Contractors are the newest flavor of the month, on the perennial issue of corruption. Or should I say, rather, they and their connects in government are the newest whipping boys of the “class-conscious” commentariat.
Most of us are now focused on the Discayas and the other contractors listed by PH President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos (BBM).
Not a big problem with me. The guilty ones must indeed be pilloried from post to post, at least in social media and other public arena if not in the courts and penal colonies where they belong.
But here’s another problem: we have a bad case of socmed ADHD, and it apparently afflicts wider swaths of the “class-conscious” commentariat, even on this contractor issue.
Anyway, I won’t bore you with another ultra-long post. I promise to focus on just four points:
(1) Have we all forgotten about the US-imperialist tentacle called MCC? It withdrew from its PH initiatives during the Duterte era on questions of misgovernance. In late 2023 the Marcos Jr. regime welcomed it back and entered into the MCC’s 2023-2028 threshold program, in anticipation of a much bigger compact program—presumably covering land, agriculture and infrastructure, stuff like that, but with the MCC seal of “Good Governance” (read: “corruption-free”). It’s in recent news stories, so they’re not too difficult to research.
(2) Have we so quickly forgotten that just a couple of weeks ago, SMC’s Ramon Ang had been boasting all over media that his company can solve the flood-control woes of the NCR (and other regions too) “at no cost” to the government? And that BBM welcomed Ang’s offer? And that SMC (San Miguel Corporation, if it needs any reminding), has been growing its tentacles real fast in land, agri/food, and infra/ transport. And that prior to Ang, the SMC honcho was Danding “Pacman” Cojuangco, crony extraordinaire of Marcos Sr.? And that when Marcos Sr. was president in the 1960s-1980s, he was also deep into infra, and in fact the CDCP, owned by another close crony Rodolfo Cuenca, was one of his fattest milking cows?
(3) Ergo, it shouldn’t surprise us that long-standing corporate giants like SMC etc. are now laser-focused on the biggest-ticket infra projects in the NCR and surrounding regions. They are also “contractors,” yes—but giant big-ticket builders who see themselves as more world-class, more legalistic and more strategic in their dealings with government. They plan to edge out and shake down the smaller patay-gutom ones who have turned “contractor” into a very dirty word. I imagine their likes pledging BBM to help his government attain the MCC seal of good housekeeping and be seen as “fighting corruption” while “building the nation.”
(4) Finally, we often talk about “bureaucrat capitalism” (BC) as if it was only or mainly about corruption among government officials, and “political dynasties” as their most dominant perpetuating mechanism. But let’s not forget the “capitalism” part, which is the more basic component and not just by way of imagery. When BC was first used as a fundamental concept, it referred to that distinctive operation of imperialism especially with its big comprador agents in the semicolonies and neocolonies. In China, BC was exemplified by the Big Four families that practically controlled the main pillars of the economy in partnership with imperialism and the feudal lords, with the Guomindang regime and the warlords as their political-military instruments.
In short, let’s not limit ourselves to the “contractors” and “corrupt officials.” Rather, let us trace the genealogy of this phenomenon of government corruption to a much more over-arching (and actually more universal) phenomenon: oligarchy. Even the term “billionaire class” is too myopic. Let’s call it for what it is: the rapacious oligarchy that is the politico-economic-military partnership of imperialism and its big comprador-landlord class agents.
Sometimes people have to be reminded of basic arithmetic, as in 1 + 1 = 2, and 2 + 2 = 4. That’s all for now, and here ends my four-point lecture for today.
###