1. Feudal Work Systems and Poverty: the Philippine Experience Prof. Bonifacio S. Macaranas University of the Philippines School of Labor and Industrial Relations

2. Thesis: POVERTY in the Philippines is rooted historically in its colonial past, in the FEUDAL WORK practices and influences that characterized the mode of governance of Spain and the United States for more than 350 years, and carried over to the present by the succeeding Filipino presidencies.

3. What is POVERTY? “…the deprivation of essential assets and opportunities to which every human is entitled…basic education…primary health services…right to sustain themselves by their labor and be reasonably rewarded…(to be) empowered to participate in making decisions that shape their lives.” (ADB)

4. RP’s POVERTY Statistics Absolute poverty is at a HIGH 30 percent. (NSDB) 71 percent of Filipinos consider themselves poor, having had only ONE MEAL a DAY for consecutive 3 months in the second half of 2008. (SWS)

5. Industrial Relations Dynamics of work or employment relations Labor, Management & Government Context: political, economic, social, cultural & technological factors Aims: economic efficiency, workplace equity, individual well-being and society’s progress/people’s prosperity Levels: firm, national/industry,international.

6. Question: Are FEUDAL WORK PRACTICES a reality today, so that governance or management systems at the firm level and at the national level are unable to adequately address the country’s problem of widespread poverty?

7. THESIS: FEUDAL WORK SYSTEMS at the firm level (in micro and small scale enterprises), in government offices at the local and national levels has brought about the current widespread poverty in the Philippines; in effect a FEUDAL mindset generally prevails among workers and employers, spawning CORRUPTION & POVERTY today.

8. FEUDALISM Invented in 16th century England by royal lawyers -- to describe the decentralized and complex social, political and economic society then; from German term VIEH or ‘cow’--the measure of wealth then; term gave rise to the medieval word FIEF, meaning “something of value” = LAND.

9. FEUDALISM Land -- under the control of the King Distributed to his followers, men of distinction whose breeding and upbringing fitted them for governing and giving battle. The king in turn through his followers was expected to provide for his subjects: work, livelihood, security, peace and order, etc.

10. Characteristics of Feudalism Emeritus Professor, Medieval History, Lynn Harry Nelson INEFFECTIVE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT, because: 1) a decentralized organization arises when central authority cannot perform its functions and when it cannot prevent the rise of local powers; 2) civil and military powers at the local level are assumed by great landowners or other people of similar wealth and prestige;

11. Characteristics of Feudalism 3) the local leaders and their retinues begin to form a warrior class distinct from the people of their territory; 4) the distinction between private rights and public authority disappears, and local control tends to become a personal and even hereditary matter;

12. Characteristics of Feudalism 5) the feudal leaders often take over responsibility for the economic security of their territories over some activities, strengthening their presence at the local level and also makes their possessions even more valuable; and 6) the feudal aristocracies are usually organized on the basis of private agreements, contracts between individuals.

13. Parallelism: 9th--10th century Europe & America ca. 1920s Much as churchmen assumed government authority with the fall of the Roman empire in the West, local leaders such as Count Robert of Paris, assumed the role of the government at the local level, including setting up retinues of fighting men.

14. Parallelism: 9th--10th century Europe & America ca. 1920s In American cities ca. 1920s, neighborhood gangs often arose…leaders (often dominated by ethnic groups) claimed jurisdiction -- “territory” or “turf” -- and collected taxes in the form of “protection money” for the services they performed.

15. Ineffective central government Result: a FEUDAL SET-UP emerges, where big landowners and their elite pawns practically hold the economic and political power over their fellow citizens, binding them to a strong sense of “homage and fealty.” The dynamics of such a social context produces a FEUDAL CULTURE which prevails for a generation or two or even more.

16. Leader in Filipino politics (Raul P. de Guzman) …the archetypal lider is still he who gets the most jobs for his followers, increases his income when his faction is in power (while paying less taxes), and gives the most help in various forms to his followers’ families. This is the relationship between a Mafia don and his “soldiers.”

17. Feudalism as an “institution of aristocracy” While it may have put order and sense of unity among the early Filipinos, it served as: > bane for centuries for the majority, >outcome of OVERDEPENDENCE of a people on a wealthy and powerful businessman and/or political leader, >terms:‘patronage politics,’ elitism,’bossism,’’ oligarchism’, ‘idolism,’ or ‘paternalism’.

18. Jose Ma. Sison: SEMIFEUDALISM Re local production, the comprador big bourgeoisie is linked more to feudalism historically and currently than to industrial capitalist development, which is blocked so long as the economy is an appendage of US imperialism and remains the orbit of the world capitalist system.

19. Semifeudalism in two senses: 1) To sum up the economy that is shackled by two moribund forces -- imperialism and feudalism; and 2) To refer to the dominance of the comprador big bourgeoisie and the kind of production it promotes (primarily raw material production for export….)

20. Dominant in countryside: Landlord Class std. bearer of feudal relations of production, owns vast tracts of land and collects rent from the great mass of tenants, enlarges surplus products it extracts by exploitation: hiring of farm workers, usury, merchant operations, renting out farm equipment, etc.

21. Jose Ma. Sison: FEUDALISM IS AN INDUBITABLE FACT EVEN IF WE CONSERVATIVELY ESTIMATE THAT 40 PERCENT OF ALL THE PHILIPPINE FARMS ARE TENANTED.

22. Philippine history shows that: Feudalism has had its beginnings with the introduction of the Spanish colonial bureaucracy: a highly CENTRALIZED government; GOVERNOR & CAPTAIN- GENERAL, appointed by Monarch; with broad EXECUTIVE, and some LEGISLATIVE and JUDICIAL powers.

23. INSTABILITY in the Bureaucracy Due to: shortness of governor’s tenure and constant rigodon of employees, led to: confusion & lack of national policies in administrative, financial and economic matters; thus, wrought havoc in agriculture, commerce and trade, and the natives silently suffered the injuries inflicted.

24. Mid-16th century: native barangays consolidated into a single political dominion and a single economic system: Within this system the old rights of the conquered natives to property in land were extinguished by the feudal rule that “everything of value” in the colonies formed part of the estate of the king of Castilla…Since the land belonged to the king, the natives held only a limited usufructuary right to the lands they worked. (Corpuz 1997)

25. PRODUCTION-- entirely the output of native labor: all conquered families reduced to a single class of small farmers each assigned a field by the king; produce beyond subsistence requirements-- extracted from them by Spanish regime; disintegration of communalism, & appointment of tribute collector, transformed later from TRUSTEE to PRIVATE OWNER.

26. Opening of colony to WORLD TRADE at turn of 19th century Led to AGRICULTURAL SPECIALIZATION: sugar, indigo, coffee, hemp and tobacco (without neglecting rice and corn as staple food). Led colonizers and elites to acquire and grab more lands, becoming big landlords/hacenderos at the expense of the land-tillers and small native landowners.

27. The American Occupation Expansion of American trade in the Philippines, making it a market for US exports, and a source of cheap raw materials for US industry. Land system founded on principles of private ownership made it “almost impossible for small farmers to title their parcels” (Corpuz 1997).

28. The American Occupation “The percentage of land worked by tenants -- a measure of dispossession of peasants--rose from 19 percent in 1903 to 38 percent at the time of Philippine independence in 1946” (Collins 1989) With land ownership as an economic base, political and economic power for the Americans and their local lackeys was assured.

29. The American Occupation’s influence on Politics & Culture “Together with the English language, the public school system, and the fairly rapid Filipinization of the bureaucracy, colonial politics became a vehicle for the political education of Filipinos... a perpetual scramble for position and patronage which the colonial power satisfied as a reward for acquiescence to its own political and economic objectives” (Constantino 1978)

30. LAND ISSUES under Philippine Presidents Commonwealth period: landlord-tenant conflicts/agrarian unrest resulted to the peasant uprisings -- Colorums in northeastern Mindanao, Tagbulans in Pangasinan, and the Sakdalistas in Laguna. Rice Tenancy Act (1933), 1st law to regulate landlord-tenant relationships; 50- 50 sharing, but implemented only in 1946, by municipal councils(landlord-dominated).

31. LAND ISSUES under Philippine Presidents Magsaysay’s Land Reform Act (1955), the “Land to the Landless” program, but lobbying efforts of big landlords led to a dismal 7-year record of 41 estates out of 300 estates purchased by the government.

32. LAND ISSUES under Philippine Presidents Macapagal’s Land Reform Code (1963) provided for the “transfer of ownership of land to tillers,” but this covered only rice and corn lands, and was hardly implemented. Marcos’ R.A. 6389 amended the above, creating the Dept.of Agrarian Reform but government allocated INSUFFICIENT funds.

33. Marcos’ Martial Law “New Society” amendments (PD Nos. 2, 27 & 1066) 4.4 % of the agricultural workforce 6.6 % of all tenants and farmworkers 19.8 % of all tenants 7.9 % of total physical crop area; and 14.3 % of all rice and corn lands.

34. NET RESULTS: LAND REFORM Programs (Quezon-Marcos) Increase in the number of landless farmers; Consolidation of land ownership in the hands of a few families and private corporations, including foreign-owned ones; and Heightened peasant unrest.

35. Land Reform under Pres. Corazon C. Aquino The Comprehensive Agricultural Land Reform Law (CARL) or R.A. 6657 (1988) instituted into law the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), acclaimed as the Aquino administraion’s “centerpiece program” Initiated after the January 22, 1986 Mendiola Massacre of 19 farmers.

36. LAND REFORM under Pres. Corazon C. Aquino Target for distribution: 10.3 million hectares( by DAR -- 4.3 million hectares and the DENR -- 3.5 million hectares). But there are disparities in figures, considering exempted farmlands, high retention limits, exemptions, deferments, graft and corruption, etc. -- resulting in the retention of control of vast tracts of land by landlords.

37. LAND REFORM under Pres. Corazon C. Aquino A major loophole in the CARP --the non- transfer schemes, e.g. leasehold arrangement, commercial farms deferment, production/profit-sharing and the stock distribution option (SDO). SDO example: Hacienda Luisita -- 33 % of stocks given to farmers, but no land owner ship; control of lives by the Cojuangcos.

38. Other Loopholes of CARP (Aquino --Arroyo-Macapagal) Cancellation of Cert. Of Land Transfers, EPs, etc. previously awarded under PD 27, for reasons of exemptions, retentions, erroneous generation, absence of tenancy, not covered by PDs, & duplications. Land use conversions into nonagricultural use, e.g. industrial, residential or industrial purposes.

39. Other Loopholes of CARP under Aquino -- Macapagal-Arroyo Financing problems: budget constraints It does not fit the open-market requirements (e.g. secure property rights and active free land markets), Nor does it fit a centrally planned system.

40. Overall implementation of CARP End result after 20 years: 80 % of privately-owned agricultural lands undistributed, With so many loopholes, and continuing obstructions put up by the big landlords (dynastic politicians and foreign corporations), Land monopolies still exist at the expense of the small farmers, Social Justice still a dream for many.

41. Offshoots of Land Monopoly by the Big Landlords/Politicians and MNCs At the local government level, PATRONAGE POLITICS reigns, and this serves as the base of the country’s national political system, resulting in extended lineage of political families at the municipal, provincial and national levels. Political DYNASTIES spawn “Partisan Armed Groups” to protect their territories.

42. Other related Outcomes of the absence of Genuine Agrarian Reform 11th Congress of 1999, only 42 percent were not from political families. On a national scale, a feudal mindset resulting in feudal work relations...

43. Other Outcomes of faild CARP LGU: politicians only after longevity in office with its privileges, and NOT after the development of their constituencies; thus, resulting in illegal logging, flashfloods & landslides, further aggravating poverty among the people; Politicians tolerate, if not get involved, in illegal gambling/jueting, drugs, police corruption, extra-judicial killings, etc.

44. Other Outcomes of failed CARP Moreover, in LGUs, Partisan Armed Groups (PAGs) serve as private armies, pawns to protect the feudal lord-politicians’ political and business interests, even serving as assassins against political rivals; Thus, even at the highest levels of the government bureaucracy--CORRUPTION rather than GOOD GOVERNANCE.

45. Other Outcomes of failed CARP Patron-client/paternalistic practices in the countryside and in micro & small-scale business enterprises (91.3 percent of businesses with less than ten employees), considering, too, that 43 percent of the Philippine workforce comprise contractual workers; Only a little more than 50 % of business establishments comply with the minimum wage law.

46. Feudal Industrial Relations? This may yet be one realistic way of branding the industrial relations systems operating in both the rural and urban areas where the wealthy landlords/big businessmen linked to MNCs operating in a GLOBALIZED setting under current WTO conditions. Thus, FEUDAL WORK SYSTEMS (=corruption) = POVERTY

47. W HAT IS TO BE DONE? Goal(Social Justice): for the majority of our agricultural workers, including the indigenous people, to enjoy LANDOWNERSHIP and GENUINE EMPOWERMENT, and for all workers to cherish INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY. ELITES should be FORCED to become RESPONSIBLE EMPLOYERS/LEADERS, to share their wealth with the POOR.

48. A Concluding Remark: “We must uproot the remains of feudalism still stuck to our culture in established patterns of thought and behavior...patronage and personalistic politics, askew relationships with superiors and inferiors, perpetuation of lineages.” (Maramba 2009)

49. People … THANK YOU!