Amado Guerrero
July 30, 1970
IV. Bureaucrat Capitalism
1. The Meaning of Bureaucrat Capitalism
In dominating the Philippines, U.S. imperialism, like its colonial
predecessors, found it expedient at the outset to secure the assistance
of local traitors. Since it had to accommodate and assimilate the
comprador big bourgeoisie and the landlord class to pursue its selfish
interests, it considered as its most reliable assistants in colonial
administration the political representatives of these exploiting
classes. U.S. imperialism sought its first puppet bureaucrats from the
ranks of the principalia. It took a special preference for renegades of
the Philippine Revolution because these were very useful for scuttling
the revolutionary efforts of the people and were too eager to prove
their new colonial allegiance and take advantage of the bureaucratic
and economic opportunities offered to them.
The pack of counterrevolutionary speculators that had crept
into the leadership of the Aguinaldo government was the first group of
local politicians to be permitted by U.S. imperialism to organize a
political party in the Philippines. Their Partido Federal campaigned
for the annexation of the Philippines to the United States. Membership
in this traitor party was proof of loyalty to the alien flag and served
as a guarantee for gaining appointment to the colonial bureaucracy
established by U.S. imperialism.
When the Partido Federal became too discredited and isolated,
the U.S. imperialists procured the bureaucratic assistance of the
Nacionalista Party and assigned to it the special role of lulling the
people with patriotic slogans while servilely performing colonial
chores. The class leadership of this new traitor party was no different
from that of its predecessor.
The Nacionalista Party was so efficient in its special role
of pretending to be for independence and preventing the people from
asserting their sovereign rights that it was allowed to dominate puppet
politics for quite a long time. After World War II, however, U.S.
imperialism saw to it that what was then the most reactionary wing
within the Nacionalista Party be converted into another party so as to
maintain a two-party system in which one party checks the other to stay
within the bounds of a semicolonial and semifeudal society.
In this last quarter of a century, the Nacionalista Party and
the Liberal Party have never expressed any basic difference in
programme with regard to the basic problems of U.S. imperialism,
feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. The stalwarts of both parties at
every level can shift from one party to the other without having much
to account for except in the most superficial terms. These puppet
political parties have always been alike as the democratic Party and
the Republican Party or Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola are alike.
There is so much muckraking between these two reactionary
parties, especially on the issue of graft and corruption. But mutually
they avoid bringing up the fundamental issues involving the foreign and
feudal domination over the country. What bounds them above all is their
servitude to U.S. imperialism and to the local exploiting classes and
their pursuit of private wealth. Their differences are at the most
factional and cliquish. They are preoccupied with quarrelling over the
spoils of colonial office.
The big bureaucrats are characteristically big compradors and
big landlords themselves. Contrary to the liberal lie that a "poor boy
can become president," no one has ever reached the rank of even a
congressman without representing the exploiting classes and without in
the process joining them. By the time that someone has become president
in the present system, he shall have become not only the chief
political representative of the exploiters but also one of the biggest
among them.
With U.S. imperialism enlarging its interests at the expense
of the broad masses of the people, the colonial bureaucrats have become
bureaucrat capitalists. They are capitalists by keeping the entire
government as a large private enterprise from which they draw enormous
private profits. They act like the local managers of the U.S.
monopolies. They serve the comprador big bourgeoisie and the landlord
class which are their internal material basis. Nevertheless, as
distinguished from these two exploiting classes, the bureaucrat
capitalists build up or expand their wealth through the exercise of
political power. Classic statements to describe their distinctive
character have come from their own mouths: "What are we in power for?",
"We must provide for the future of our families!" and "We are all giant
octopuses here!"
Through their political parties, the bureaucrat capitalists
try to give the masses the false illusion of democratic choice. But
these political parties are nothing but the external trappings of
comprador-landlord dynasties perpetuating themselves in power. So far,
elections have been regularly held in the Philippines but U.S.
imperialism and the local exploiting classes have always seen to it
that only the political parties and the candidates subservient to their
interests are politically permitted and financially capable of running
for elective positions in the bureaucracy.
These exploiting interests contribute financially to both
sides of an electoral contest to make sure that whichever wins, the
forces of counterrevolution win and the broad masses of the people who
are misled into the motion of voting lose. Oftentimes, these exploiters
give vent to their preferences only by giving more funds to their
favorite candidates. The general result is that the reactionary
government continues to be their instrument and that the bureaucrat
capitalists continue to draw their own profits from the preservation of
a semicolonial and semifeudal order.
A party which is in control of government funds and
facilities has a great advantage over an opposition party. In addition,
it can also dispose at least a clique in the reactionary armed forces
for fraud and terrorism. Despite all these, however, such a party that
is ostensibly in power can either retain its majority position or be
shoved into a minority position in the reactionary government only as
U.S. imperialism and the local exploiting classes wish. These superior
powers behind the entire puppet state have more disposable funds for
electioneering. They are controllers of the most powerful mass media.
They can manipulate the levers of their economic and political power to
unleash propaganda in favor of their own policies and interests. To put
the ruling party in a ridiculous position, all that the U.S.
imperialists have to do is to withhold loan capital from the
reactionary government or all that the local exploiting classes have to
do is to manipulate the prices of prime commodities. Besides all these
tricks, the puppet politicians have to watch out in whose favor the
reactionary armed forces are being swung by U.S. imperialism.
During the last 25 years, third parties so-called have been
put up. These parties like the Democratic Party led by Carlos P. Romulo
and the Progressive Party of the Philippines led by the
Manahan-Manglapus gang have served mainly to firm up the puppet and
exploitative class character of the two-party system and have merely
ensured the granting of concessions to their chieftains. These "third
parties" have been used only to tilt the balance in favor of the most
reactionary candidates at a given time in the puppet elections.
Romulo's Democratic Party was used to support the Magsaysay candidacy.
The Manahan-Manglapus gang has continuously adapted its party to the
needs of the C.I.A. and the reactionary diehards in the Catholic Church
whose support it enjoys. The Progressive Party of the Philippines
became the Grand Alliance in 1959 and launched a campaign for the
decontrol policy and went to the extent of threatening the incumbent
regime with a coup d'etat. In 1961, the Manglapus-Manahan gang formed
the United Opposition with the Liberal Party to ensure the electoral
success of the latter with its colonial platform of "free enterprise."
Now the Manglapus-Manahan gang is running the Christian Social
Movement. This latest contraption of the C.I.A. and the reactionary
diehards in the oldest colonial and feudal institution in the country
is intended as before to mislead those who are disgusted with the
present political system into counterrevolutionary reformism and
clerico-fascism. Its comprador and landlord leaders echo the
catchphrases of the discredited Christian Democratic parties of Europe
and Latin America.
So far, the only "third party" with some positive aspects
emerged in 1957 when the Nationalist-Citizens' Party was led by Sen.
Claro Mayo Recto. It was at best, however, an anti-imperialist
mouthpiece of the national bourgeoisie for a short while. It had a dual
character. Its failure resulted from its adherence to bourgeois
constitutionalism and parliamentarism. In the end, it served only to
strengthen the present political system. Now it remains a mere name
with which individual opportunists qualify themselves for concessions
from the present ruling party.27
2. Sources of Graft and Corruption
Graft and corruption is an integral part of a semicolonial and
semifeudal society. The bureaucracy is nothing but an instrument for
facilitating the exploitation of the broad masses of the people by
foreign and feudal interests. The bureaucrat capitalists merely exact
their share in the profits of comprador and landlord exploitation. It
is their reward. In dishing out the anachronistic jargon of "liberal
democracy" or "free enterprise," they simply mean to say that private
interest (individual freedom of the exploiters) is paramount to public
interest.
The entire hierarchy of the Philippine bureaucracy, including
the executive, legislative and judicial branches, from the time of
Quezon and Osmena to that of Macapagal and Marcos, has always been
ridden with graft and corruption. One has only to take note of how much
property a certain bureaucrat capitalist has at the start of his
treacherous career and compare it with his visible assets that
accumulate from year to year to be convinced of the enormity of graft
and corruption and how detestably rotten the present system is.
In the guise of collecting support for their political
parties, the bureaucrat capitalists get funds and facilities from their
imperialist, comprador and landlord masters. Even before winning the
elections or even in losing out to their opponents, they become wealthy
on account of the large campaign contributions that they get. In return
for the largesse that they collect, they become bound to the class
interests of their supporters.
The bureaucrat capitalists get bribe money on the adoption of
laws, executive orders and court decisions. In every contract,
concession, franchise or license there is a certain amount of money
that is used to line the pockets of the bureaucrat capitalists.
Oftentimes, they themselves are parties in private transactions
directly or through trusted dummies or relatives. It is characteristic
of bureaucrat capitalists today to flaunt their status as chairmen,
consultants or legal counsel of private business enterprises.
Public lands, including those actually cultivated by the poor
homesteaders and the national minorities, are grabbed by the bureaucrat
capitalists and their collaborators. These are taken over as logging,
mining or pasture areas at first under a lease or some other kind of
contract with the government and subsequently converted into their
private property. And public works are so designed as to raise the
value of these lands.
In export-import operations peculiar to a semicolonial and
semifeudal country, the bureaucrat capitalists draw their own share of
comprador profits by putting their own outfits and the bribe-givers' on
the priority list in foreign exchange accommodation. In the
misdeclaration of imports and exports and consequent tax evasion, they
cheat their own reactionary government of revenues.
Every year enormous amounts of funds are appropriated for
public works. Most of these actually go into the pockets of the
bureaucrat capitalists. Public bidding for the purchase of equipment
and construction materials or for the hiring of a construction firm is
manipulated. The payroll is also padded to pay idle proteges and also
to yield more graft for the bureaucrat capitalists.
The government banking and insurance systems have been used
to build up the landholdings and capital holdings of the bureaucrat
capitalists and their close collaborators. Even when loans are granted
to other borrowers, large percentages of the loans grease the palms of
the bureaucrat capitalists. Using funds collected from workers and
government employees through the Social Security System and the
Government Service Insurance System, the reactionary government makes
direct investments in private corporations. In the process, the
bureaucrat capitalists get various concessions aside from gaining
positions of authority in these private corporations.
All government corporations become milking cows in the hands
of the bureaucrat capitalists. They are the sources of huge salaries
and allowances. Purchase bids provide still bigger income for them. At
so large an expense by the reactionary government, so-called pioneering
enterprises are put up only to be sold at a losing price to private
entities. Before being sold, these government corporations are
subjected to all kinds of financial manipulation. Their bankruptcy
becomes the rationale for their sale, that is, for another
bureaucrat-capitalist killing. The bankruptcy of a government
corporation is ridiculously used as an argument by the bureaucrat
parasites themselves not against state capitalism but against
socialism.
In the accounting of private assets, there is a double
standard: one is the book value for tax purposes and the other is the
market value. Tax exemptions and all kinds of incentives are further
granted to imperialist, comprador and landlord interests. Corporate
bodies and fake cooperatives controlled by the imperialists, compradors
and landlords are created to cheat the petty bourgeoisie and the masses
in general. In all these arrangements, there is so wide an area for
graft and corruption for the bureaucrat capitalists. Oftentimes,
bureaucrat capitalists are directly retained by corporations and
haciendas in order to insure immediate suppression of the working
people.
At every turn in the history of Philippine bureaucracy, there
are special sources of graft and corruption. These could be crop loans,
relief goods, war surplus goods, reconstruction funds, Chinese
immigration quota, import controls, price controls, dollar allocations,
rural banks, fake cooperatives, Japanese war reparations, deportation
threats, alien naturalization, logging and mining concessions, pasture
leases, stock exchange manipulations, government loans and
subscriptions to private corporations, congressional allowances,
calamity and contingency funds, barrio improvement funds, subsidies and
so on and so forth.
The bureaucrat capitalists also venture directly into the
most starkly illegitimate activities. They are involved in smuggling,
usury, plain extortion, gambling, cattle-rustling and prostitution.
These are conspicuously perpetrated at the lower levels of the
bureaucracy though the top bureaucrats operate their political parties
as crime syndicates. In this connection, the reactionary troops and
police and the private goons of local officials also grow fat on the
most anti-social activities.
The sources of graft and corruption enumerated above do not
yet complete the list. A particular bureaucrat capitalist may not take
advantage of all these at one particular time. But he is certainly
taking advantage of some. It is extremely clear that his nominal salary
is not adequate to maintain the kind of living that he leads. He would
pretend to dole out his monthly salary to his proteges but in fact he
gets a huge income from one stroke of the pen or one telephone call.
The arch-hypocrite Magsaysay made a big show of refusing petty gifts
but was in fact engaged in grand extortion. Marcos announced that he
would give up his worldly goods in self-abnegation but he actually
meant to create a foundation to keep in display his USAFFE medals and
"glorify" himself. The most self-aggrandizing purpose of that
foundation, however, is the collection of financial "contributions."
Big bureaucrat capitalists have developed standard tricks for
keeping their loot. They keep "petty cash" (in millions of pesos) in
their house vaults for immediate use, deposits under numbered accounts
in Swiss banks, strings of palatial houses and buildings, jewelry and
all kinds of luxuries, securities in profitable corporations and land
titles. To make a big joke of the Anti-Graft Law, the bureaucrat
capitalists temporarily put their assets under the names of close
relatives or well-known businessmen until such time that the bureaucrat
capitalists can freely cite "legitimate" business ventures.
The center of fire is properly directed at the big bureaucrat
capitalists who rapaciously betray the national-democratic interests of
the Filipino people. No matter how they conceal their ill-gotten
wealth, it will still show in so many pompous assets that they never
fail to flaunt. Characteristically, they spend their money in the most
wasteful and unproductive ways.
The corruption of the big bureaucrat capitalists extends
downward to the lower levels of the reactionary government and the
local ward leaders. But by and large, within the reactionary
government, the big bureaucrat capitalists oppress and exploit lower
officials and ordinary employees.
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27
The National-Citizens’ Party completely went out of existence when its
president, Sen. Lorenzo Ta�ada, retired from the Senate in 1971.
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