The Philippines
The Philippines, lying at the northeastern reach of the Southeast Asian archipelago, comprises more than 7000 islands spread over about 500,000 square miles (1.3 million square kilometers) of ocean (Figure 10.35 map). The two largest islands are Luzon in the north and Mindanao in the south. Together, they make up about two-thirds of the country’s total land area, which is about the size of Arizona. The Philippine Islands, part of the Pacific Ring of Fire (see Figure 1.26), are volcanic. The violent eruption of Mount Pinatubo in June 1991 devastated 154 square miles (400 square kilometers) and blanketed most of Southeast Asia with ash (see Figure 10.35A). Volcanologists had predicted the eruption, and precautions were taken, so although about 3 million people were threatened, the death toll was less than 0.028 percent—still, 847 people died. Over time, volcanic eruptions have given the Philippines fertile soil and rich deposits of minerals (gold, copper, iron, chromate, and several other elements).
Population, Urbanization, and Disaffection
When the Philippines became a virtual U.S. colony in 1898, after the Spanish-American War, it had 7 million people. Just over 110 years later, the population is nearly 14 times larger, at about 97.6 million. Today, close to 63 percent of Filipinos live in cities, a high proportion compared with Southeast Asia as a whole (42 percent). Urban densities can exceed 50,000 people per square mile (31,250 per square kilometer). The metropolitan area of Manila, the country’s capital, with a population of more than 30 million, is one of the largest and most densely settled urban agglomerations in the world (see Figure 10.35B). Some were displaced to the city by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, others by rapid deforestation (see Figure 10.35C), dam projects, and mechanized commercial agriculture.
Because of the forced nature of rural-to-urban migration, many people are unemployed urban squatters living in shelters they have built out of scraps. To the Philippine central government, the masses of urban poor (estimated to make up between 28 and 40 percent of the Philippine population) represent a particular political and civil threat. Even though the excesses of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos ended in 1986 and the presidencies of Corazon Aquino, Gloria Macapagal-Aroyo, and Benigno Aquino III have filled the decades since, the people’s faith in their government has not yet been restored. Marcos maintained a flamboyant and brutal regime beginning in 1965. Since his ouster in 1986, there has been insufficient economic progress, and violent social unrest has become very much a part of life in the Philippines.
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Cultural and Economic Disparities
The cultural complexity of Philippine society is illustrated by its ethnic profile. At almost 96 percent, the majority of the population belongs to one or more of 60 distinct indigenous ethnic groups. The Chinese make up another 1.5 percent of the population, and the remaining 3 percent includes Europeans, Americans, other Asians, and people native to other Southeast Asian islands.
Most Filipinos are Roman Catholic (83 percent), but the southern and central portions of the island of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago have been predominantly Muslim for a long time. Over the last few decades, the central government has been resettling many thousands of Catholics in Mindanao, apparently to dilute the Muslim population. Rival family clans that have armed militias who do their bidding dominate local politics in Mindanao. In retaliation against those clans that are allied with Catholic elected national officials (President Gloria Arroyo, for one), Muslim fighters, some possibly linked to international terrorist movements, began operating in the southern Philippines, carrying out bombings that have killed scores of people (see Figure 10.18C and the figure map).
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ON THE BRIGHT SIDE
Filipinos Envision a Better Future
Ordinary Filipinos are keenly aware that a better social and political system is possible. In cooperation with the United Nations, the government of New Zealand, and several NGOs, a group of concerned Philippine citizens produced nine Human Development Reports over the last two decades. The report for 2008–2009 is a model of frank talk about civic problems. Noting that human well-being has dropped dramatically over the last 10 to 15 years, the report states: “There is wide agreement that the weakness of political institutions in the Philippines is a major…hindrance to progress…. When all is said and done…the fate of [human development] policies and programs ultimately lies in the hands of the government” (Philippines Human Development Report 2008–2009, UNDP, p. 2).
The report goes on to target multiple government agencies as working at cross purposes and, therefore, all culpable for the low level of well-being in the country: the education system (out of 100 children entering first grade, only 65 finish sixth grade); the civil service (underpaid and undertrained); the legislature (overly partisan); the judiciary (undertrained); and the executive branch (often interfering with the legislature). The careful marshaling of evidence by these citizens and their brave dedication to rational long-term change bodes well for the future of the Philippines.
Wealth and poverty are also often associated with certain ethnic groups, as is the case elsewhere in Southeast Asia. The vast majority of the wealthy are descendants of Spanish and Spanish-Filipino plantation landowners or of Chinese financiers and businesspeople. It is estimated that 30 percent of the top 500 corporations in the islands are controlled today by ethnic Chinese Filipinos, who make up less than 1 percent of the population. By 1972, family conglomerates controlled 78 percent of all corporate wealth in the Philippines. Meanwhile, the poor are overwhelmingly indigenous people.
In contrast to Malaysia, where ethnic disparities in wealth became an openly discussed national social issue, the Philippine government under Marcos did not embark on an economic policy to help disadvantaged ethnic groups, or improve the country’s infrastructure, or find strategies for national reconciliation. President Marcos’s reaction to protests that erupted in 1972 was to declare martial law. He managed to hang onto power for another 14 years, during which and since, there has been little progress in infrastructure development, education advancement, job creation, population control, or wealth redistribution. Successors to Ferdinand Marcos were hampered in their efforts to settle social unrest and attract investment by the triple economic disasters of the Mount Pinatubo eruption, the closing of the U.S. military bases in 1991, and a drastic cut in U.S. foreign aid once the Americans left. By 2012, there was talk that the United States might negotiate the reopening of the Subic Bay base as part of its new interest in playing a stronger role in the greater Asian region, a development that would have major economic impacts on the Philippines.
The case of the Philippines under Marcos and since shows how poor leadership and corrupt government can hold back a country. Despite the rampant sale abroad of its once-rich timber resources, the country’s economy has been so lethargic that actual unemployment rates are thought to be as high as 30 percent, with 40 percent of the population living below the poverty line. Many of the best and brightest Filipinos have chosen to temporarily migrate to more vibrant economic zones, where they often work at jobs that are far below their qualifications (see the vignette about the maids from the Philippines).
THINGS TO REMEMBER
Uncontrolled population growth during the twentieth-century occupation by the United States led to unsustainable use of resources, heavy rural-to-urban migration, and deteriorating living standards and political order.- Development has been lopsided, with the largest firms overwhelmingly in the hands of a tiny elite that pays little attention to human well-being.
- Ethnicity and clans still influence local politics in the Philippines, often with deadly consequences. Such rivalries are often conflated with unrest among minority Muslims in the southern provinces of the Philippines.
- In a series of frank Human Development Reports, the citizens themselves have identified enduring political problems as caused by a failure of leadership, especially in the realms of political institutions and education.