the philippines: mafia style domination in an oligarchic...

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Peter Kreuzer

The Philippines: Mafia style domination in an oligarchic polity

Paper: Prepared for IPSA's XXIInd World Congress of Political Science, Reshaping Power, Shifting Boundaries, Madrid 2012

Abstract: The Philippines not seldom are referred to as the oldest democracy in Asia. Yet, violence plays a crucial role in political competition, as well as domination over the people and control of devi-ance. This paper focuses on the role of violence in the exercise of leadership in three structurally dif-ferent Philippine areas: the provinces of Pampanga and Negros Occidental and the Autono-mous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). It sketches the oligarchic structure of domination and a specific style of leadership that closely resembles the traditional Mafia, relying on a model, that understands Mafia as a comprehensive social order, that reflects both its coercive characteristics and the consensual and norm-based patterns of domination and control. Irrespective of level of development or modernization, violence controlled and exerted by indi-vidual oligarchs (oligarchic families) is ruled out in none of the regions. Pampanga and Negros Occidental developed informal institutions that made violence a rare instrument in intra-elite competition, whereas in the Muslim Areas of the ARMM violent contention for political and eco-nomic domination still prevails. In all three regions violence is still a means for the control of the people. Whereas in the ARMM it is used with respect to a broad range of “deviant acts”, in the other two regions, violent domination closely focuses on threats to the economic domination of the elites. In all three regions the oligarchic elites managed to capture the state, establishing and uphold-ing a para-political sphere, where not only rent-seeking and corruption, but also privately con-trolled and directed violence are systemic features of everyday politics. It is this “emphasis on the element of violence” (Hess 1998: 176) that differentiates Philippine politics Mafia-style from mere rent-seeking and corruption. Democracy is no antidote to violence as long as it does not coincide with a state that is largely insulated from politics and a secure regime of rule of law. In the Philippines politics trumps ad-ministration and rule of law is executed as rule by law and extralegal action.

1 Introduction

Despite its long history of democratic government, analysts of Philippine politics tend

to describe the political elite in terms of patronage, patrimonialism, feudalism, bossism, caciquism or principalia-rule, characterized by vertical, dyadic relationships, a high de-gree of fragmentation, high levels of corruption and a fairly regular use of physical vio-lence for political ends. Already in the mid 1990s did Benedict Kerkvliet encourage Phil-ippine studies to move “toward a more comprehensive analysis of Philippine Politics: beyond the patron-client, factional framework” (Kerkvliet 1995), an appeal, which was followed by a host of new literature, that tried exactly to do this. All of those who tried to follow this invitation found themselves in exactly this paradigm outlined with the above mentioned concepts. New Millenium analyses of Philippine politics turn out to be worthy successors to the earlier ones, situating current Philippine politics in theoretical frames that closely resemble their precursors.


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Sidel’s utilization of the American concept of bossism (1999), actually highlighted one facet of domination, physical violence, that has been discussed at length in older stud-ies, but was hardly reflected in the typological conceptualization to any significant extent before. Likewise Hutchcroft’s booty capitalism (1998) pointed to the crucial role of rent-seeking dynamics in the most modern of Philippines’ economic sectors, banking, relying on the traditional frameworks of patrimonialism and oligarchic rule.

This paper argues, that Kerkvliet in 1995 simply was wrong in asking to go beyond the patron-client framework. It may simply be, that the time-worn epitaphs used for mak-ing sense of Philippine politics fit the political practice of what David Timberman has called “a changeless land” (1991). If this was the case, the task would be, to refine the framework, to integrate formerly neglected aspects and analyze in some detail change in the overarching continuity of a dominant pattern of domination in order to try to better streamline the mêlée of terms and concepts that, despite their seeming diversity, coa-lesce around a common core with respect to the characterization of structure and prac-tice of domination in the Philippines.

In order to do so, this paper provides a comparative analysis of two provinces and one region of the Philippines: Pampanga, Negros Occidental, and the Autonomous Re-gion in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). These three political units may be said to stretch from the most developed, i.e. Pampanga, over mid-developed, i.e. Negros Occidental, to the least developed areas of the country, the ARMM.

Such a comparison shows a fairly distinct pattern of oli-garchy in which oligarchs directly dominate politics and uphold their domination not only by utilizing their wealth within the bounds of law, but resort to various forms of criminalized governance in order to defend their claims to property and wealth. Governance is criminal not only inso-far as the oligarchs derive extralegal rents, but also inso-far they directly engage in criminal business and reserve to them the right to employ extralegal physical violence.

Before turning to the Philippines, let me first introduce the two core concepts that inform the study. The core of the paper are a number of comparative analyses of core characteristics of domination in the Philippines. The first establishing the oligarchic and familistic basis of domina-tion, the second sketching the place of violence and the third turning to the role of illegal business. The fourth

analysis fits the practice of peace-pacts between contending politicians into the general picture of an oligarchy dominating Philippine society Mafia-style.

2 Oligarchy and criminal governance – two concepts for the analysis of political domination and control.

2.1 Oligarchs and the provision of coercion Oligarchy is understood in an “Aristotelian” sense, making wealth a necessary part of

the definition. Oligarchy is understood to exist only “when men of property have the government in their hands; […]. Wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be few or many, that is an oligarchy” (Aristotle Politics, no year: Book III). Going beyond Aristotle it is argued that oligarchy is characterized by a distinct supreme aim: “the politics of wealth defense” by those who stand out of the broad mass of the people


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on account of their extraordinary wealth. (Winters 2011: 7). The concept of oligarchy then refers to the use of wealth in the pursuit of its defense. The only stable about oli-garchy over time and space then is the oligarch; i.e. a person, who makes use of his extraordinary wealth for its defense. The concrete forms oligarchy takes vary over time and the structural as well as cultural environment (Winters 2011: 7).1

Even though oligarchs utilize a host of different strategies for wealth defense, as a form of domination oligarchy is necessarily connected to successful coercion including the threat and use of violence. Wealth defense needs control over a sufficient capacity for violent coercion. This is either a) directly provided by the individual oligarchs, b) pro-vided collectively by them, c) taken over by a supreme oligarch or d) guaranteed by an overarching political unit (a state), that defends the oligarchs’ property and wealth in the context of a general paradigm of property rights.

Four “idealtypes” of oligarchy emerge, if we differentiate oligarchy according to differ-ent types of violent defense of oligarchic wealth and property.

The most untamed and “anarchic” type of oligarchy may be called warring oligarchy, referring to a fragmented order in which individual oligarchs utilize their own retainers for the defense of the oligarchs’ wealth (and power). Cooperation normally takes the form of oligarchic alliances, which however are unstable and prone to long-term failure as oligarchs are constantly exposed to a security dilemma and balancing strategies. Oligarchic violence goes in two directions: vertically towards the people they control and horizontally towards their contenders for wealth (and power).

Anarchy may be mediated by cooperation between oligarchs, out of which a ruling ol-igarchy may emerge, in which oligarchs still maintain their crucial role as providers of coercion, however “rule collectively and through institutions marked by norms or codes of conduct” (Winters 2011: 35). With respect to violence, this movement can be de-scribed as the path from market to oligopoly to cartel. Violence is no longer an option for dealing with horizontal contenders for wealth and power, but reserved for the defense of the claims to wealth and property against threats “from below”.

A third form is the sultanistic oligarchy, the qualifier Sultanism referring to the regime type defined by Juan Linz (1975: 259-263) as being “based on personal rulership with loyalty to the ruler based […] on a mixture of fear and rewards for his collaboration” (259). In the context of a theory of oligarchy, the term sultanistic oligarchy connotes a form in which “a monopoly on the means of coercion is in the hand of one oligarch ra-ther than an institutionalized state constrained by laws. […] the rule of law is either ab-sent or operates as a personalistic system of rule by law” (Winters 2011: 35). The ruler’s position depends to a significant extent on his coercive capacity. Insofar as other oli-garchs can eventually choose to transform their wealth in other forms of power, it is also based on the supreme ruler’s his willingness and ability to provide them with enough income to keep them content and to defend them from lateral threats from other oli-garchs as well as from the people below.

A final form, as defined by Winters, is the civil oligarchy, meaning an order in which the oligarchs are disarmed and no longer rule directly. Instead, the oligarchs’ private coercion becomes the state’s public enforcement of rule compliance. This requires a strong institutional setup, which takes the position of the oligarchs and defends their property claims for them, reframing such property claims as property rights. Violence becomes a perquisite of the state beyond the immediate grasp of the oligarchs.

In three of the four forms, oligarchs double as rulers, as they fend off threats to their wealth through direct domination. If we accept the core assumption of oligarchy, that the

1 The following discussion is based on Winters 2011.


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principal aim of oligarchs is wealth defense, then politics is first and foremost subjected to this overarching aim.

2.2 Criminal domination: a Mafia-model Oligarchy provides a first frame for understanding certain types of polities, pointing to

one specific type of political actor, the oligarch, and the fundamental aim of his political activities: property and wealth defense. Oligarchy also establishes the connex between the individual ruler and the means of coercion, which the oligarchs try to control directly in three of the four subtypes. One obvious, but not explicit aspect of oligarchy in a mod-ern context of stateness is crime. Three of the four types of oligarchy are criminal “by definition”, as the oligarchs’ utilization of violence in the context of domination and wealth defense contradicts the modern states’ claim to a monopoly on the legitimate means of violence.

This paper argues that a “criminal model” of politics, a model that analyses politics as if it were (organized) crime provides an important additional lens, complementing more standard perspectives on domination and governance. Abadinsky’s definition of orga-nized crime centers on the core of the understanding of oligarchy: the goal of “money and power”, corresponding to the above described wealth defense. Abadinsky posits that organized crime “is not motivated by social doctrine, political beliefs, or ideological concerns. Although political involvement may be part of the group’s activities, the pur-pose is usually to gain protection or immunity for its illegal activities” (Abadinsky 2010: 3). In addition, organized crime, does not aim at the overthrow of any government per se, but at the formation of “a parallel government while coexisting with the existing one” (Abadinsky 2010: 6). Organized crime, if powerful enough, hollows out the formal struc-tures of the state, leaving the skeleton and surface intact, in order to utilize them for their core purpose of wealth generation and defense. For both oligarchy and organized crime alike, the crucial goals are the generation and defense of the wealth of the indi-vidual “family”. In both cases wealth defense requires political power or influence and private control over sufficient means of coercion.

In this paper it is argued that “tradition-derived” forms of organized crime can provide us with important models for understanding polities, who are dominated by persons or small groups that aim at maximizing wealth. While being criminal from the perspective of the state these persons and groups represent comprehensive social orders that re-lates to the state in various ways, depending on the latter’s independence from the local social base on which the “criminal” actors were crafted. This paper argues for a Mafia-model, as this fits Philippine reality to a significant extent.

The order constituted by the Mafia is segmentary. The constituent segments (fami-lies/clans) are similarily structured and “complete”; coexisting side by side, with each of the segments in principle claiming the same status and the whole panoply of “rights”, amongst them the right to prevent or penalize deviance (on segmentation see: White 1995, Sigrist 1979). As such, the individual families not only enjoy similar comprehen-sive rights and duties but are holistic entities encompassing the social, cultural and polit-ical sphere (Paoli 2001: 159).

In such settings political and social order are constructed from below (the family), co-alescing into a system, that may be characterized as a more or less “regulated anarchy” (Sigrist 1979).Similar to the state the individual units derive their legitimacy from the recognition of all structurally homologous groups, dependent on their proven control over a certain territory (Paoli 2003: 52). As states recognize each other, so do local Ma-fia groups/families. They develop and survive in an environment which is characterized


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by low levels of generalized trust, which, however, is substituted by specific forms of personalized trust and extended systems of instrumental friendship. Its essence “lies in the possibility of reciprocity in the exchange of resources, either one's own or acquired; in the potential continuity of such exchange; and, finally, in the largely open nature of the relationship” (Catanzaro 1985: 38).

A micro-macro model of the Mafia-mode of domination

Mafia families as a general rule try to minimize the actual use of physical violence.

Even though the ability to use violence is a core feature and “generalized ingredient of Mafioso behavior” (Gambetta 2000: 168-169), everyday control is normally upheld through the bonds of natural and artificial kinship. Within and beyond this circle control is upheld by way of dispensing favors and thereby earning debts of loyalty. As the Mafi-osi gives benefits without asking for specific returns, the very “vagueness of the repay-ment is translated into a perpetual debt of proofs of moral obligation that is, of symbols and pledges of loyalty” (Catanzaro 1985: 46, see also Gambetta 2000: 170).

This capacity to dispense favors is crucial for continued domination and has to be nourished by economic activities. Historically mafia organizations thrived on siphoning off various types of economic rents they extracted by virtue of the debts of loyalty, their control over local political positions, and/or connection to party officials and their capa-bility at employing violence. It would be wrong to connect the Mafia with illegal activities only, as many of their activities were perfectly legal. However, being “Mafia” obviously helped in the legal business, where Mafia entrepreneurs could rely on their reputation and if necessary selectively use “mafia methods“ (Paoli 1994: 224).

The normative foundation of this practice of business and social control is a negation of the normative difference between legal and illegal behavior. The primacy of the state-focused rule of law principle is substituted by an alternative principle according to which the informal seemingly tradition-bound cultural codes, as transmitted in and through the mafia, reign supreme and demand unconditional loyalty. For all practical purposes, the traditional Mafia groups governed their territories by providing crucial public goods which characterize government: security, law and public order. And for most of the time, these activities, while technically illegal, where not necessarily deemed illicit on the part of the local population.


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In order to uphold his local legitimacy the Mafia boss had to pose as a “profitable al-truist”, someone who by helping others in the community is also able to help himself (Sabetti 2002: 96ff). This limited the options for repression and exploitation open to the local Mafia (Sabetti 2002: 127) and cognitively transformed the Mafia-boss into a more or less benevolent patron, while at the same time legitimating in principle the Mafiosi’s right to the utilization of violence in the service of the local order.

Even though the Mafia-model of domination is advanced here as befitting Philippine politics, one crucial difference has to be remembered: whereas the Italian Mafia always had to contend with a much larger Italian state it could not completely conquer, the ma-fia-style Philippine oligarchy took control over the state in the early decades of the 20th century.

3 Mafia style domination in the Philippines I: the oligarchic basis of comprehen-sive domination

Politics in the Philippines aims first and foremost at satisfying the interests of a small

and fairly wealthy economic and political elite, that controls the country on all levels. This elite consists of competing and cooperating political families and individuals, who aim at establishing what locally is called a political dynasty. The family is still the only meaningful political unit for the analysis of Philippine politics. The same holds true for the Philippine economy, which also is still very much a family affair. This family-centric order is expressed in a multitude of analyses that show that in the Philippines it’s “all in the family”, as the title of a classical study goes (Gutierrez/Torrente/Narca 1992).

In this context of a wholly personalized political system, politics can be understood as the distribution of particular goods (rewards and punishments) based on the perpetual re-alignment of political units (generally individual strongmen or political families). Poli-tics neither aims at producing authoritative and general decisions nor at providing public goods, but at fragmenting the social, economic and political subsystems in order to be able to negotiate amongst particularistic forces for particularistic gains, with the domi-nant political families in the core position of broker.

Political and economic domination coincide in all three research areas. In all of them domination is also a “personal affair”, meaning that it is directly connected to individual persons, who, generally try to pass their dominant positions to other members of the family, making the political family into the core political unit. These bonds are regularly extended beyond the limits of natural kinship ties in order to regulate inter-family/clan competition through intermarriage or fictive kinship ties (e.g. godfather relationships).

In all three cases control over executive positions is important as a core device for upholding patronage networks, as it allows the oligarchs to dispense a multitude of fa-vors to a host of people, from local businessmen over members of the state bureaucra-cy to the little guy on the street who may profit from a temporary job in a government project. The oligarchs thereby can amass large debts of gratitude (utang na loob) that have to be paid back in election times or in other situations critical to the oligarchs’ con-tinued survival.

Economically the Negros as well as the Pampanga elite can draw on their control of agriculturally productive land and a multitude of fairly diversified economic interests like transport, real estate, shares in local monopolist suppliers (for example electricity and water) banking institutions or illicit profits derived from operating or profiting from illegal business ventures like gambling (see below).

Contrary to Negros Occidental, where the economic mainstay still is the mono-crop sugar industry, Pampanga experienced a significant diversification within agriculture


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during the past few decades, making sugar much less important than in earlier decades. In Pampanga, agriculture has lost much of its former economic importance. In 2000 employment was mostly in the service sector already (58 percent), industry coming se-cond with 30 percent and only a small rest of 13 percent of the province’s labor force being employed in agriculture. Compared to this Negros Occidental is still fairly back-ward with a proportion of 47.7 percent of the population employed in the agricultural sector in 2002.2

On a national basis, agriculture in 2011 accounts for 33 percent of employment, in-dustry for 14.9 percent and services for 52.1 percent. (DTI 2011). Even though with all probability the distribution in Negros has shifted somewhat over the past 10 years, Ne-gros is still a predominantly agricultural province, whereas Pampanga has moved to-wards a service oriented economy. The ARMM, being the most backward region of the Philippines, reported a share of 71.1 percent of agricultural employment in 2010 (Busi-ness Mirror 14 Nov.2012).

3.1 Pampanga With respect to the three cases under discussion, similar patterns apply, with the

province of Pampanga being dominated by two families: the Macapagal and the Piñeda. Whereas Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo represents the province in Congress, Lilia Piñeda is the provincial governor and a number of relatives and followers secure local govern-ment control in most municipalities of the province. Domination, however, first of all generally means alliance building, integrating weaker Patrons into the own network and establishing horizontal linkages with other Patrons for mutual gain.

Let me illustrate this for the Piñedas, who rose to power fairly recently during the last three decades and who established a well-oiled network of friends and followers that reaches into politics and legal but is also anchored in illegal business.

One of the many ventures of the Piñedas is the Aguman da reng pasabung Qng Capampangan Inc. an association founded in 1994 amongst others by Rodolfo Piñeda, Demetrio Piñeda, Robin Nepomuceno and Zenaida G. Cruz-Ducut, with the avowed aim “To develop unity, understanding & brotherhood among the cockpit operators & mem-bers of the association” (http://www.gmanews.tv/images/article/20060609_table1.htm).

Robin Nepomuceno represents the powerful Nepomuceno family3 of Angeles City, who amongst other business ventures owns the “Nepo Mall” and the local Electricity provider.4 Robin has for many years been a Barangay leader in Angeles City, however,

2 No newer data on a provincial level are available (for Pampanga see: http://www.fao.org/

WAIRDOCS/LEAD/X6170E/x6170e1r.htm; for Negros Occidental see: http://negros-occ.gov. ph/negros-occidental-social-and-economic-trends/negros-occidental-social-and-economic-trends-2009/).

3 The family was founded around the mid 19th century when Pio Rafael Nepomuceno became gobernadorcillo (~mayor) of the city of Angeles. His son Juan became gobernadorcillo in 1879 and became the city’s Municipal Presidente in 1898. Juan’s sons served as mayors of Angeles in the 1920s and a grandson became mayor in the 1980s. This grandson’s son is Francis “Blueboy” Nepomuceno, who held the office of Congressman and mayor of Angeles city in the new millennium.

4 Angeles Electric Corporation is chaired by Peter G. Nepomuceno and has become the “6th largest privately-owned electric utility in the Philippines” (http://www.philstar.com/ Arti-cle.aspx?articleId =16746). In the 1960s already the Nepomucenos “converted their agricul-tural land into a subdivision, calling it Villa Teresa” (http://blogs.inquirer.net/openfor busi-ness/2009/05/22/how-the-nepomucenos-changed-angeles/). Peter Nepomuceno, the director of the Angeles Electric Corporation also heads the Nepomuceno Realty Group, which for ex-ample markets the Nepomucenos’ land in Villa Teresa subdivision and Teresa Waterworks,


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he was also the President of the local Barangay Mayors League and is the brother of Francis “BlueBoy” Nepomuceno, who started in politics as the Vice-Mayor of the local economic hub Angeles City from 1995-1998, only to become Congressman for the first district of Pampanga from which he changed to the mayorship of Angeles City. In 2010 he lost in an embittered contest to a local opponent.

Zenaida Cruz-Ducut has been born in Lubao, the hometown of the Piñedas, and is a former Congresswoman for the 2nd district of Pampanga. In 2008 she was appointed chairman of the Energy Regulatory Commission by her co-provincial, then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. This small snippet of one much more complex and compre-hensive network, most of which remains invisible to the outsider is the lifeline of the connected families’ and individuals’ political and economic survival. Through this and other networks the Pampangan elite is integrated into a ruling oligarchy that successful-ly devised strategies and informal institutions that limit competition and transform the local political and economic spheres into oligopolies, with a strong tendency towards cartelization.

3.2 Negros Occidental Negros Occidental is dominated by an elite of sugar cane planters and sugar mill

owners, who in past decades have branched out to a broad variety of other economic interests: from transport (mostly shipping) over real estate to banking and even media. Whereas the Negros sugar planters have been the single most powerful group in past decades this no longer holds true since the 1980s, when their economic fortune de-clined in the wake of a global sugar crisis and their subjection to the control exerted by three Marcos cronies. By and large, the current setup is characterized by a small num-ber of oligarchs, each of whom dominates one of the provincial districts and a “godfa-ther”, Danding Cojuangco, a national level businessman, who, with probably up to 20,000 ha also is the largest landowner on Negros Occidental. This setup is symbolized by the United Negros Alliance, a political party established by Cojuangco, whose mem-bers dominate the elected provincial and municipal positions province-wide. To a certain extent it may be argued that under the current power-cartel political competition hardly exists, as for example during the last election (2010) four mayors and six vice-mayors as well as one congressman and the representatives of the first, the second, the third, the fourth district in the provincial board of Negros Occidental ran unopposed. In the other two districts, there were contenders who however were without any chance against the members of the dominant families.

3.3 The ARMM The ARMM, consisting of several provinces and therefore being much larger than ei-

ther Negros Occidental or Pampanga, is politically highly fractured. Whereas from 2001 to 2009 one family, the Ampatuans from Maguindanao had a fairly dominant position, this is no longer the case. Now, as in earlier decades the relevant politi-cians/entrepreneurs are to be found on the provincial level. In most cases we encounter a small number of families controlling their respective bailiwicks and competing for con-trol over the larger provincial unit. In clear-cut difference from the other two provinces political competition in the ARMM includes physical violence mostly in the form of as-

which amongst others, supplies the water for the local industrial park and much of Angeles City. Peter Nepomuceno also represents the family in the executive committee of Holy Angel University.


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sassinations of competitors. Therefore the role of the family/clan is even more important than in the rest of the Philippines,

“… because if something happens to you, then the only people you can turn to is your family, your clan. […] And if you don’t have that natural group then anybody can, with the security situation in the south [ARMM; P.K.], anybody can kill you.” (interview ARMM politician 2004, anonymized).

4 Mafia-style domination in the Philippines II – sketching the place of violence in domination

If someone is a bad person, he should be killed. Killing a criminal is not a sin.

What is wrong is if you kill just anybody. (Luis Chavit Singson, longtime con-

gressman and governor of Ilocos Sur, cited in Torres 2003: 42)

One crucial aspect of mafia-style domination is the privatization of violence for the

settlement of horizontal conflict with contenders for power and for the repression of dis-sent and penalization of followers and dissatisfied local elements.

4.1 Violence in inter-oligarchic competition Horizontal violence utilized in the context of inter-family conflict over political position

and local domination has at all times been prominent in the Philippines. Since the Amer-ican colonial government established an electoral democracy in the early years of the 20th century, elections have been highly critical periods, accompanied by mutual threats and allegations of vote buying and ballot rigging. As long as the American colonial pow-er controlled the police, violence seems to have played no significant role.

With the granting of independence violence became a regular feature in elections. While for the early elections in the late 1940s reliable quantitative data are lacking, it is clear, that the number of deaths must have been significant. Later elections regularly cost between about 50 and 200 lives. For the past four elections the percentage of can-didates to total victims has been at least 20 percent. Even though elections in the Phil-ippines were introduced in 1907, when the first National Assembly was elected, Filipino politicians at no point in time succeeded in accepting democracy as the only game in town. Quite to the contrary: While elections are the formal means of leadership selec-tion, the respective social practice is a contest of various forms of capital, that can bring victory. The most crucial ones being control of financial resources that can be translated into concrete benefits to be doled out to clients in exchange for their loyalty, excellent networks in the local state administration that help to rig the results if necessary, and control of private or public means of coercion, that can be used for intimidation.

Looking at elections only, curtails the role of violence in inter-oligarchic competition. Whereas violence regularly peaks in the months before and the days after elections, the periods in between are far from violence free. Official police data give 95 attacks on elective officials from June 2009 to early March 2010 with 102 victims of which 65 were killed (Philippine Star 2010a). The first few months of the year 2009 (from Jan. 1 to May 20), when there was no upcoming election, brought 52 shooting incidents victimizing local elective officials, of which 30 resulted in one or more deaths (Inquirer.net 2009).

In this context it is important to point to a significant difference between the ARMM and the two provinces of Negros Occidental and Pampanga. Whereas in the ARMM, inter-oligarchic violence regularly costs significant numbers of victims, this is much less prominent in the two other provinces, which actually stand out as fairly peaceful during the past decades. While intra-elite violence exists, it is on a low level.


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During the election year 2010 at least 9 village officials, 4 politician’s employees, three of their supporters, one close relative and 5 public officials were killed in Maguindanao (part of ARMM) and adjacent territories (including Cotabato City) (calcula-tion based on confidential sources). Most of the killings were done by lone assassins or killers riding in tandem on motorcycles. In addition there are multiple blood feuds be-tween contending families, which in 2010 cost at least 20 lives and made more than 4,000 families at least to temporary IDPs in Maguindanao and adjacent regions of North Cotabato (confidential sources). The year 2009 stood out for its high number of IEDs (improvised explosive device), which cost at least 21 lives and around 100 wounded (confidential sources). One should also mention the killing of core witnesses in a spec-tacular murder trial against members of the dominant Ampatuan clan. In this case a dis-tant relative of the Ampatuans and member of an allied clan, Razul Sangki, decided to stand as witness against the perpetrators of a political massacre that killed 57 persons. Shortly after, a gasoline station owned by him was bombed, his house was attacked with mortar shells, before in April 2010 his uncle was killed by unknown assassins. Last but not least also the various local revolutionary forces, the MILF, the MNLF but also the BIFF regularly trade bullets. Since the beginning of 2010 until the present, a rough count gives at least 11 mayor armed conflicts, mostly focusing on control over land and local political control. These cost at least 140 lives and led to the temporary displace-ment of several hundred families.

Compared to the ARMM, but also to a number of other regions of the Philippines, competitive violence is low in the other two cases. The 2010 elections cost the lives of one campaign supporter in Pampanga and one candidate in Negros Occidental only. Despite such cases, physical violence is clearly the exception to the rule in mainstream contests for local political position.

4.2 Violence in the control of the population Repressive violence is clearly a recurrent and stable feature of Philippine politics for

the past century up to the present. Extralegal executions have been practiced for dec-ades and have been especially rampant during the past decade. Depending on the source, the Philippines witnessed between several hundred and more than 1000 extra-legal executions during the Macapagal-Arroyo presidency (2001-2010), targeting a broad array of critics, from journalists over farmers (who hoped to benefit from land-reform), public officers and judges to members of various activist groups, journalists and elected politicians (Parreno 2010). While most of the identified suspects belong to the military (19 percent) and the police (9 percent), in more than a half of the cases no sus-pects could be identified. Resolution rate lay at a meager 1 percent making for an impu-nity rate of up to 99 percent (Parreno 2010: 13).

4.2.1 Violent domination in the ARMM In the ARMM violence is not only an important ultimate means in intra-oligarchic

competition, but also plays an important role in the control of the local population. The instruments of control have been and still are armed personal retainers of the dominant members of the political families. The crucial difference between the centuries of Moro self-rule and their inclusion into the Philippines is, that in the latter times, those personal retainers mostly belong to the state security forces, either being policemen or member of various government paid police or army auxiliaries. Then as now, in the final analysis, the Datus (local leadership class) still are masters of live and death in the areas they control.


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It is important to note that not only the current times, but already traditional practices allowed for a significant amount of fairly arbitrary Datu-violence, that could be employed for intimidating or even terrorizing the people into obedience. While documentation of arbitrary violence in earlier centuries is sparse, it is clear, that the dominant Datus fairly regularly seem to have resorted to exemplary punishment, that was not regulated by the rules of the fairly comprehensive traditional system of conflict resolution via mediation and adjudication. In addition, there are a number of reports on Datus, who terrorized the local population.5

As Jeremy Beckett, argues in a study on Maguindanao clans, “personal power could never be contained by notions of order or legitimacy; to a degree power became its own legitimacy. […] finally, a datu was what a datu did” (Beckett 1982: 396; see also Loyre 1991: 26).

The modern Philippine state enabled the Datus to continue this practice, as from the 1950s onwards the local chief executives controlling the local police forces could easily utilize them as armed support if necessary. The civil war beginning in the early 1970s brought additional power to the Datus, as the state enlarged the number of militias re-cruited and deployed locally.

The past four decades saw the transformation of fairly traditional leaders who could command a certain amount of armed followers into modern type warlords, who were at the same time able to control larger numbers of armed persons and externalize the costs to the state budget.

Control over a significant amount of firepower allowed new Datus to establish them-selves amongst older families, as for example former Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) commander, Tupay T. Loong and his brother Ben, who established their politi-cal fortune on Sulu province by relying on Ben Loongs control over his MNLF-troops, which after his return to the fold of government became his private fighting force, re-portedly numbering about 1000 men. Tupay T. Loong is the representative of the first congressional district of Sulu, his brother Ben Loong has been Governor of Sulu Prov-ince from 2005-2007 and is currently Vice-Governor under his political enemy, governor Sakur Tan. The latter reputedly controls about 3,000 armed followers. The dreaded Ampatuan clan in Maguindanao is said to have had a privately controlled (but largely government financed) force of 3,000 to 5,000 armed men.

These forces at the same time deter contenders for power and are for intimidating the local population. Human Rights Watch cites a Barangay official, who reports that members of a locally dominant (and ruthless) clan “are viewed as almost God, very powerful. A single word is enough to frighten the people, whatever they ask is done… Their arms make them powerful. They kill people” (Barangay official cited in HRW 2010: 25). Wahab Akbar, a former governor and congressman of Basilan, who was killed in 2007, described his stand in the following words: „

I have to be tough. I have to be a dictator. I must not show pity. [...] I have no time to explain to them what I am doing. I have no time to play politics. I have a lot of work to do. [...] Nobody should question me. I am the governor. I will do what I be-lieve is good for the people, whether they like it or not, whether they will love me for it or not. I don’t care“ (Akbar cited in GMA News 2007).

While denying to having ordered killings, his remarks clearly illustrate that killing has its legitimate place in competition and control: „I haven’t killed anybody. People look at me as if I am a killer, but nobody has been killed on my order. Many asked for my per-mission to kill, but I would always ask, is there really a need to kill?“ (Akbar cited in

5 For an overview see Kreuzer 2011.


12

GMA News 2007). Politics in neighbouring Sulu has been characterized by a local advi-sor of the MILF with the following words: “people are slaves, that is how politics is done in Sulu” (cited in ICG 2012: 16).

While killing is normally not the first option in either political competition or domina-tion, it nevertheless is almost never ruled out – it may be the last option, however, it al-ways is an option.

4.2.2 Violent Domination in Negros Occidental Physical violence has accompanied the development of Negros Occidental since at

least the early centuries of Spanish colonization, but, it most probably has also had its place in the indigenous pre-colonial orders.

The enmeshment of local domination and semi-private but state legitimated coercive power developed during the 18th and early 19th century under the Spanish colonial ad-ministration, when local notables acted as gobernadorcillos, uniting the functions of mayor, judge of the first instance and chief of the police (Bankoff 1996). One crucial means safeguarding the local dominance of the governadorcillo seems to have been an extensive use of physical punishment (Scott 1982, 158).

When the new planters established their vast haciendas from around 1850 onwards, they took over political power from the old elite. Worcester reports in the 1880s that the new planter-gobernadorcillos regularly used flogging for penalization and intimidation. Even delinquent taxpayers if caught by the local police where regularly “flogged in a most scientific manner” (Worcester 1989: 256).

A similar practice seems to have pervaded overall relationships between the planters on the one and the poor on the other side. There were no regulations that could con-strain hacendero violence in the late Spanish era, when encargados (overseers) and hacenderos alike still seemed to have made use of the whip on a regular basis (see ear-ly reports by Norris 1902; General Hughes in: Senate US 1902: 535; see also McCoy 1982. 320)

In addition to that, planters employed armed patrols, that guarded the haciendas, not so much in order to prevent foreigners from entering it, but for preventing workers from absconding (McCoy 1992: 119; Larkin 1993: 79). Hacenderos also seem to have made use of the Guardia Civil or the cuadrilleros (a form of local police), letting them do the beating in order to deflect anger and feelings of revenge (Aguilar 1998: 144). Finally, hacenderos did not stop short of killing disobedient workers, even though this certainly have been more the exception to the rule (Aguilar 1998: 185). American colonial order further empowered local oligarchs, who gained access to a significant number of fire-arms under the new liberal laws enacted in 1906 (Aguilar 1998: 185), This made the planters collectively into a stronger armed force than the military stationed on Negros. While these weapons were used to defend the haciendas against the then wide spread threat of banditry (tulisanes) and millenarian movements, they could also be employed to discipline workers and get control over further tracts of land in a process of land-grabbing that continued unabated in the first decades of the new century (see McCoy 1982: 321; Larkin 1993. 69, 252-254).

Despite this, violence only played a secondary role in domination as the oligarchs could normally rely on their structural control through an environment of total dependen-cy centering on the hacienda-structure and oligarchic monopoly on public office (includ-ing the judiciary).

When, however, in the early 1980s sugar prices broke down and thousands of farm workers were dismissed, many of whom went to the mountains to fight either for a living or the revolution, structural violence turned into physical violence, which in many cases


13

degenerated into pure terror during the last years of President Marcos and the early years of the new president Corazon Aquino.

After Marcos’ downfall the majority of the Negros oligarchs, having been partially de-prived of their control over the local means of violence initially relied on buying the ser-vices of various vigilante organizations, slowly getting control over them and remaking segments of them into either state-sponsored militias or private guards, thereby regulat-ing and disciplining the fairly anomic violence of the late 1980s. Besides, the oligarchs tapped the reservoir of the Armed Forces stationed in Negros Occidental to suppress the rebellion.

Since the early 1990s violence as a control strategy is employed in two different con-texts: Firstly in the conflict between the communist New People’s Army and the Philip-pine state. Here violence is characterized by its semi-military nature (ambushes, fire-fights, raids, etc.). Here the oligarchs are involved mostly on an indirect basis, either asking for military assistance or providing space and support for military or militia-detachments in the areas controlled by them either economically (their haciendas) or politically (municipalities).

It is the conflict about ownership of and control over land, in which oligarchs directly resort to violence, if other means prove insufficient. Land reform put oligarchs against rural poor, who stand to benefit from the redistribution of the oligarchs lands. Even though the most important lines of oligarchic defense against land reform are economic and judicial, there is a final third line of defense, that consists of intimidation and can also include actual physical violence and even extralegal executions.

The normal potential land-reform beneficiary tends to become a victim of intimidation, mostly perpetrated by private agents of violence, who are either employed by the land-lord (so-called blue guards) or workers loyal to him. Extralegal execution is normally “reserved” for the more prominent local activists. Most probably the agents of this type of violence belong either to the Armed Forces, the army militia (CAFGU) or the former rebel group RPA-ABB, that has turned into a semi-autonomous auxiliary force for oli-garchic wealth defense. With respect to all types of violence impunity is total, signaling to those dominated and controlled their position of fundamental powerlessness.

With respect to the killing of agrarian and other activists, Negros Occidental stands out in national comparison. According to a study by Al Parreno, Negros Occidental had the second highest number (39) of victims of extralegal executions from 2001 to mid 2010 (Parreno 2010: 17). In Negros Occidental, which harbors about 3.4 percent of the population a full 10 percent of the extralegal executions took place.

Most interestingly violence does not stop short of targeting state agencies, most im-portantly the Department of Agrarian Reform, whose representatives not seldom have to work under police or military protection as they are threatened by various forces known to be close to dominant local oligarchs. Not seldom there are stand-offs between the DAR-representatives, backed by police or military support who try to install agrarian reform beneficiaries, and various private armed forces loyal to the local planters. In such cases “the state” will normally not enforce the law, but enter into negotiation, which eventually results in vastly diminished benefits for the CARP beneficiaries, signaling time and again that intimidation and the use of violence pay. However, most of the vio-lence is outsourced, as this enables the oligarchs to deny complicity.


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4.2.3 Violent Domination in Pampanga The present governor who was also a candidate then shot out a lot of money. […] With the condition that she has to win. But she did not. So af-ter that she ran after the different political leaders and four were killed. (In-terview Pampanga 2011, anonymised)

In Pampanga, the early patterns of violence closely resemble Negros Occidental.

However, whereas the Negros oligarchs succeeded in keeping serious protest, unioni-zation and rebellion out of the province until the 1970s, Pampanga was the hotbed of rebellion in the Philippines between the 1930s and 1960s. Those decades saw steeply rising discontent that culminated in outright civil war after the second world war, with the landlords replenishing the still fairly weak state security forces with private armies in an extraordinary dirty war. Their enemy was the Hukbalahap (HUK), a left leaning move-ment, that had been actively and vigorously fighting the Japanese during the Years of occupation with their base area around mount Arayat in northern Pampanga.

Despite the military defeat of the HUKs in the early 1950s, neither could the issues advanced by them be put back into the bottle, nor could nor armed resistance be com-pletely wiped out. It lessened only to come back with a vengeance after President Mar-cos’ declaration of Martial law. Even though the communist New People’s Army lost most of its threat potential since the early 1990s, some remnants still exist in a small number of rural municipalities in Pampanga.

During the last decade Pampanga, despite being one of the most developed provinc-es of the country, registered the highest number of extrajudicial killings with 41 deaths.6 Whereas, however, in the case of Negros Occidental most of the victims were farmer/activists in Pampanga the majority were “elected government officials or alleged members of the NPA” (Parreno 2010: 17).

Generally, it is assumed that in Region III to which Pampanga belongs, most of the enforced disappearances and extralegal executions have been perpetrated by the Armed Forces, especially during the time, when General Jovito Palparan was Com-manding General of the 7th Infantry Division in Central Luzon from September 2005 to September 2006.7 However, the pattern of EJKs in Pampanga cannot be explained in this way. Here extralegal executions seem to be a continuous pattern from 2005 to 2009. It is only in 2010, when the new government of Lilia Piñeda took over, that extra-legal executions turned to zero.

This should not be misunderstood as the coming of a more humane political leader-ship. The image of the new governor is actually that of a very traditional politician, com-bining traditional patterns of patronage with an aura of assertiveness and violence. Similar to the Mafia-godfather, Lilia Piñeda is at the same time feared and adored. Ado-ration becomes visible her local name, “Nanay Baby” (Mother Baby) and relates to the highly personal and caring style of the governor, who during her long years as mayor of

6 It should be mentioned, that the past few years saw a regular pattern of police shoot-outs

with criminals, in which normally all criminals died, whereas the police suffered no casualties at all. While there are a large number of real shoot-outs in various regions of the Philippines, the Pampanga patterns probably point to a hidden form of extralegal execution, that targets socially deviant persons.

7 Palparan is the most prominent case of a high ranking AFP officer, who time and again has been connected to extrajudicial killings. After his retirement in late 2006 Palparan turned to politics, establishing his own anti-communist party Bayan (short for: Bagong alyansang Makabayan; New Patriotic Alliance) and after two years of bickering gaining a congress-seat in 2009 based on election results of the 2007 elections. In 2010 he ran for senator, but lost.


15

Lubao and provincial board member always seems to have been an exemplary patron, who cared for her clients.

Extrajudicial killings in Region III per province 2005-2010

(datasets provided by the Commission on Human Rights Reg III, May 2011) The less benign side of the provincial first lady shows up in various allegations relat-

ing to her husband and son, some of them focusing on the election of 2007, when Lilia Piñeda ran, but lost to a reform-oriented priest, Eddie Panlilio, who had decided to run for governor at the last minute. Shortly after the elections one Barangay captain was killed by gunmen, supposedly from the RHB (Rebolusyonaryong Hukbong Bayan), a splinter group of the NPA. Several other Barangay captains went into hiding, as every-body assumed, that the Barangay captain, who had been campaigning for Panlilio, had been killed on orders of the defeated candidate. Various interviews amongst others with policemen, gave the following picture. The killed Barangay captain seems to have taken money from the husband of Lilia Piñeda to make sure she won in his Barangay by a big margin. When, however, Panlilio announced his candidacy, he and a small number of other Barangay heads changed their mind. He is said to have given back the money to the Piñedas, in order to be able to campaign for Panlilio (interviews May 2011, anonymized). This was interpreted as a breach of loyalty and sanctioned accordingly by the Piñedas.

Control over the police, according to an undercover agent of the police is guaranteed by regular bribes of the police officers, who travel to certain places once a week to cash in their payola (bribe money) (informal interview, 2011). According to this informant not even lowest level policemen can get any promotion without the explicit approval of the Piñedas. Everyday control is upheld by Dennis Piñeda and a son of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who is connected via a godmother relationship to the Piñedas.

This fits nicely with information given to the author by a local businessman from San Fernando, about Melchor Caluag, who supposedly controlled the Jueteng business in the city and did not comply, when Bong Piñeda told him that he wanted to take it over. He was shot in broad daylight in front of a number of witnesses, none of whom was will-ing to testify. As he survived, he was able to retrieve his money from the Jueteng busi-ness and invest it in various legal businesses, amongst it a hospital and a hotel, the lat-ter of which he converted into a casino. As the casino proved to be very profitable, he got an offer from Bong Piñeda, probably an offer he can’t refuse (interview, not recorded May 2011).

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Zambales

Tarlac

Nueva Ecija

Bulacan

Bataan

Aurora

Pampanga


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With respect to their effect, it is irrelevant, whether the individual stories are true. What is important is, that people believe them to be true, they feel them to be credible examples of the state of affairs and consequently the act accordingly.

5 Mafia-style domination in the Philippines III – illegal business

Illegal business in a multitude of shades certainly constitutes one of the mainstays of

oligarchic wealth and continued domination in the Philippines. While illegal business is multifarious, this presentation will focus on two aspects only, that are discussed on the basis of data, that mostly focus on the case studies compared below. One general fea-ture of local politics and enrichment in the Philippines is illegal gambling, which general-ly seems to be either directly organized or at least indirectly skimmed by politicians and the relevant representatives of the state security institutions. The other one is embez-zlement and misappropriation (estafa) of public funds, a broad phenomenon that goes from outright corruption to probably illegitimate but formally still legal rent-seeking.

5.1 Jueteng business Jueteng is a most popular, but illegal numbers game, where the gambler selects two

numbers from one through 37. Even though there are no limits on maximum bets, the vast majority of bets are small scale (below 1 US$). However, as drawings are up to three times a day, for the poorer segments of the population, Jueteng can result in fi-nancial ruin. Despite its illegality, it is one of the crucial legs of political and public fi-nance beyond the state purse. This money is then partly doled out to a variety of clients in a way that indebt the receivers and ensure significant social control of the patrons over the vast majority of the clients. At the same time the vast networks of betting agents function as the eyes and ears of the operators and can be utilized for “propa-ganda” as well.

Jueteng-operators not seldom substitute for the “departments of social welfare and of public works in many towns and provinces, considering the amount of money they pour into community projects such as arte-sian wells, basketball courts, and roads, as well as the doleouts they give to al-most anyone who approaches them for financial help.” (Orejas 2007).

Another analyst argues that “Jueteng profits finance local social safety nets, maintain local media as retainers, and keep local clergy in tow. Local government executives figure heavily among operators. In many provinces, towns, and cities, the duly elected local executive is the Jueteng operator” (Fabella 2007: 109)

So Jueteng can to a significant extent be analysed pars pro toto as one crucial crimi-nal denominator of politics and governance.

In a privilege speech in September 2010 Philippine senator Miriam Defensor Santia-go gave a succinct overview over about 50 percent of the Philippine Jueteng industry, which according to her, had a daily turnover of 14 million Pesos in Laguna province, 9 Million in Pampanga and Pangasinan each, 8.5 million in Batangas, 8 million in Bulacan, and 7.5 Million in Nueva Ecija and Quezon each. Together this amounts to 63.5 Million Pesos (1.5 Million US$). On the national level 1 percent go to the DILG sec-retary, the PNP chief and the CIDG head; another 2 percent to the PCSO leadership and another 1 percent to the Games and Amusement Board and media. On the regional level the various responsible bureaucracy heads (mostly PNP regional directors) profit of 1 percent. On the provincial level, 3 percent go to the governor, vice-governor and


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the members of the provincial assembly, a further 1 percent goes to the PNP provincial director, 0.2 percent to the NBI Provincial Director.8 The municipal level profits most, as 5 percent go to the mayor, vice-mayor and the municipal board members, 2 percent to the congressman and 1 percent to the chief of the local police.9 The Jueteng operators named by Miriam Defensor Santiago include the Governor of Ilocos Sur Luis (Chavit) Crisologo Singson, his brother Jose (Bonito) Luis Singson and his son Ronald Singson. Another crucial name is Rodolfo (Bong) Piñeda, whose wife is the current Governor of Pampanga province. According to Defensor-Santiago, Piñeda controls illegal gambling in the provinces of Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, Tarlac, Pampanga, Bataan, Camarines Sur, Sorsogon and the City of Angeles (http//:Miriam.com.ph/newsblog/?p=256). The Sena-tor’s details correlate with the presentations given by various witnesses in former hear-ings conducted by a blue ribbon committee in 2000 (www.nenepimentel.org/bluerib/ TOC.shtml). And are also corroborated by the testimony of Ilocos Sur Governor Luis Singson, who, in the trial against former president Estrada admitted delivering to the president bags containing five million pesos Jueteng money in cash every two weeks.10 Despite the overwhelming evidence of Jueteng being an important economic venture for most politicians from the local to the national level, there is complete impunity. A former president of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines estimated that about 80 per-cent of local politicians elected, won their elections “primarily or largely with the help of jueteng money” (cited in: Go 2003a: 111).

Even the church profits, as for example the Piñedas from Lubao, Pampanga “The Piñedas were so generous to a number of priests that they usually sent roast pig (lechon), wine and other goodies during their birthdays. The ‘beneficiaries’ would return the favor by not missing special occasions, such as birthdays of any Piñeda family member or their closest friends” (Philippine Daily Inquirer 05.Aug 2005 p. A6 Article: ‘Jueteng’ witness says sorry to GMA p. A1+A6).

Despite being widely known as a gambling lord, Piñeda enjoys a perfect patronal im-age in his home-base. Bong Piñeda “was able to build a reputation for legendary gener-osity. […] On Christmas Day, the Piñeda mansion is opened for gift-giving, with poor people lining up by the thousands to avail themselves of packages of food.” Lilia Piñeda is variously called “mother of perpetual help”, “Nanay Baby” (mother baby), who helped “hundreds of people ill with cancer or with psychological problems, as well as provided shelter for many abused women and children” (Orejas 2007).

In addition to the direct income from the jueteng business and the vast influence cre-ated by the patronage directly financed through jueteng, the numbers game further en-larges the operator’s power indirectly, as the locals who work for him as collectors can readily be utilized during election time. Whomever the jueteng lord wants to win, the collectors (and their immediate family members) will elect, and, even more important, they will function like a free campaign aid for the respective politician (PCIJ/IPD 1995).

In Pampanga crime and politics seem to be controlled by a husband-and-wife team, enforced by the children and strengthened by alliance-building: Whereas Roberto Piñeda is generally assumed to be the top Jueteng operator for Pampanga and a host of other provinces, his wife for long years secured the homebase in Lubao, by holding

8 DILG: Department of Interior and Local Government; PNP: Philippine National Police; CIDG:

Criminal Investigation and Detection Group; PCSO: Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office; NBI: National Bureau for Investigation.

9 For corresponding data for the late 1990s see Coronel 2000; McCoy 2009, 226, see also: PCIJ/IPD 1995, Tan 2003.

10 For the mind-boggling details of the Estrada case see the Decision of the Sandiganbayan on the plunder case against former President Estrada (Sandiganbayan 2007).


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the mayoral position. In the meantime, Piñeda’s enhanced economic clout has translat-ed in a stronger political position, with his son taking over the homebase and his wife securing the family fortune through control over the province.

There has been repeated evidence that the Macapagal-Arroyos are likewise involved in jueteng (and smuggling). Similar to the Piñedas, the wife seems to be securing the political front and the husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, controls (legal and illegal) business, supported by the son, who seems to bridge the two fields of politics and crime.11 In a confidential cable to Washington, the American embassy in Manila cited a prominent businessman who claims that “Mike Arroyo is heavily involved in the illegal gambling or ‘jueteng’ networks and closely connected with major smuggling syndicates”, with an-other businessman echoing these concerns by “pointing to his links to ‘jueteng’ and the many politicians and local officials involved in the illegal gambling racket”. Other sources go into more details, accusing “’a relative of a top government official’ (widely believed to be the First Gentleman) of doling out PNP assignments in Central Luzoon in exchange for 60 percent of the jueteng protection money paid to Luzon PNP command-ers” (US Embassy 2005b; see also US Embassy 2005a). Other witnesses accused then President Macapagal-Arroyo’s son, Juan Miguel Arroyo (congressman from Pampanga) “of receiving profits from the game” and “claimed that Mikey Arroyo had received large payoffs of protection money […]” (US Embassy 2005c; see also: inuirer.net/inquirer headlines/nation/view/20100301-255963/Mayor-the-jueteng-operator)..

Information on illegal numbers games is scarce with respect to Negros Occidental, most of it being rumours, lining it to a certain Julio J. Jalandoni, who is said to dominate the Jueteng business of the provincial capital Bacolod. He is said to have got hold of this position through good contacts to the family of the former President Macapagal-Arroyo via the Negros Occidental Arroyo family branch led by Ignacio Arroyo (died 26 January 2012), who owned vast lands in Negros Occidental and represented its fifth district in Congress. Jalandoni seems to be a businessman, together with his wife Sylvia owning significant numbers of stocks of Globe Telecom, Ayala Land and Jollibee. Ac-cording to interview partners on Negros Jueteng is less important than Jai-alai and Masiao (interviews Bacolod 2011) and it is widely assumed (but officially denied) that the transfer of Bacolod police chief and his deputy was related to their involvement in illegal games. All interview partners (from representatives of state institutions to journal-ists and local researchers) unanimously assumed, that politicians and the police were protecting illegal gambling, however, nobody ever mentioned any names.

For the ARMM, there are no serious information on illegal gambling. While it is sup-posed to exist it does not seem to play the same role as a source of illegal financing. In the ARMM illegal activities seem to revolve more around money laundering, smuggling, kidnap for ransom (Ugarte 2008), and illegal drug business. In view of the very real danger interview partners were very careful with their comments, generally confirming respective reports, however, refusing to go into any detail. Information garnered in inter-views concerning the drug business closely correspond to the description given by American embassy members, who report for example that the local drug lord in Cotabato city “is a member of a powerful clan with a long history of smuggling” and more generally that “drug lords” include local politicians and clan leaders with private armies [who are; P.K.] supported by the police” (US Embassy 2006). According to a high ranking Philippine officer, drug lords in 2006 held “mayorships in at least nine mu-

11 It is important to point out, that nothing can be proven in a legal sense. While rumours and

evidence for criminal behavior of Philippine politicians abounds, convictions are virtually non-existent.


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nicipalities in Lanao Del Sur Province. Mayors of fourteen municipalities in Maguin-danao Province, and nearly all of the mayors, including the Vice-Governor of Sulu prov-ince”. Two ARMM provincial governors were likewise suspected to be involved in the business (US Embassy 2006).

5.2 Exploiting the state Some of the most important resources utilized for upholding oligarchic domination

are delivered by the state itself in the form of public funds, that are supposed to be used to finance the administration, various projects and grant benefits in a wide range of gov-ernment programs. Local political power to a significant extent can be measured in the currency of control over the utilization of these resources.

If we judge from the various reports of the Commission on Audit12 corruption and rent-seeking via public office and the accompanying control over public money is wide-spread For reasons of space, any detailed analysis cannot be given here. However, the crucial similarity that unites the slightly different practices in the ARMM, Negros Occi-dental and Pampanga is that the local state is captured by specific elite families, who then “provide targeted benefits to particular constituents […] as opposed to public goods that benefit a large number of voters” (Hasnain/Matsuda 2011: 3). As a matter of fact “capturing public apparatuses and using their political power and influence to consoli-date their hold on local economic activities are among the most common means for wealth accumulation among Filipino political elites” (Hasnain/Matsuda 2011: 8).

5.3 Preliminary summary The above analysis shows that criminal activity by politicians focuses on, but is not

limited to state capture and rent-seeking but goes deeply into illegal business types commonly controlled by criminal syndicates like illegal gambling (and probably drug production as well as trafficking). It suggests that for much of the Philippine politico-economic elite there is no normative difference between legal and illegal means for ad-vancing their political and economic interests.

The Philippines actually belongs to the category of the criminalized state, as under-stood by Legvold, a state that is “suffused with corruption. The state’s core activity may not be corrupt, but the process by which the state acts is” (2009: 196; emphasis in origi-nal). It has been captured by oligarchs on all levels and corruption cannot be reduced to

“mere bribe-making […]. Rather than state officials and bureaucrats extorting business firms or ordinary individuals, powerful individuals or groups use material rewards or physical threats to reshape the state. Alternatively, the criminalized state can be thought of as one where […] those in power or those with leverage over those in power use state agency to advance their private interests at the ex-pense of the broader public good” (Legvold 2009: 196-197).

When using the category of criminalized state it is important to realize that the form of criminalization is decentralized and fairly anarchic, as the state does not control the networks of corruption, but a multitude of such networks control the state, reconfiguring it into a network state, the formal (bureaucratic) structure of which has largely been im-mobilized and replaced by an informal (political) network structure, with multiple focal points. The problem is not about individual politicians being corrupt, but that politics as

12

See numerous reports on the homepage of the Commission on Audit, especially: http://www.coa.

gov.ph/Audit/ AAR.htm and http://www.coa.gov.ph/GWSPA/GWSPA.htm.


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such becomes distorted and criminalized, as the core players neither accept nor play according to the formal rules of the political game.

If we advance the idea that state and society “transform and constitute one another” (Migdal 2001), we may assume that a social class/group with the behavioral and cultural attributes of a mafia may capture the state. In such a case there is no longer the need to establish secret organizations that are able to advance the groups interest against an actually or potentially hostile state, as the fundamental goal of wealth defense, shared by oligarchs and mafia alike can be pursued from secure positions within the state. However, having captured a modern state with its claim to comprehensive jurisdiction over a wide range of behavior defined as criminal, all criminal aspects of the local prac-tice of domination have to be denied. While “Mafia” as a comprehensive social order and institutional setup may exist, it must remain invisible, as it clashes with the image of the state, with the essence of stateness as such, even though, it may inform its practice.

6 Mafia style domination in the Philippines VI: Peace-pact politics

The cognitive and emotive autonomy of elite behavior from law is exemplified in the

practice of forging peace pacts, a practice that has left its mark on all elections of the past decades. Philippine peace pacts are very akin to peace pacts entered into by com-peting Mafia families and likewise intend to avert or end bloodshed that results from in-ter-family competition.

In the Philippines such competition centers on political office. The country abounds with peace pacts that center on mutual promises to respect the rule of law and fair play and not to resort to vote buying or other illegal means including physical violence. The contending forces normally meet on a neutral ground, with witnesses, not seldom fairly high representatives of the church, the police, the military and the Commission of Elec-tion as well as higher level politicians attending and signing the covenants.

Public symbolism is most dramatic, sending the image of powerful contenders, who for the sake of peace are willing to forgo some of their self-proclaimed right to dominate with whatever means they deem fit. Neither in the negotiation processes leading to the pacts nor in the public ceremonies themselves are government or state in any exalted position. Cognitively the state is reduced to a mere witness of a voluntary agreement of fully autonomous contending forces: individual “warriors” who pledge to abide by some set of rules that, having been negotiated for a specific event, will lose force once the event has passed.

Peace pacts are of special interest in the context of an analysis of Philippine politics as a Mafia style endeavor, because they actually affirm the political elite’s right to de-cide autonomously on the use of violence and other illegal strategies in the context of political competition. Reliance on peace pacts illustrates that the core personnel of the political system, the mainstream-politicians themselves, do not submit to the laws of the state, but reserve to themselves the right to either voluntarily sign or turn down a com-mitment to the formal rules of the game.

7 Conclusion

The three Philippine territories analyzed illustrate that oligarchic domination is ex-

traordinarily stable. It is not restrained by either democratic institutions nor economic development. The structural basis of domination lies in arrangements that nullify the division of political powers and functional differentiation as well.

This type of domination is harmful in several respects:


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• it denies full democracy, as oligarchs safeguard their continued domination through the control of the institutions of the state. In the Philippines this is accomplished through a combination of patronage, election fraud and intimidation.

• it denies rule of law, as the oligarchs are above the law in most respects. • it denies the functioning of a market economy. Philippine oligarchs derive most of

their profit in the form of rent-seeking, which necessitates incomplete marketization. At the same time the oligarchs and their henchmen have to disempower the state as a redistributive institution, otherwise their patronage networks would be severely weakened, as the dependence of the poor on personal favors of their patrons would recede, and multidimensional dependency, the debts of gratitude tying the client to the patron would lose its binding force.

• it denies the monopolization of violence by the state. Instead it grants local chief ex-ecutives control over the police and various auxiliary organizations, thereby allowing those forces to be privately controlled and tolerates private control over armed groups.

What is the extra-value of the focus on Mafia-domination? This concept relates the form of domination to the fundamental dimension of modern statehood: state-law. With oligarchy focusing on the economy-governance nexus, Mafia-style domination highlights the connection between crime and governance, pointing to the possibility that politics, i.e. the authoritative allocation of values for a society (Easton), may aim at defending the wealth of individuals, kinship groups and networks, who are in no way bound by the formal principles that are supposed to guide this allocation, but regularly overstep them, thereby establishing and upholding a para-political sphere, where criminal activity is a regular, systemic, feature.

The concept of Mafia-style domination helps to relate crime, politics and economy, so that an integrated order becomes visible that claims validity in all three spheres. The analysis supports Hess’ argument that the concept of the Mafioso while originating in Sicily, “in principle […] can be applied to any power phenomena functioning analogously in other cultures.”. The crucial aspect differentiating a mere rent-seeking or corrupt polit-ical order from Mafia-style domination is the “emphasis on the element of violence” (ci-tations: Hess 1998: 175-176).

Neither oligarchy nor mafia-domination enable generalized trust. Both thrive in and depend on low trust environments and both are characterized by specific kinship-based solutions to the problem of building trust. Trust is reserved for a small array of persons, mostly linked by real or imagined kinship (godfather relations, marriage). Beyond this trust is fairly non-existent. It is substituted by personal alliances (which are always pre-carious and prone to disintegration) and built on rational calculation of individual utility. On the meso- and macro-level fragmentation takes precedence over integration and institutionalization, as neither oligarchy nor Mafia allow for overcoming the problem of a low trust environment, characterized by fairly exclusive kinship based forms of personal-ized trust only.

Democracy, rule of law and the modern nation-state are accepted, not because any-body really believes in them as forms of regulating competition and managing or resolv-ing conflict that eschew violence. Democracy, law and the state are used as arenas through which competition and domination can be realized in a way that guarantees continued oligarchic domination. Democracy actually provides an ideal frame for per-petual balancing of a multitude of actors who put no trust into its very rules, but utilize the formal framework for a perennial competition for power. The rule of law is practiced in the form of a rule by law, that effectively transforms law into an instrument for the control and repression of the weak and an additional arena in which oligarchs compete.


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And the state actually multiplies the oligarchs’ power, as it allows for capture, turning its significant coercive and distributive resources to the service of the individual power-holder. While the playing field is provided by Democracy, stateness and law, the rules of the game follow a different paradigm, as the individual oligarchs can neither risk forsak-ing their direct control over the means of violence or their way of ensuring total personal control through the amalgamation of economic, political and social power.

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