If one must understand why the ‘politics of plunder’ remains and will constitute as an important driver of the Philippine political economy all you have to do is to turn to the front page of today’s major newspapers.
The message: Crony capitalism pays!
Key passage from the news.
From the Inquirer, (bold highlights mine)
In their ruling, the justices observed that the government failed to offer clear evidence to prove that Cojuangco amassed his wealth illegally.
For example, the court said the nullification of the writs of sequestration against Cojuangco was valid because in some instances, the PCGG had failed to determine prima facie basis for sequestration.
This is a patent manifestation of the failure of government. The bureaucracy is venal and, either deliberately or inherently, inefficient and inept. And the legal system has been possibly subjected to manipulation by the political class.
As in the acquittal of the alleged culprits of the Vizconde Massacre case, the same legal ploy seem to apply—the letter of the law (technicalities) dominate the spirit of the law (intent) in the adjudication of these cases.
Again I quote the Wikipedia,
The letter of the law versus the spirit of the law is an idiomatic antithesis. When one obeys the letter of the law but not the spirit, one is obeying the literal interpretation of the words (the "letter") of the law, but not the intent of those who wrote the law. Conversely, when one obeys the spirit of the law but not the letter, one is doing what the authors of the law intended, though not adhering to the literal wording.
"Law" originally referred to legislative statute, but in the idiom may refer to any kind of rule. Intentionally following the letter of the law but not the spirit may be accomplished through exploiting technicalities, loopholes, and ambiguous language. Following the letter of the law but not the spirit is also a tactic used by oppressive governments. (bold emphasis on this paragraph mine)
Two, more passage from the adjoining Inquirer article...(bold highlights mine)
In 1975, Marcos authorized the Philippine Coconut Authority, the agency tasked with developing the coconut industry and whose board included businessman Eduardo Cojuangco, to use the funds to buy a bank “for the benefit of the farmers.”
The bank was First United Bank, later renamed United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB). Cojuangco became its president and chief executive officer.
With the PCA and UCPB in their control, Cojuangco and his associates were able to buy firms and mills placed under the Coconut Industry Investment Fund(CIIF), a group of 14 holding companies whose assets included 47 percent of San Miguel Corp. (SMC). These assets were held by UCPB, the CIIF administrator.
This is just an example of the nature of rent seeking activities that emanates from state ‘crony’ capitalism.
From Nobel laureate James Buchanan, (bold emphasis mine)
If the government is empowered to grant monopoly rights or tariff protection to one group, at the expense of the general public or to designated losers, then it follows that potential beneficiaries will compete for the prize, so to speak. And, since by construction, only one group can be rewarded, the resources invested by other groups is wasted. These resources could have been used to produce valued goods and services. Once this basic insight is incorporated into the mind-set of the observer, much of modern politics can only be interpreted as rent-seeking activity
Or as author Frank Chodorov explained (The Rise and Fall of Society p.84) (bold emphasis mine)
in every age political power has lent itself to purposes that are uneconomic and antisocial, that it has never hesitated to purchase support with confiscated property. For the ancients it may be said that they conducted the business in a forthright manner, unadorned with moralisms; the Caesars did not invoke an ideology to cover up the real objective of "bread and circuses/' Today, political preferment and the augmentation of political power are accomplished in the same way—with subsidies of all sorts, paid for by taxpayers—but the business is conducted under a panoply of rectitude. Our politicians do not purchase votes, they advocate "social" programs. It comes to the same thing.
In short, politicians use ‘social programs’ to supposedly deliver public goods (service) supposedly for society’s weal, but eventually end up ‘gaming’ the system for their own personal benefits. Yet people hardly see through such prestidigitation. Worst, local laws can't seem to identify and provide the necessary corrective mechanism (social justice) on this.
This is also working proof of the time consistency of political issues or the capriciousness of public sentiment.
Post EDSA I, the public had passionately been for the pursuit of regaining ill-gotten wealth from ex-President Marcos and his cronies, and that’s the reason for the recovery suit. Apparently time dampened this desire. Legal dilatory tactics thereafter paved way for the clearance of what looks very much like obtaining resources via (Franz Oppenheimer’s) political means.
And that’s why lobbying, backdoor dealing, anti-competitive laws, getting elected into political office (having a political career) and other political artifices in the name of public welfare will be a potent political force in the Philippine society—the political-legal system fundamentally incentivizes these socio-political imbalances.
As libertarian author Albert Jay Nock wrote,
every assumption of State power, whether by gift or seizure, leaves society with so much less power. There is never, nor can there be, any strengthening of State power without a corresponding and roughly equivalent depletion of social power.
Bottom line:
This only goes to show that it’s a fundamental illusion for anyone to believe that elections will change the nature of the government—by putting in place people with so-called ‘virtuousness’.
As the above example show, arbitrary laws and a highly vulnerable and manipulable legal system will undo ‘virtue’. In essence, the problem isn’t about virtue, the laws signify the problem.
The current system rewards those who can effectively game the system via political-legal means. Such reward is an incentive to do more. And that’s why as I keep saying, the more things change, the more they remain the same….
