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that our Philippine heroes have courageously shown those times, it is also because
our Filipino forefathers have understood, at a point in time, that independence is the
tool for them to utilize and nurture their own natural resources, necessary for them
to improve their living conditions, and thus, be free of colonial and tyrannical rule.
This forms the backbone of Dependency Theory as a way of understanding
Philippine underdevelopment. Colonialism, as argued by a Muslim author Salah
Jubair and other political theorists, is the mother of culprits. As a unitary and highly
centralized state (Rocamora and Hutchcroft, 2003) which historically, was an
arbitrary creation of the succession of colonial powers that invaded this country
(Jubair, 1999), Philippines has been characterized by natives who were ruled on a
kind of political system that they themselves were not knowledgeable. When
colonizers came, they built up institutions, set the rules of the game, leaving the
majority of the population ignorant about it. There remains only one choice: deal
with the institutions, even if you do not know the rules of the game.
The tragedy in this context comes from the Filipinos lack of control over our
own natural resources that is rightfully ours at the start of civilization. With the
impact of colonialism, the foreign invaders are the ones who till the lands of our
forefathers, and later on, slowly passed this authority to few landed elites, at the
expense of the greater population. Trade systems were organized, starting with a
barter system which later evolved into a more comprehensive money system, with
the increase participation of the market in sustaining the needs of the population.
But then again, only few people have the means to participate productively in this
process of improving ones living conditions. As societies developed, there was an
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increased division of labor but it was also marked by problems of exploitation and
alienation. At this point, some dependency theorists relate their discussions to the
Marxist ideology (Sunkel, 1969; Santos, 1971; Frank, 1972). Considering that there
is a struggle among classes, those who have the means of production (landed elites,
local natives with access to economic power) can maximize ownership of property
and gain large profits out from it while those who have been alienated and exploited
of ones labor (the common laborers) continue to live in a deprived society with no
means of improving themselves.
On the other hand, the institutional problem in terms of the economic setup
becomes even problematic in relation to politicswhere the same landed elites
have the means to access political power. This has become a viable tool to even
improve themselves in both economic and political sphere, at the expense of the
others. As argued by Hutchcroft and Rocamora (2003), patronage politics granted
immense benefits to political leaders with strong economic influence which started
from the organization of the first political party shaped by the American colonial
system, coated with the colonizers idea of making an independent Philippines
through expanding government positions to local Filipino politicians. This only
intensified the problem since political participation is limited to only few people
the same individuals who have access to economic resources.
We knew for a fact that economics is the study of scarce resources and it can
be considered that with constant deprivation among individuals who belong to the
have nots, the scarce resources seem to be exclusive only to those who belong to
the haves. One might not look at it but dependency theory, which encapsulated the
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struggle for increase ownership and control of resources among different relations,
remains to influence the state of Philippine underdevelopment.
Andre Gunder Frank, one of the earliest dependency theorists has argued
that historical research shows that contemporary underdevelopment is the
historical product of past and continuing economic and other relations between the
satellite underdeveloped and the now developed metropolitan countries (Frank,
1972, p. 3). This is true for the Philippines. With our historical colonial past,
Filipinos were dependent of the colonizers for survivals sake (they were forced to
play the rules of the game, without prior knowledge). With Filipinos dependency to
foreign invaders and with our rich natural resources, we have become a dependent
state that supplies cheap materials, agricultural commodities, and cheap labor to the
developed states. Our country, in the words of Ferraro on 1996, served as the
repositories of surplus capital, obsolescent technologies, and manufactured goods.
As a gain out from the bargain, money, goods, and services do flow into the
dependent states such as the Philippines, but the allocation of these resources are
determined by the economic interests of the dominant and the developed states.
Hence, we continue to face the problem of underdevelopment.
In the field of politics, the unequal distribution of wealth and economic
power resulted to political institutions that pursue personalistic rather than
programmatic policiesadministered by political leaders that rely on pork and
spoils from the central government. Implementing as well supporting institutions
face the problem of accountability, transparency, and responsiveness among
different government personnel. Based on the recent Transparency Internationals
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