Around two weeks ago President Rodrigo Duterte called a prominent businessman an oligarch and said that he would destroy that person because of his oligarchic ways. The Chief Executive’s singling out of the businessman for denunciation came as a complete surprise to many people, including myself. But that was not the only thing that surprised me regarding the President’s action; I was surprised by his choice of ‘oligarch’ to describe the hapless businessman.
‘Oligarch’ is more a politico-social word than an economic one. The counterpart word in economics is ‘oligopolist,’ which is defined as a member of a small group of individuals that controls an industry or a sector of an economy. Both ‘oligarch’ and ‘oligopolist’ have negative connotations, but ‘oligarch’ is more pejorative both in tone and in impact.
It had been a long time since I heard and read the word ‘oligarch’ in a public context. The last time ‘oligarch’ entered into public discussion was during the early part of the martial law period. Prior thereto, it was in 1962, the first full year of Diosdado Macapagal’s presidency—in those days the Presidential term began on December 31—that I heard and read about oligarchs.
Because he had not made the nation’s socio-economic divide a major element of his electoral platform, the Filipino people were surprised when, shortly after the election, Diosdado Macapagal declared war on what he termed the oligarchic class and said that his administration would go after its members. He made special mention of the leaders of the sugar industry—the so-called sugar bloc—which was then composed, as it still is today, of the sugar planters’ group (National Federation of Sugarcane Planters, or NFSP) and the sugar millers’ group (now the Philippine Sugar Manufacturers’ Association). Macapagal appeared to have a particular distaste for NFSP and its leaders, Alfredo Montelibano and the brothers Eugenio and Fenando Lopez. In his eyes, the Lopez-led group’s alleged oligarchic status was strengthened by its acquisition from the American owners, shortly before the election, of the nation’s largest power-generating facility, Manila Electric Company (Meralco).
The “sugar bloc” was not about to be intimidated by the tough-talking former Representative from Pampanga. The Lopezes launched their own war against Macapagal, bombarding him with an unrelenting stream of hard-hitting columns, editorials and news reports in the well-read Manila Chronicle, which they owned. All of Macapagal’s acts were subjected to intense scrutiny and all his policies and programs underwent merciless pounding. Realizing that he had taken on an adversary that he could not cow into submission, Macapagal called off the war that he had started with much chutzpah and arrogance. The word ‘oligarch’ drifted out of the political discussion, and relations between Malacañang and the people who Macapagal accused of oligarchism became civil for the rest of his four-year term.
One of the first things that President Marcos did after placing the nation under martial rule was to denounce the ‘oligarchs’ whose alleged bad activities had destroyed what he now called the Old Society, which would now be replaced by a New Society (Bagong Lipunan). There would be no place for the old ‘oligarchs’—especially the big landowners—in the New Society.
That was the last time I heard and read the word ‘oligarch’ in public discourse.
Now President Duterte has resurrected the word, using it to characterize the businessman I spoke of at the beginning of this column. Is that businessman the last whom Rodrigo Duterte would call an ‘oligarch’, or will there be others? The larger question is, has denunciation of oligarchism become the order of the day once again?
The days immediately ahead will tell.
E-mail: rudyromero777@yahoo.com
