Strong Republic” Sidetracked: Oligarchic Dynamics, Democratization, and Economic Development in the Philippines

Philippine economic non-performance had stood in stark contrast the past several decades to the rapid development of its neighbors. Our explanatory framework focuses on historical developments that allowed the landed oligarchy to dominate and exploit the state. We demonstrate that the decision of the American colonial regime to transplant their style of representative democracy over an economic structure dominated by landed oligarchs allowed the latter to obtain a stranglehold on democratic state institutions and economic policy formulation after formal independence. The Marcos dictatorship (1972-1986) not only failed to curtail their dominance, but engendered new ones. The country’s appalling experience with military rule led to a democratization process that basically restored the country’s pre-Martial law system. We contend that grafting a democratic constitutional structure that mirrors the pre-Martial Law system to a relatively unmodified economic structure and players, led to the restoration of the elite domination of the economy, which we identify as the lynchpin of Philippine economic underdevelopment. We examine closely the Estrada Administration (1998-2001) to illustrate how extra-state forces are able to infiltrate and exploit the state to the detriment of the polity, despite democratic institutional reforms since 1986. Democratization as a process in the Philippines has been a non-factor in economic performance.