Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Thu, 8 Oct 1992 16:47:19 +1000
From:         lulu@COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU
Subject:      PH: CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS/10

THE 4TH INTERNATIONAL PHILIPPINE STUDIES CONFERENCE:
ABSTRACTS (continued)

PANEL: THE POLITICS OF KINDSHIP AND ETHNICITY

(71)	Kinship politics in the post-war Philippines:the Lopez family
1945-1989
Mina Roces, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Central
Queensland

The hypothesis proposed by the paper is that the conflict between Filipino
cultural values which emphasize family solidarity and loyalty to the family
above all else (what the paper terms kinship politics or politica de
familia), and western values which stress loyalty to the nation-state above
that of the family, is responsible for the recurring 'cycles' in Philippine
post-war history wherein each political administration is voted out of
office because of charges of graft and corruption, only to be replaced by a
regime riddled with equal culpability. It argues that Filipino family
values motivate elite families to behave according to the precepts of
kinship politics; that is, utilizing political power to build a family
business empire, while western values inculcated throughout the years of
American colonial rule compel others to castigate such families for
behavior that spoke against the national interest. Families in power
utilize kinship politics to acquire a business empire but these families
are criticized and voted out of office by those who perceive such behavior
as inimical to the national interest. Once in power themselves however,
they behave just like their predecessors. The paper looks at three eras -
the republican period - 1945-1972, the martial law period, 1972-1986, and
the Aquino period, 1986-89. It is argued that the Marcos years (1972-1986)
are the example of kinship politics in its purest form as one family only -
the Marcos family controlled the state and owned most of the country's
major corporations. Empirical data for the hypothesis is provided through
the case study of one of the most prominent families in the Philippines -
The Lopez family.

(7)	Beyond the kin group: definitions of community in Ilocos and
traditional Ifugao
Fernando Zialcita, Dept of Anthropology, Ateneo de Manila University

On what basis does a man recognize another man, who is neither a friend,
relative nor neighbor, as a fellow human being towards which he must do no
wrong? While it may be obvious to the humanist/nationalist that the basis
is a shared humanity/culture, this has not been obvious to other societies
whose ideologies are different. There fellow humans are generally only
those within the circle of actual or potential allies. That perfect
strangers are fellow humans is a construct that began in societies with a
State or with a Universal Religion, like Christianity and Islam. It has
since been enfleshed by modern humanism and nationalism. A comparison will
be made between a non-State society, Ifugao at the beginning of the 20th
century, and a society that has been under the influence of both a State
and a Universal Religion since the late 16th century, the Ilocos. However,
while the essay recognizes that the State creates horizontal links between
communities, it also points out that the State, whether colonial or
sovereign, reinforces vertical conflicts, for the State has historically
tended to serve the interests of privileged classes. Because of this
ambivalence, the State has often been an unstable and oppressive
institution. Democracy and its sibling, nationalism, represent attempts at
domesticating this institution by positing a basic community of interests
shared by all.

(73)	Political entrepreneurship in a peasant family
Brian Fegan, Macquarie University
[abstract not available]


PANEL: ASPECTS OF THE AMERICAN PERIOD

(74)	Military bases and the growth of Angeles, Olongapo and Cavite in the
early 20th century
Arturo G. Corpuz, Urban and Regional Planning, UP Diliman

The cities of Angeles, Olongapo, and Cavite in the island of Luzon grew
very rapidly during the early decades of this century. Such growth was
based on the establishment and operation of Fort Stotsenburg (a cavalry
post which later became Clark Air Base) near the town of Angeles, Subic
Naval Base alongside the barrio of Olongapo, and the transformation of the
Spanish arsenal in Cavite to the Sangley Naval Base. These induced large
inmigration flows, attracted by the higher wages of military base
employment, causing unparalleled increases in population growth rates and
the creation and/or expansion of local markets for selected goods and
services. In the process, traditional livelihood activities declined or
disappeared as production for local consumption yielded to foreign military
requirements.
In each of the three sites, a highly dependent urban economy evolved
characterized by: 1) an enclave base-community containing amenities that
approximated those available in the United States; 2) an entertainment
district in the base periphery catering almost exclusively to Americans; 3)
a commercial-business sector which, apart from becoming the largest in the
region, dealt with consumer goods not available in the rest of the country;
and 4) unprecedented specialization in the production and delivery of
base-related goods and services. In many cases, Americans established new
livelihood activities, from transportation to prostitution, and were
directly responsible for the physical expansion of the pre-base community.
As in much of the colony, Chinese or Chinese-Filipino entrepreneurs
eventually dominated a large segment of the local trade.
While sharing the experience of being under the direct and dominant
presence of foreign military bases, the growth of Angeles, Olongapo, and
Cavite also varied according to several factors. The most important were:
a) the size of the local population and the state of the local economy
before the bases were established; b) the extent of transportation and
other economic linkages with the rest of the colony, especially with
Manila; and c) international geo-politics and consequent American policies
that directly, and often drastically, affected local economies. The last
mentioned includes the 1927 Chinese Revolution which convinced the
Americans to continue and strengthen their presence in Subic after they had
abandoned the base (in a neglected precedent to their expected departure in
1992) in 1992.
As a whole, the growth and expansion of Angeles, Olongapo, and Cavite in
the early 20th century were direct responses to the establishment and
operation of Fort Stotsenburg and the Subic and Sangley naval bases,
respectively. Olongapo's development, however, was much more extreme.
Because of its relative isolation from the rest of the colony and its much
less developed state before the Americans arrived, Olongapo was more
dependent on the military base than Angeles and Cavite. For this reason, it
also stands to experience more extensive shifts in urban land use and
economic displacement after the Americans abandon Subic.

(75)	The role of the Philippine National Bank fn sugar manufacturing during
the American period
Yoshiko Nagano-Kano, Faculty for Foreign Studies, Kanagana University

The purpose of this paper is to depict the role of the Philippine National
Bank (PNB) in financing sugar centrals during the American colonial period.
The PNB was established in 1916 as multi-purpose bank for issuing bank
notes, financing agricultural export sectors, conducting general commercial
banking business, and serving as depository of the central and local
government's fund. To understand the PNB's role in forming the colonial
structure of Philippine economy in this period, it is very important to
discuss its financing to the sugar industry.
As has been widely known, the Philippine sugar industry grew during the
American period, and by the end of 1920s, it consisted over 30 per cent of
the total export and almost all the Philippine sugar was shipped to the
United States. The US dependent export market of Philippine sugar was
firmly established with larger investment in modernizing the sugar
manufacturing sector by foreign and domestic capital. Particularly, in
building sugar centrals by domestic producers, the PNB played a vital role
of offering long-term loans to them, which created controversy in the early
1920s.
In this paper, first, the background of the establishment of the PNB is
briefly reviewed. Secondly, the size and nature of financing sugar centrals
is illustrated, and thirdly, the role of the PNB in raising domestic
capital is discussed as a conclusion.

(76)	The demoniacal impulse: Muslims and madness in the southern
Philippines' (a reappraisal of the battle of Bud Dajo and maybe Bud Bagsak)
Eduardo Ugarte, James Cook University

Since Nicolo Conti's early account of amok, Europeans have never ceased to
be fascinated by that allegedly most Malay of behavioural patterns. Intense
interest in the phenomenon peaked in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, just prior to and during the periods of British and
American colonial rule in the Philippines when there supposedly occurred an
increase in reports of amok incidents. Considering the length of time for
which Europeans have been writing intermittently about amok - over five
hundred years now - it comes as a surprise to find that a pall of confusion
still hangs over much of the subject. For all the confidence with which
various writers have commented on this type of behaviour, their theories
have differed over virtually every aspect of the phenomenon, from its
character to its causes, even the etymological origins of the very word
amok. Together, these contradictions within the corpus of colonial writing
have generated in the present century a veritable industry of explication.
To resolve such discrepancies, many twentieth century commentators have
opted for ever more ingenious interpretations of amok. But these have
frequently proved to be as racist and fantastic as the nineteenth and early
twentieth century sources upon which they were based. Hardly any, it would
be fair to say, have explored in depth the extent to which the colonial
discourse on amok was politically motivated.
That amok was, in fact, a political issue throughout the British colonial
period in Malaya has not escaped some commentators. Ronald C. Simons, for
instance, referring indirectly to amok, observes in passing that writers
such as Hugh Clifford and Frank Swettenham 'explicitly and unashamedly
cited culture-bound syndromes as evidence morally justifying British rule
over less powerful peoples'. In contrast, the similar employment of the
phenomenon by the Americans to justify their expansion into the southern
Philippines has not received even this cursory attention. When the
confusion over amok in American writing on the Filipino Muslim has been
treated at all, it has been treated as just that - a confusion, a muddle
brought about by the Americans' almost complete ignorance of Filipino
Muslim culture. It is with the aim, then, of casting some light on the
politicisation of amok in the Philippines that this paper will explore the
American colonial investment in the behavioural pattern.

----------------------------------
[more to come]
-----------------------------------
These papers are available from the Dept of Political and Social Change
(see address below) for a small fee.
*******************************************
Lulu Turner
Dept of Political & Social Change
Research School of Pacific Studies
Australian National University
GPO Box 4, Canberra  ACT 2601
AUSTRALIA

tel: (06) 249 0173
fax: (06) 257 1893
e-mail (Internet): lulu@coombs.anu.edu.au
*******************************************
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU