133408

Sir Jomar Cuartero, R43

Research Paper

Marcos and Society

ABSTRACT

Ferdinand Marcos, ex-President of the Philippines, is guilty of a

variety of well-documented crimes, including the embezzlement of

public funds, human rights abuses and any number of unknown

illegalities. This paper will seek to examine the social and cultural

values and norms held uniquely by the Filipino people which allowed

Marcos to exploit Philippine society. This paper will seek to prove

that certain Filipino values were not only necessary to the success of

Marcos’s actions, but also acted as an auxiliary enabler, almost an

accessory, to these Marcos-directed crimes. It will also seek to prove

that Marcos deliberately manipulated these values under the complete

knowledge of what his policies, including certain propagandist

creations, were capable of doing. The paper will seek to do this by

providing professional analysis by other academics as well as various

historical facts as data which will then be processed and interpreted

to formulate an argument. This paper will also attempt to apply

certain theories and models to the actions of both the Filipino people

collectively, the condition of democracy and Marcos’s beliefs and

actions to further the argument. The first argument will cover Frank

Lynch’s concept of “social acceptance” and the Filipino hiya while the

second argument will cover the utang na loob and the culture of

Patronage in the Philippine context, all of which will be in regards

to Marcos’s actions, policies and directives. This will include,

though will not be limited to, a short history of these Philippine

social values as well as in what setting and sense they were

influenced.

After repeated research, consistent revision and constant improvement,

this paper has sufficient evidence and rationale to propose and verify

its thesis that Marcos did indeed take advantage of social factors and

that these social factors were, in vice versa, crucial to Marcos’s

success. Six frequently used words in this paper will be: the utang

which refers to a debt of gratitude, hiya which is “shame”,

“manipulation”, “social”, “cultural” and “values”.

INTRODUCTION

On December 30 of 1965, Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos became the

10th President of the Republic of the Philippines. Though debate

remains on the overall effect or even the intention of Marcos-era

policies, what is undisputed (and which this paper holds to be true)

is that during the two decade-long tenure of President Ferdinand

Marcos, there existed a “state of infidelity”, a national condition

wherein a regime-sanctioned adulterism of the public funds (and by

extension, public trust) existed in nearly every aspect of government

service, virtually transforming the democratic Philippine republic

into a Marcos-led kleptocratic police-state . During his 21-

uninterrupted years in the office of the Chief Executive, Marcos was

accused of advocating and being directly involved in widespread public

corruption, cronyism, the embezzlement of government funds and human

rights repressions [1]. These criminal acts eventually factored into the

peaceful people-backed ouster that led to Marcos’s self-exile in 1986

[2].

This paper will be examining some of the individual philosophies of

thought, via a socio-analytical approach, leading to the enactment of

various articles of legislation, both tangible and intangible in

design, during the Marcos-era and their effects on prevailing

Philippine social orders under the framework of the “New Society”, a

general term used by this paper to encompass all economic, cultural

and security-related policies as well as singular actions advocated

and encouraged by the Marcos administration in order to encourage

communal change and to justify increasing militarization against a

growing insurgency. What was the state of the Philippine liberal

democracy under Marcos? How did this change over time? What particular

cultural values were exploited by Marcos and his allies to allow them

to abuse their positions of authority with impunity? What sort of

political or social philosophy did Marcos use to justify his actions?

These are some of the questions that this paper seeks to answer by

proving that Marcos manipulated popular Filipino cultural ideals, such

as that of nationalism, “Filipinism”, and the long-held tradition of

utang na loob, among others, on a grand scale by utilizing populist

cultural policies to deliberately mislead the Filipino public and

divert attention away from the human rights abuses, policy misstepping

and the large-scale inefficacy of his governance; thus providing a

basis from which assorted intellectuals interested in events crucial

to the later development of the modern Philippine political polity and

contemporary society in general, specifically the events leading up to

the EDSA Revolution.

Such a study using a uniquely cultural and psychological approach by a

neophyte new to the academic field has not, insofar as known, been

undertaken previously; hopefully contributing to the broad expanse of

existing literature and historical analysis on the Marcos regime and

the Marcos persona itself.

Propaganda and the Emotional Society

Marcos, throughout his career, has consistently fabricated fictions

regarding his life, his work and even his wife. According to the

estimable Sterling Seagrave in his book “The Marcos Dynasty”,

Ferdinand Marcos has repeatedly lied about his past, providing

flattering images of his life to highly-paid biographers, detailing

himself as a “superbright child of a poor but honest family” as well a

WWII war veteran with an impeccable record, among others. It is later

revealed, though not widely-known, that a US Army investigation found

Marcos’s WWII claims to be false and even “criminal” and that his

father was not only a powerful Chinese magistrate but a “leading

member of one of the six richest and most powerful clans in the

islands”. [1] This explains the relative ease with which Marcos rose to

Congressional office as well as his later connections within the

wealthy Chinese business community, an interest group crucial to the

success of Marcos’s economic banditry.

But how did Marcos manage to persuade millions of Filipinos that such

outright falsehoods were actually undeniable facts? Seagrave mentions

that several biographies written about Marcos by high-profile

journalists helped to consolidate the myth, but also notes that such a

propagandist endeavor could not have succeeded without the support of

a supremely-powerful group, a group which helped to popularize the

biographies and newspaper articles as realities. This group is the

United States government, a nation with a foreign policy keen on

sustaining whatever pro-West regime decided to support them in their

Cold War efforts against Communism. Seagrave, and several other

authors acknowledge that Marcos’s administration would never have

lasted so long without the public or secret approval of the United

States. However, this paper holds that although foreign influence and

external supporters are major contributors to Marcos’s regime and by

extension the confabulation of Philippine society; Philippine society

itself is an important factor.

Analysts and academics agree that Philippine society is, by nature,

emotional [2]; that is, the heavy inclination by a collective group

towards considering emotional elements as determinants in dealing with

various problems or issues. A crucial aspect of this is the almost-

constant sensitivity to the feelings and thoughts of others that a

Filipino has, what Frank Lynch calls “social acceptance”. Lynch

describes this as “the emphasis placed on pleasant interaction (…) and

the means taken to assure it” wherein “one is taken by one’s fellows

for what he is, or believes he is, and is treated in accordance with

his status”. Lynch clarifies by differentiating between American

social acceptance and the Philippine version by arguing that while the

average American “achieves peace (…) by agreement to disagree”; the

average Filipino is more likely to achieve peace by simply blurring

the differences between two opposing views or by “agreement not to

disagree – at least openly”. Lynch furthers the idea by saying that

the “Filipino sees no reason why conflict should be courted when

silence or evasive speech” will do; essentially arguing that Filipinos

prefer to avoid conflict rather than confront it. To refuse conformity

to this perception of social acceptance (for example, by being deliberately

blunt in slandering another) does have its consequences. Hiya, as Lynch

describes, “is a universal social sanction… (that) enforces conformity

with all aspects of the social code” and is the Filipino equivalent of

“shame”. [3] In essence, it is that “uncomfortable feeling that

accompanies awareness of being in a socially unacceptable position”.

Though some will counter that Lynch’s “study” is from an age long

past, saying that many of the characteristics of Philippine culture

and society mentioned by Lynch have revolted from past

generalizations; one contends that the idea of social acceptance is

central to the functioning of Philippine society and is one of the

primary aspects of the aforementioned Filipino “emotionality”.

Assuming the predominance of this uniquely Filipino character, it is

easy to see the inability of the Philippine political culture and

society in general to correctly respond to Marcos’s blatant

propaganda. Seagrave says that even the most respected journals in the

United States began quoting from one particularly successful biography

[4]; “After that, who was to challenge the authenticity of the Marcos

legend?” (Seagrave, 4) Given the inherent trust most Filipinos have

towards the validity of overseas written works in contrast to their

own local papers [5], Filipinos found their beliefs justified in the

publication of these Marcos biographies. So, to the average Filipino

mind, Marcos was something akin to the Philippines’s global

ambassador, a physical manifestation of the best and brightest that

the Philippine islands could offer to the international beauty pageant

of liberal, pro-West Third World leaders. With emotions and

nationalistic pride forefront in the Filipino mindset, how could

anyone possibly criticize Marcos, another Filipino, after being cited

in so many foreign papers and periodicals referring to him as nothing

short of a war hero? Marcos received massive public approval boosts

from the publishing of these printed fantasies, swinging votes in

Marcos’s direction at a critical stage during the 1965 Presidential

Elections.

And since the Filipino will not insist on an idea or upon a course of

action without a modicum of relative popular support or at least the

knowledge that whatever deed the individual undertakes or act he

condones will not place him in a socially-awkward or socially-

disadvantaged position with respect to the rest of his particular

social class (the idea of the “social class” also prevalent in

Philippine tradition), any critics, both in the academic field or in

the household, more or less had their opinions quashed; or were simply

ignored by the majority (the latter event occurring to those brave few

who did decide to publish their views in writing). Or, more likely,

they may have simply chosen to remain silent. Faultfinders kept their

opinions to themselves out of the subconscious fear of hiya, or because

they did not see sufficient incentive to overcome their natural state

of peace by supporting a dissenting view with respect to the Filipino

preference of non-confrontation. Thusly, these detractors could only

watch helpless as Marcos rose to the Office of the President in spite

of their reservations in him. In fact, given time, those detractors

most likely ended up altering their opinions of Marcos to conform to

the rest of society’s version of Marcos. It was only during the

decline in Marcos’s popularity that mentions of Marcos’s dishonesty

began appearing in discussions within the House of Representatives.

The Establishment and the Etiquette of Bribery

Scholars agree that, since the colonial era, Philippine society (and

with independence, the state) has been dominated by the concept of

Patronage - an “informal relationship between persons of unequal

status and powers, which imposes reciprocal obligations of a different

kind on each of the parties” [6]; and this phenomenon has been carried

over into contemporary times, exploited countlessly by any number of

politicians and by opportunistic businesspeople to curry favor, expand

their respective power bases, and to gain wealth (often through

unscrupulous, extortive measures). Varying degrees of Patronage exist,

affecting interactions within the political, economic, and social

arenas, going so far as to influence the fine arts and cultural

sectors. In a classic political example, a regional governor attempts

to solicit the support of local community leaders during the period

before local elections. These local community leaders will then

deliver votes of their respective communities, and the regional

governor (upon winning) will then reward the local leaders with

positions of power and influence or via some other method of payment

(the most blatant form being a monetary reward – direct bribery).

Marcos and his Establishment (the Marcos-led oligarchy) were not

exceptions to this, and, arguably, the success of their actions and

policies can largely be attributed to their expert manipulation of

this particular social circumstance.

However, while the idea of Patronage has been well-documented and

exhaustibly detailed in various academic papers transnationally (the

phenomena not limited to the Philippine setting) [7], what is not as

well-known is that there exists a distinctively Filipino trait which

has specifically fathered Patronage within the Philippine context,

ingraining Patronage into the activity of modern social orders and

allowing it to subsist in nearly every level of society; inevitably

shaping person-to-person relationships and altering political dynamics

of power and authority. This cultural trait bears nearly identical

features as to that of Patronage, but is genuine and exceptional in

its own manner.

Marshall Sahlins calls this cultural phenomenon, in the general sense,

“reciprocity” [8]. Scholars broadly describe it as “referring to the

non-market exchange of goods or labor ranging from direct barter

(immediate exchange) to forms of gift exchange where a return is

expected eventually. However, there are dissenters, some arguing that

the idea of “reciprocity” is so broad and so general, it could “mean

almost anything” making it “meaningless”. [9] But this paper holds that

reciprocity is a quantifiable if abstract concept, a valid approach in

studying an observable social occurrence. Reciprocity and, by

extension, the “gift exchange economy” [10] (which relates to a more

direct, physical trade of goods) has been extensively discussed in

anthropological circles, with thinkers like John Locke and Adam Smith

viewing it as vital to the function of a free-market economy [11]; while

a whole plethora of literature exists on the subject.

However, in fulfillment of this research paper’s limitations, we will

seek to undertake a more Filipino-specific approach; and thus we refer

to Mary Hollnsteiner’s work on reciprocity and her studies regarding

its utility and function in small-town Filipino environments.

Hollnsteiner further details reciprocity in the overall sense as being

“that principle of behavior wherein every service received, solicited

or not, demands a return, the nature and proportion of the return

determined by the relative statuses of the parties involved and the

kind of exchange at issue” [12]. Hollnsteiner classifies reciprocity

into three separate categories: contractual reciprocity, quasi-

contractual reciprocity, and the utang na loob (Hollnsteiner, 23-4). But

for the purposes of this paper, the term utang na loob will be used to

describe the theory of reciprocity and the ideas entailed therein as

well as its associated political ramifications, with respect to the

Filipino setting.

Utang na loob, literally meaning “debt from within”, or more colloquially

as “debt of gratitude”, correspondingly takes off from the provided

definition of Filipino reciprocity. The difference lays in the

reasoning that while reciprocity can refer to any “non-market exchange

of goods… where an eventual return is expected” as mentioned, utang na

loob is characterized by “unequal repayment with no prior agreement,

explicit or implicit, on the form or quantity of the return.” This

means that no actual physical discussion occurs between the client and

the patron as to when (after the client receives a good or a form of

service from the patron) the client must return a demanded service

expected by the patron, though the patron does not explicitly demand

anything. Such a system could only possibly function so extremely in a

highly emotional society, to which the social structure of the

Philippines overwhelmingly qualifies. The client and the patron both

recognize their duties towards performing a particular service, and

subconsciously accept their roles in the hierarchy of reciprocity and

the utang.

However, the utang by itself is not inherently evil or “bad”, but its

nature gives it the capacity to be auxiliary to the firm establishment

of Patronage in the traditional and civil operation of Philippine

society. This is due to the fact that the component attributes of both

Patronage and the utang are nearly indistinguishable: both cater to a

patrimonial relationship between two groups or individuals, both are

common occurrences in day-to-day economic and social cycles, and

neither are fundamentally criminal or immoral, though they can be

devised to purpose in such a manner.

But Patronage and the utang are not simply evolved from matters of

nothing. The roots of these social principles are found within

Philippine history and its extreme transitions through varying degrees

of statehood, radically transforming from that of an archipelago of

scattered communities into that of a Spanish colony; until becoming an

American client-state and then finally achieving independence (though

on a limited basis), but without developing the stable political

culture founded on democratic ideals necessary to progress beyond its

imperialist past, in contrast to nations with unwavering ideals of

egalitarianism like the modern United States or the past French

Republic. Baluyut notes that reciprocity was transformed “within the

context of colonial convention” where the land-holding elites, also

known as caciques, “greatly diminished the peasantry’s bargaining

position, paving the way for a national oligarchy”. And, with the

advent of American occupation, the patron-client relationship was only

enhanced, granting the “native elite” with opportunities “to expand

its power base”. (Baluyut, 2-4) Essentially, the Philippines has

lacked a single self-determinant group or event from which to merge

far-flung regions with vaguely disparate cultures and traditions into

a distinct whole (such as a Founding Father figure); thus preventing

the Philippines from becoming a truly joined nation.

And, not unaware of these cultural, social and historical phenomena,

Marcos set out to begin performing a “service” for the Filipino

people, with no less than his controversial wife Imelda leading the

cultural “rediscovery”. Though veritable mountains of literature have

been written about Marcos and his governance, similar hills of written

works have set out to examine and profile the First Lady. To the

interest of many, Imelda has done what Seagrave describes as something

“no other Filipino First Lady had ever done”; she became active in

national affairs. One of her biographers, Kerima Polotan, described

Imelda’s later actions in a single sentence – “She would sow beauty

where she could”. (Seagrave, 189) Thusly, in 1966 and at the behest of

his wife, Marcos signed Executive Order 30 which officially created

the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Marcos appointed Imelda as

chairperson of the CCP’s seven-member Board of Trustees, and, under

her, the CCP instituted numerous programs, including the creation of

the National Artist’s Award. (Baluyut, 11- 6, 26-7) Imelda also

assumed other personal social welfare programs, such as the Save-a-

Life-in-Every-Barrio project, Christmas bags, “home gardens and

disaster relief” (Seagrave, 190).

But these policies were not without criticism and were most certainly

not devoid of classic Marcos misdirection. In February of 1969,

Senator Benigno Aquino “vociferously attacked Ferdinand and Imelda

Marcos”, alleging that the CCP was an “illegal agency” for its lack of

Congressional approval since the creation of a cultural body was a

legislative function, something that the Executive was incapable of

doing. Aquino was, of course, duly ignored by the soon-to-be

totalitarian Marcos regime which dodged legal challenges under the

constitutional protection of immunity. (Baluyut, 21-3) Jaime Ferrer

also acknowledged that vices and venalities were already present in

the first years of the Marcos administration, noting that during many

such Imelda-led “drives for the poor”, all checks were made out to

Imelda and deposited in her name and were thusly “not used for the

poor”. When word got around of Imelda’s thievery, companies and

philanthropic groups sent goods instead, but that Imelda still

withheld food bags for a day or so (even during disasters) until “each

could be tagged ‘A Gift from the First Lady.’” (Seagrave, 190) Even

the funding for the CCP and related projects was processed via shady

dealings from questionable sources, with 3.5M dollars of the

Philippine’s veteran education fund realigned for the CCP with the

approval of the American government. Dozens of unvouchered, entirely

discretionary grants were also provided by the Johnson administration

to the Marcoses for their continued support of the United States and

its Cold War efforts, hidden under masks of being intended for

different military, social or state projects, eventually totaling

195.4M dollars. Even stranger, very little of this amount seems to

have reached its “supposed” destination, mysteriously disappearing

into government-controlled banks run by personal friends of the

Marcoses. (Seagrave, 191-5)

So, as the principal architects of several policies envisioned to

instigate a social “revolution” by centralizing the “idea of the

Filipino”, the Marcoses (and his allies by extension), in the eyes of

the common man, became the “patrons” of the arts and protectors of the

Filipino heritage. What many failed to notice was that Marcos had no

genuine ambition to transform Philippine society into a legitimate and

genuine democratic state. However, this fact was, arguably, nearly

invisible at first. In his writings, Marcos separately references to

egalitarian ideals, saying that to establish such a liberal society,

Filipinos must use their “communal, humanist value system” to “serve

the ends of the democratic revolution.” He even speaks of the

importance of social institutions, while advocating the incorporation

of “values indigenous to the client society” in a framework for

universal values. [14] This is, in essence, in line with what Kamrava

describes as a “viable democracy”, a state “upheld by a liberal

democratic constitution, and built on an entrenched tradition of

societal autonomy.” [15] These assorted intellectual texts probably

provided a basis from which a groundswell of Marcos support could

legitimately spring, and most likely did enough to appease Marcos’s

Western supporters of his continued loyalty to American policy.

But Marcos contradicts his own self-proclaimed dedication to the

“genuine” democratic ideal when he broadly endorses the Philippine

political culture for being “populist, personalist, and

individualist”, manifesting itself in the “politician”. He justifies

this by describing the relationship between the average politician and

the average Filipino, noting that the Filipino normally sees the

politician as the “provider” of all things, someone who anyone can

approach for any want or need beyond their own ability. [16] This

effectively becomes an ideology contrary to the characteristics of a

viable democracy, sponsoring what Kamrava calls a “subject political

culture” where “there is a one-way, downward flow of influence from

the political top to the social base, and society's norms and values

toward the larger body politic are at best passive and at worst

nonexistent” (Kamrava, 77). Therefore, contrary to creating the

Philippines in the image of a viable democracy as Marcos proposes,

Marcos actually wanted to create a “delegative democracy”, a type of

quasi-democracy where “the protection and integrity of democracy are

delegated to one man (…) where the importance of every other

institution of democracy - the parliament, political parties,

electoral procedures, etc. - pales in comparison to that of the

presidency." (Kamrava, 98) This is, without a doubt, the

quintessential manifestation of the culture of Patronage and the

political avatar of the social utang.

Thusly, Marcos became the de facto and de jure “patron” of the people,

while the latter devolved into a mere “client” in the two-party

relationship of patronage. The policies took propaganda-like form

through various mass-information mediums such as education, cultural

works and the fine arts. This particular Marcosian pursuit of social

reformation through political action has come to be collectively known

as the “Bagong Lipunan (New Society)”, the collective phrase used to

describe all Marcos-era policies used in justification for a rapid

“democratization” of the Philippines, eventually culminating in human

rights abuses called “salvaging”, a process in which various secret

police arms systematically kidnapped, jailed, tortured and murdered

political opponents of the Marcos regime under direct orders from

Marcos and his subordinates. These human rights abuses were only

discovered after the fall of the Marcos regime when the veil of

blanket propaganda was lifted and the widely-rumored abductions were

confirmed.

And so, through varying methods of money laundering and the long-term

embezzlement of public funds, Marcos was able to create a “grand

gift”, or some would say a bribe, to the Filipino people in the form

of the CPP and its attached social development programs, altogether

fashioning a society that felt emotionally gratuitous to the Marcos

administration, a people who felt they owed an utang towards the

Marcoses in spite of the latter’s blatant, unabashed and total

betrayal of the Filipino public and their trust. In fulfillment of

society’s utang, the Filipino people once again elected the Marcoses to

the same position in the next general elections in spite of the

government’s utter failure in upholding its promises; the people even

widely supporting the declaration of martial law in 1972; a

proclamation that threatened the very democratic principles that the

country was supposed to be founded on, fooled by the Marcoses’ clever

exploitation of existing cultural norms and values in order to enrich

themselves and their close allies. People saw their continued support

of Marcos as their duty, and followed through with it as such. Any

criticisms were once against either ignored or shouted down, the hiya of

society restricting the behavior of the anti-Marcos minority against

the overwhelming majority of Filipinos, even though Marcos was

murdering the very constituents he was supposed to protect.

CONCLUSION

After more than two decades of some of the worst forms of corruption

in the history of the Philippines and the frequent mockery of the

democratic ideal, Marcos fled the country. The millions who were tired

of Marcos’s crimes, his inefficiency, and the utter lack of either

social or economic progress rose up in a popular revolution and

Marcos, with advice from his foreign supporters, exiled himself to

Hawaii.

But this paper holds that Marcos was not solely to blame. Marcos did

not threaten the Filipino people with the sword (at least initially)

nor did he formulate his policies against overwhelming opposition.

Instead, Marcos administered his poison by offering a metaphorical fig

leaf to the Filipino people, packaging his sins under wraps of gift

paper and ribbons. With the subtle social norms of the utang, hiya, and

social acceptance at the fore, the Filipino people unilaterally chose

to support and sustain the crimes of the Marcos regime, either

knowingly or unknowingly providing their assent; or, at least refusing

to oppose the Establishment in any manner meaningful enough to create

valid change. Arguably, the Philippine political and social cultures

and its appendages can be said to be accessory to the mismanagement of

domestic, fiscal and foreign policy that characterizes the Marcos

administration, creating the avenue with which the Marcoses could

mislead and trick the Filipino people. It acted as the key exploited

to access the secrets of Philippine society, and Marcos turned this

key so successfully that for 21-years, his power went nearly

unchallenged by any significant resistance. Social acceptance and hiya

prevented the tiny minority from moving the vast majority, while the

long-standing utang and the different systems of Patronage prevented the

majority of the Philippine population from seeing through Marcos’s

skillfully laid shroud of lies and half-truths and peer into the

regime-sanctioned delinquencies and felonies that characterized the

era under Martial Law.

However, this paper does have its own limitations, which it accepts.

This paper does not sufficiently cover some of the other important

aspects of Marcos’s rule, such as by providing further scrutiny on

things such as the nature of oligarchical rule in the Philippines, the

damaging effects of many of Marcos’s economic and social policies, the

political black-ops within the Philippine-American relationship during

the Cold War, and the greater application of the numerous political

models (Kamrava’s 6 different democracies, etc.) to the state and

circumstance of the Philippine democracy, nor does it cover the

various other unmentioned social factors which contributed to Marcos’s

success (and there are many). Future papers should take into account

that while the Marcos-era is full of possible research topics and

thesis arguments, one should remain specific, narrowly-anchored and

consistent lest he fall into inefficient broadness inherent in certain

novice academic writings.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1.) For Every Tear A Victory, by Hartzell Spence. Seagrave says

that it is Spence’s biography which spoke of a “heroic Marcos

legend”, more than anything that began altering public

perceptions in both the Philippines and the United States,

lending Marcos a “ring of validity”; and the book was widely

supported by the United States government, in line with their

foreign policy. The book was published in 1964, nearly around the

same time as the run-up to the Presidential elections.

2.) Though many would doubt this, it is clear that many

Filipinos are more inclined to respect the claims and “facts” of

information provided by foreign particulars that agree with their

own opinions (or the opinions they’d like themselves to believe)

more than they would the statements of local papers. This “trust”

probably stems from the Filipino’s mistrust in their own

government and their own local media centers; though this

conviction may be misplaced given that foreign publications are

just as likely to “lie” (knowingly or unknowingly) as local

publications given just the right amount of pressure.

3.) Seagrave, Sterling. The Marcos Dynasty. New York: Harper & Row

Publishers, 1988. Print, p.3-8

4.) Based on appraisals from “Four Readings on Philippine

Values”, especially the essays “Social Acceptance” by Frank Lynch

and “Reciprocity in Lowland Philippines” by Mary R. Hollnsteiner.

5.) Lynch, Frank. Four Readings on Philippine Values. Quezon City: Ateneo

de Manila University Press, 1968. Print, p. 3, 6, 16

6.) Baluyut, Pearlie Rose S. Institutions and Icons of Patronage. Manila:

UST Publishing House, 2012. Print, p.3

7.) For further details, see “Comparative Studies in Society and

History” by Joel-Kahn or “Politics, Patronage, and Class Conflict

in Central Luzon” by Willem Wolters.

8.) Sahlins, Marshall. Stone Age Economics. Chicago: Aldine &

Artherton Inc., 1972. Print, p. 185-9

9.) Cheal, David. The Gift Economy. New York: Routledge, 1988.

Print, p. 1-19

10.) Graeber, David. Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value : the false

coin of our own dreams. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Print, p. 217

11.) Weiner, Annette. Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping While

Giving. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Print, p.

28-33

12.) Hollnsteiner, Mary. Reciprocity in the Lowland Philippines. Quezon

City: 1968. Print, p. 22

13.) Rafael, Vicente. Patronage and Pornography. Durnham: Duke

University Press, 2000. Print, p. 296

14.) Marcos, Ferdinand. An Ideology for Filipinos. Manila: Marcos

Foundation Inc., 1983. Print, p. 7-20

15.) Kamrava, Mehran. Cultural Politics in the Third World. London: UCL

Press, 1999. Print. p.97

16.) Marcos, Ferdinand. The Democratic Revolution in the Philippines.

Manila: Marcos Foundation Inc., 1977. Print, p. 51-60