FINAL CHAPTER OR CHORUS
Meanwhile, in that final chapter of The Pretenders,--a chapter entitled "Chorus"--an idealistic American and former roommate of Antonio Samson from Harvard arrives in Manila. This old friend doesn't know until he arrives of the demise of his ex-Filipino roommate.
(By the way, this American has been working for U.S. aid and development efforts in Latin America over the past years and is now on his way to another land in Southeast Asian land--Laos--where he will work during the next decade.) This American idealist, named Lawrence Bitfogel, has a similar political background and the same critically cool view of the world as Antonio Samson. Within less-than-a-day, Bitfogel observes the world of the Villa family and comes quickly to comprehend how the Villa family and Manila's other power brokers had snared the young Dr. Antonio Samson into their modern world of Philippine (family) oligarchy.
These kingmakers control the Philippines by manipulating nationalism and internationalism--while bribing off enemies and critiques right and left. They can do this by controlling the land, the money and resources. They can do it by creating hordes of con-men (yes-men, too) and idealess politicians and capitalists. They can even do it with assistance of post-WWII carpet-bagger (Yankees) from North America, China, and Japan.
They still control the land today--i.e. in 2010.
As an agricultural economists, the young Lawrence Bitfogel, came to the Philippines not-only-to-see his friend, Antonio Samson, but had planned to take time to find out exactly how connected the Philippines and Latin American are developmentally (Don't forget, Readers, that from the 1600s through 1820, Spain allowed the Philippines to be governed by the Viceroy of what is now Mexico. That is, from the governmentof what was known as New Spain, Philippines were controlled.) Bitfogel "had seen the influence of Spanish civilization in the continent and the far-reaching impact of Spanish civilization upon the traditional society of the Indian peasant. He wondered if the pattern of feudal exploitation and development such as that operating in South America had been transposed to the Philippines."
Naturally, the similarities would be there for Larry Bitfogel to discover.
The ensuing 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s would reveal in the Philippines numerous regional and national revolts--just as was occurring in Latin America in the same era--with rising rebel movements trying to overpower the oligarchies and their new nationalist or internationalist alliances. Even today, a few dozen families appear to govern a great percentage of the country of the Philippines for most of the time--with some families, such as the Macapagal-Arroyos and Aquinas trading off presidencies over the past half century or so.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
