Contemporary Philippines:

Neocolonialism
1946 to present

Assessment of US and Japan

Occupation of the Philippines:
Impact and Results
Strong American cultural

influence: colonial mentality

Cultivation of an elite class that

will take-over after the

Americans left
Progress in education; increase
in Filipino literacy
Introduction of a scientific
program of public health and
welfare
Economic development via the
introduction of free trade and
the emphasis on local industries
Highlight on individual freedoms
and a democratic form of
government
American-oriented Filipino
culture

War experience: Japanese

occupation
Central Administrative

Organization as a puppet
government; the Philippine
Republic
Three years of resistance
movement; the guerilla warfare
Destruction of an old elite social
class and the re-introduction of a
new bourgeois class that tookover; the new rich
Emphasis on the cultural affinity
of the Japanese and the Filipinos
for being Asian: Asia for Asians

After the war

Ravaged post-war economy:

properties and industries

destroyed
Production at a standstill
A government that needed to
be re-organised
Society that needed to be
rehabilitated

American Financial

Aid

US Congress passed
resolution for$120M for
public buildings, roads and
bridges; $75M for budgetary
purposes, $25M for guerilla
notes and $100M sale value
of army surplus
Reconstruction and Finance
Corp granted loan of $60M
to the Philippines

The Bell Trade and

Rehabilitation Acts

The Free-trade relations

between the US and the Phils
will be continued until 1954
For parity rights to be
extended to the Americans,
amendment of the 1935
constitution is required
Passed as complementary
based on the condition that
parity rights be given to the
Americans

Sourced from: The US and the Ph: A Study of

Neocolonialism by Stephen R. Shalom

NEOCOLONIALISM
Differentiated from COLONIALISM because of

lack of formal political sovereignty over one

country
Defines the contemporary political relationship

between the US and RP where strategic and

economic domination coexist with legal
independence

definitions
COLONIALISM
Traditionally regarded

as the rule of one

country over another
Must be viewed in
class terms as well as
in national terms;
wherein the elite class
of the weak country
cooperated openly
with the superior
country

NEOCOLONIALISM
Defined as an alliance

between the leading

class or classes of two
independent nations
which facilitates their
ability to maintain a
dominant position
over the rest of the
population of the
weaker of the two
nations

NEOCOLONIALISM
the definition stated

emphasizes the idea of

nation as a
conglomerate of
conflicting classes; one
where the elite
manipulates power
Describes the
relationship of the US
and RP in contemporary
timescultivated
during the four decades
of colonial rule

American colonial

officials in the Phils

groomed a governing
class that would
administer the islands
while preserving
American strategic and
economic interests
coincidentally
consistent with the
interests of the Filipino
elites

The Role of the Filipino

Elite
Power was gradually

transferred from
American colonial
officials to the Filipino
elite:
Filipinization of the
bureaucracy, the training
of Filipinos for selfgovernment
assimilation of American
values and,
the making of the Filipino
elites in American image

Open collaboration of
Filipino elites with
Americans gained them
preferential access to the
American markets for their
export cropselites were
landowners and were
actually considered by
Americans to be generally
corrupt, reactionary,
undemocratic and
unrepresentative
The elites were the logical
successors to the American
after independence was
granted

corrupt, unrepresentative &selfish

It was the desire to maintain

power that motivated elite

collaboration with colonial
powers
Relative to the issue of
collaboration with the
Japanese, it must be
emphasized that Filipino
elites did not undergo a
sudden conversion to
treason, the power they
were collaborating had
changed but the basic policy
did not:

The elite just continued with

their policy of collaboration

which they had been doing
under the Americans; that is
collaborating with the
colonial power in exchange
for political office and other
rewards
It was not surprising that
the elite had placed its
interest and its foreign
partner above those of its
own people

.the collaboration issue

This issue is important to

the Americans for two major

reasons:
first, the danger that
collaborators were not
simply opportunists willing
to work for the highest
bidder but they may have
genuine anti-American
sentiments
Second, it was vital because
American public opinion
weighted against
collaborators

In any case, the Americans

were in the position to

control the situation, they
have the Filipino elites under
their thumb but what was
threatening were the
peasant movements
spawned by the Huks which
had become communists
Ultimately, it was the
question of which members
of the elite would further
American interests in an
independent Philippines

the rise of Manuel

Roxas
The impracticalities of

pursuing the issue of

collaboration influenced
the actions of American
officials in the Philippines:
disadvantage of polarizing
Philippine society with the
reality that the anticollaborators were in fact
communists that may be
empowered should the
issue be resolved

It was therefore more

advantageous to American
interests to concentrate on
restoring the elite, atleast
the right kind of elite. This
was accomplished by
dismantling Huk control of
local governments and by
providing the elite with the
means to assure its
dominance over the radical
peasant movements
especially in Central Luzon

Referring to this situation

would explain the logical choice

of empowering Manuel Roxas
He was known to be loyal to the

Americans, though his

collaborator credentials are also
well known
He welcomed American capital
and business interests in the
Philippines
He was personally liked by the
American officials
The added bonus of fudging the
issue of collaboration by
declaring amnesty

the radical peasants

This realization was

In the end, the vital

interests that represent

the polarized Philippine
society took precedence;
elites occupied
government positions that
will neutralize the growing
threat of radical peasant
movements. Ultimately,
the problem had been
distilled as one of
agrarian nature

addressed in the agrarian

law that supposedly improve
the condition of tenant
farmers by guaranteeing
them 70% of crop yields
A futile attempt at best
because the elites were
landowners and they treat
the agrarian issue as one of
lawlessness not one of
inequality the US chose to
support he elites over the
militant peasants

The Independence
Legislation
Dominance of American

interest in post-colonial
Philippines had already
been established along with
the narrow/selfish role of
Filipino elites in servicing
them.
It was paramount that
Philippine rehabilitation be
accomplished; moral
considerations, business
and trade interests, and
politically to maintain an
ally in Asia

The Rehabilitation Act passed

by US Congress provided:
$120M for infrastructure,
$100M worth of surplus of US
property and another $400M
for the restoration of individual
propertiesthe War Damage
Act
Reinforcement of the elites;
the rehabilitation aid could
have been used to reconstruct
Philippine society on a more
egalitarian basis but it was the
elites again which were
restored.

Bell Trade Act of 1947

The Rehabilitation Act had

been used by the US as

leverage to use so that
the Philippines may
accept a trade agreement
that is one-sided/lopsided/unequal
Non-discriminatory
access/free trade
relations that were
absolutely advantageous
to US commercial
interests

The main provisions:

US exports were to be
admitted into the Phils free of
duty, with no limitation on
quantity for a period of 8
years
Tariffs would be incrementally
increased over the next 25
years until full duty was being
paid
The Phils exports were to
follow same schedule of tariff
impositions but with absolute
quotas for most of its exports
to the US

The Bell Trade Act

Prohibition of exports taxes
Pegging of the peso to US

currency
Granting of equal or parity
rights to the Americans in
the Phils., spelled out this
clause declared that
American citizens and
enterprises were to be
given full and equal rights
with Filipinos in the area of
owning public utilities and
in the use of natural
resources

Other features of the law:

gave US goods an

advantage in the Phils over

goods of other nations,
reestablishes the Phils as
one of the best customers
of US products,
the RP is the gateway to
trade with other Asian
countries
Most importantly, release of
rehabilitation funds were
tied to the ratification of the
Bell Trade Act

The campaign to

amend the
Commonwealth
Constitution needed
to be accomplished
in two parts: RP
Senate should ratify
the law and 2/3rds of
the voting RP
population should
approve the
agreement in a local

Roxas led his allies in

making sure that the

Phil Congress was
poised in ratifying the
trade agreement by
making sure that
more radical
representatives
elected from Central
Luzon will not be
seated, pork-barrel
and horse-trading

Military Bases Agreement

US policy asserted that vital

Filipino elite thinking on the

commercial interests will be

best served with American
presence in the Phils: not
only military outposts but
springboards from which the
US armed forces may be
projected
Ultimately, independence of
the Phils was not an
accomplished fact;
dependent politically,
economically and militarily

military bases were easier to

pin-down: to them, presence
of military bases is the
way to tie the interests of
Washington to their own.
They were not cognizant of
any inequality that may
arise out of such
arrangements
Especially when Military
Assistance Agreement had
been secured to sweeten
the deal

ELITE DEMOCRACY
Describes the pre-

dominance of elite
interest and
advocacies in the
conduct of democracy
in the Philippines
Politically; the three
independent branches
of the Philippine
government were
controlled (still is) by
the elite

In the legislature: the

House of the
Representative is
seen as the house of
privilegethey were
not very
representative. It was
in fact a millionaires
club making
policing/passing laws
for the poor Filipinos

Political and Economic

Oligarchy
Economic elites treat
Political clans make

up the majority of
representatives
elected to pass laws
for the Filipinos
Politics is the
profession of these
families; passed on
from one generation
to another

politics as business
ventures; from the
traditional landed
gentry to more
diversified elite
commercial and
professionals
The privileges and
perks of law-making
pork barrel and graft
and corruption

The Tri-Question
Approach
1.) What (who, where,
when) is the event?
2.) Why/how did it
happen?
3.) What was its
outcome?

Colonization

Mutual
Defense
Treaty

Neocolonialism

Huks

Manuel Roxas

Filipino
legislators

Luis Taruc

Collaboration
issue

Elites; pick an
individual

Parity rights

Peasant
movement

Rehabilitation
Act

Group activity: Individual output

Topic/member

Previous
knowledge

New
knowledge

Addition/clari
fication/confir
mation