The Architecture of Disorder
How the Philippines Confuses Signals for Systems—and Pays the Price
By Karl Garcia
The Philippines does not lack laws, plans, or coercive institutions. What it lacks is coherence. Across decades, administrations, and crises, the same pattern repeats: the state prioritizes signals of control over systems of authority, the appearance of order over the maintenance of legitimacy, and the spectacle of action over the discipline of capacity.
The result is not chaos, but something more dangerous: a stable form of disorder—one that reproduces violence, impunity, and vulnerability while preserving the illusion of governance.
This condition appears everywhere: in cities and coastlines, in anti-drug campaigns and counterinsurgency, in private armies and criminal syndicates, in religious cults and foreign gray‑zone coercion. These are not separate failures. They are symptoms of a single design flaw: a state that never fully integrated governance, security, and capacity across an archipelagic reality.
Signals Matter—But Systems Decide
States are always communicating. They communicate through what they maintain and what they neglect; who they protect and who they punish; which spaces are cared for and which are abandoned. These signals shape trust, cooperation, and resistance long before force is applied.
This insight sits at the core of Broken Windows Theory, which has been widely misunderstood in the Philippines. Properly understood, the theory makes a restrained claim: visible neglect signals abandonment, eroding norms and inviting disorder. The remedy is not indiscriminate punishment, but care—maintenance, presence, responsiveness, and legitimacy.
What the Philippine state repeatedly does instead is invert the logic. It substitutes punishment for maintenance, fear for trust, speed for discipline. Broken windows are left unrepaired; people are shattered instead to prove authority exists.
Curated Order and Selective Belonging
Urban governance offers a clear microcosm. Spaces like Bonifacio Global City appear orderly, safe, and disciplined. But this order is not the product of universal rule enforcement. It is the result of curation: disorder is filtered out, displaced, or rendered invisible.
The signal is not “this space is governed fairly,” but “this space is exclusive.”
This is order without legitimacy. It trains citizens to understand that rules apply differently depending on class, location, and visibility. Trust becomes conditional. The city looks controlled, but authority remains brittle.
The same logic scales upward.
The Anti‑Drug Campaign: Order as Performance
The early Duterte anti‑drug campaign revealed the full danger of governance by signal.
The state projected zero tolerance, speed, and decisiveness. But enforcement was sharply downward and selective. Urban poor communities were saturated with violence; due process was dismissed as an inconvenience. Meanwhile, higher‑level logistics—ports, financiers, political protectors—remained largely intact.
The human cost was immediate and catastrophic. Thousands were killed. Families were destroyed. Communities absorbed a devastating lesson: the law is fast, lethal, and uneven. Intelligence dried up. Cooperation collapsed. Fear replaced legitimacy.
This was Broken Windows logic weaponized into theater. Instead of repairing neglected institutions, the state used bodies to signal presence. The result was not order, but normalized trauma and strategic hollowness.
Outsourced Violence and the Myth of Illegality
Private armies, criminal syndicates, narcopolitics, and illegal gambling persist not because they are legal, but because violence in the Philippines has always been negotiable.
From colonial rule onward, coercion was delegated to local intermediaries. Independence preserved the structure. Democracy intensified it. Elections became contests over control of space rather than persuasion. Roads, barangay halls, ports, and counting centers became strategic assets.
Private armies are not anomalies. They are governance tools tolerated by a system that prefers delegated violence to institutional accountability. Police, bodyguards, militias, and gun‑for‑hire networks blur together because enforcement is selective by design.
Narcopolitics and illegal gambling function the same way. Raids occur. Arrests are made. But logistics, protection, and financing remain intact because enforcement is discretionary. Violence becomes currency. Impunity becomes stability.
This is not a weak state. It is a fragmented state that has learned to manage disorder.
Rebels, Bandits, and Cults: Authority Where Governance Thins
Insurgencies, piracy, and religious cults thrive where governance thins—not because ideology is persuasive, but because institutions are absent or illegitimate.
Rebels tax economic corridors. Bandits exploit maritime gaps. Cults provide identity, discipline, welfare, and moral clarity in abandoned spaces. They repair the broken windows of meaning the state ignored.
External actors understand this perfectly. Gray‑zone coercion rarely arrives in uniform; it embeds through crime, capital, belief, and corruption. Internal disorder thus becomes external vulnerability.
Archipelagic Reality and Strategic Credibility
In an archipelago, security is not about borders. It is about control of movement—of people, goods, money, data, narratives, and force.
When ports are porous, enforcement selective, and violence outsourced, deterrence collapses. Prestige solutions repeatedly fail. Platforms without maintenance, campaigns without institutions, and laws without equal application produce managed fragility rather than strength.
Capacity Before Prestige: The Comparative Lesson
This is where the comparative lesson from Indonesia matters—not as a model to copy, but as a mirror.
Indonesia understands something the Philippines consistently ignores: ambition must pause where capacity ends. Industrialization precedes prestige. Signaling does not require immediate acquisition. Capabilities can be discussed without being purchased. Defense procurement doubles as industrial policy, not political theater.
Indonesia builds shipyards, maintenance capacity, training pipelines, and logistics depth. It accepts limits. It does not pretend to master everything at once.
The Philippines, by contrast, repeatedly skips rungs—jumping from neglect to spectacle, from dependence to symbolic ambition. Technology and reform are treated as performances rather than systems that must be integrated, maintained, and governed.
The Integrated Lesson
Across urban governance, anti‑drug policy, internal security, external defense, and industrial development, the lesson is consistent:
Broken Windows was never about punishment. It was about care.
The Philippine state has repeatedly chosen force over maintenance, speed over legitimacy, and noise over discipline.
Conclusion: Repair Before Command
Societies do not unravel because citizens misbehave. They unravel when institutions signal that rules apply unevenly, that some lives are expendable, and that order is cosmetic.
The Philippines’ condition—private armies, narcopolitics, cultic violence, insurgency, and strategic vulnerability—is not inevitable. It is designed. And what is designed can be redesigned.
Repair institutions before deploying force. Build capacity before chasing prestige. Integrate security into civilian life rather than floating it above society. Discipline ambition. Maintain what you govern.
In an archipelago, security is not imposed. It is maintained.
Until the state learns this, it will continue to mistake visibility for control—and pay for it in blood, distrust, and vulnerability.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
You have touched a lot of topics in one article, kudos:
1) The division of space that is as old as the reduccion, when Spanish colonialism put those who accepted Christianity “under the bells” while those who rejected Spanish rule went up the boondocks. Ermita, the sosyal place of the 1960s, was the “Indio” place in the 1880s, when “natives” had to leave Intramuros by the evening IIRC. That was BTW how a lot of European walled cities were organized in the Middle Ages and often until the 19th century even without walls. Those not full “burghers” (part of the burg or castle) aka citizens (also related to citadel IIRC at least in Italian cittadino, Joey may correct if this is inaccurate) were outside the protection of the walls. Re BGC, see the sharp contrast towards the Embos, formerly enlisted men’s barrios, housing complexes for the men who worked in Fort McKinley, later Fort Bonifacio.
2) something like tokhang existed in many municipalities even before Duterte. Mayor Lim of Manila allegedly also had drug pushers extrajudicially killed. There also was something similar in early modern Germany – the Feme. Those convicted in absentia by Feme or Vehmic courts, anyone could kill. A sign on the dead body back then was written in old German writing, not with the text “pusher ako”, of course. A dagger was left beside the sign. Hangings and executions for instance in Munich took place on hills outside the town (where the wind blew the smell away from town) where one could see from town how poor wretches were killed. 19th century colonial Philippines had executions as popular public spectacles.
3) The German Empire of 1871-1918 still tried to control space the old way. The system still used in China nowadays not allowing people to just move into the city was originally German, imitated by the Soviets and then by China. Freedom of movement in the Weimar Republic without similar standards of living led to many social issues that had not existed in the Empire, including the kind of urban chaos embodied in novels like Berlin Alexanderplatz or the popular Netflix series Babylon Berlin. The lesson embodied in the 1949 Constitution was a line that the Federal Budget should help ensure “equivalent living conditions” across the Federal Republic. Because there is a kind of social “thermodynamics” if the differences are too great.
Angat Buhay is a great idea in that context, because if there is a way for people to prosper in their home towns, there will be less migration into already full big cities, often into urban poverty that leads to increased de facto walling off of the poor in the many ways the above excellent article described.
Aside from the Spanish in Intramuros and in some walled cities like Cebu and Zamboanga, most Filipinos around 1910 lived either in bahay kubos or ancestral homes – but without walls separating them. The poor were NOT as poor as the DE today, there still was space for them to have pigs and plant crops even in town. In fact even UP Balara was still like that until the late 1960s and early 1970s, IKR (I know right) as we often heard the squeal of pigs being slaughtered when they had a fiesta, and saw chickens there – nowadays many urban poor eat pagpag. So what is described in the article has MANY facets indeed.
Many thanks.
welcome. I hope Joey is able to comment on how extreme inequality in 1930s USA led to “Grapes of Wrath” (John Steinbeck) situations where poor people hitched rides on freight trains seeking greener pastures. Of course the USA is different from Europe (our dislike for gated communities is huge as they probably remind us of just generations ago when only those with money – and high status – were full citizens of cities and could live inside) plus the USA has more wide open spaces than Europe (or the Philippines) has, but comparisons are of course useful if one knows and weighs in different contexts.
I would add that the other SEA examples which chose to develop more evenly (I recall a DFA employee, I think a young attache, an actual FSO meaning someone who had passed the foreign service exams, mildly mocking Vietnam in the 1990s, saying they had SOOO many bicycles in the streets, proud of the many new cars in Metro Manila streets and how many people had cellphones in the short boom of the mid-90s there) are important to look at deeper. Indonesia especially because their settlement structure with kampongs on the outskirts of big cities like Jakarta (former colonial Batavia, also one a Dutch fort) is very much like the Philippines. In general I think those who developed more slowly but made sure most people aren’t left behind like the 93% DE in PH have a more stable base to keep advancing.
One of the strengths of the US is its large size and subsequent regional diversity, even before substantial non-“Anglo” immigration occurred. Each state and region has enough autonomy to experiment on what works for their citizens. Technically a US state and tribal nation is sovereign within its own territory, except in matters of national concern per the US Constitution.
The 1930s was the depths of the Great Depression in the US where Midwestern agriculture collapsed creating the Dust Bowl of literal huge dust storms across the Midwest prairies that blocked the sun during daytime. The Great Depression was precipitated by Wall Street pushing junk bonds and junk stocks, the greater ease of retail investment to small investors who didn’t understand what they were buying, and many people losing their entire investments in the 1929 crash.
At the time the still-poor California was one of the states that suddenly had an economy relatively better than most other states due to ports that engaged in substantial trade with Asia, Mexico and Central America, so there was massive internal migration towards California and the Western States in general. That’s also how General American English (Californian, or Standard American English) developed from its ancestor the “old” Western American English (“Western” in relation to the New England and Southern States, but Midwestern today). There has always been a frontier mentality in the US as well. If things don’t work out where one is, one can always pick up themselves and migrate somewhere else to find opportunity.
Going back to that strength of American diversity that developed from self-reliance that was needed during times of regional isolation before the Transcontinental Railroad. This is just something Manila-centric Philippines does not have despite being a country of over 100 native languages. There may be a number of factors here, and the situation probably wouldn’t have been that different if the Spanish had chosen Cebu as the colonial capital. Non-Cebuanos would just be complaining about “Imperial Cebu” then in that alternative timeline, hah! LGUs being able to get “enough” tax revenue shares from Manila is a great disincentive to becoming more self-reliant. And innovation depends on self-reliance to overcome what is lacking. Unfortunately for the Philippines, and something the elites who govern and guide the Philippines do not seem to understand, there are many Filipinos who while they would like to have more things, are perfectly happy with the things they have.
Karl’s essay explains the problem well and quite broadly.
If I were to share my comments, I would look for areas where Filipinos are bucking the trend, so to speak, lighting a match in the darkness. Irineo made brief mention of Angat Buhay. I would take such a mention further, perhaps examine how it does buck the trend, or perhaps where it falls short and what if anything can be done to improve.
I’ve also heard of Montero Medical Missions. I am sure that there are many more.
Some members in TSOH may want to take the discussion in that direction.
Karl mentions three things, broadly, that the masa lack versus the elites: prosperity, governance and justice.
– Atty. Leni already helped bring justice to for instance the Sumilao farmers via a pro bono legal help organization.
– Angat Buhay is about bringing a chance at modest prosperity to the masses
– I don’t know if there are those helping the masses deal with what for them is probably a bureacratic monstrosity of forms and requirements
It of course will take decades to fix conditions that are a result of centuries, but one has to start somewhere.
Joey who probably knows the masses best among us might be able to pitch in with ideas or examples.
P.S. Joey has mentioned factories and jobs and I agree. My exposure to some of Munich’s working class in an area that was just starting to gentrify two decades ago showed me some who might have been totally chaotic characters without a job given structure by having a Monday to Friday, nine to five. Too many Filipinos are as kasambahay already mentioned in the informal labor sector, without SSS numbers, an added aspect to what Karl describes and Joey called “two countries”.
The only way to have progression in the Philippines is to find a way to provide better livelihood to the masa so they can over time develop into a middle class that exerts political pressure on leaders.
The “two countries” way AB class thinks, and even some upper-C (who are not that far generationally removed from D) think, seems not that correct. Trying to replicate results one envies from countries one perceives as more prestigious without base understanding is just a form of putting the cart before the horse. The same goes for trying to replicate an idealistic image of “honest” institutions. No, accountability comes from citizens wanting to protect *what is theirs;* their gains. And when the citizens don’t really have much to begin with they won’t demand accountability because what is the point?
In order to provide better livelihoods for Filipinos the most straightforward way would be to industrialize by any way possible. The easiest way is to reform and adapt laws to allow foreign investment. The fact that the Philippines cannot attract much tangible (i.e. “making things”) foreign investment aside from industries that can be uprooted and demolished in an instant if the industry changes (like BPO) is a big problem.
As I mentioned before Prof. Stefan Dercon has written much about this topic and should be required reading by would-be Filipino leaders. It would require a subset of the elite to effectively take a risk on being class-traitors, converting their desire to gain glory through stealing things and building façades of modern civilization (as a mirror to praise themselves), instead obtaining glory through national acclamation of being the ones who raised up the Philippine condition. And yes, it will take decades. Filipino leaders need to think in the context of “being able to possibly do thing X in Y decades is a great bargain compared to early industrializing nations taking a century or more.” Otherwise in 2100 the Philippines would be having the same conversation. At least starting the process would get one closer to the goal rather than constantly having a debate about what the goal is.
The perception that some in the Philippines want to “keep many people poor” is a combination of historical, political, and structural factors. It isn’t necessarily that there’s a formal plan to keep people poor, but certain systemic incentives and practices reinforce poverty. Here’s a breakdown:
1️⃣ Political Incentives
Vote banking and patronage politics: Historically, having large numbers of poor or informal settlers in an area allowed politicians to rely on “vote buying” or clientelistic relationships. Poor communities often depend on politicians for basic goods, services, or relief, so maintaining them in a state of dependency ensures electoral support.
Informal settlers as a political tool: Before, relocating or tolerating informal settlers sometimes served political ends—dense low-income neighborhoods were easier to reach with patronage programs or “barangay-level” political mobilization. Controlling or distributing aid selectively could strengthen political loyalty.
2️⃣ Structural Inequality
Land and property concentration: Large swaths of land are held by elites or corporations, limiting access to productive assets for the poor. Without land or secure tenure, people remain trapped in subsistence-level jobs.
Weak labor protections and low-wage sectors: Informal employment is widespread. Many people cannot escape poverty because there are few opportunities for stable, well-paying work.
Limited social mobility: Education and healthcare gaps, plus corruption in public services, mean even hardworking individuals often face systemic barriers to improving their circumstances.
3️⃣ Economic Policies
Focus on short-term economic gains: Certain policies favor capital-intensive industries or elite-owned businesses rather than inclusive, labor-absorbing growth. This allows elites to accumulate wealth while many workers remain in low-income conditions.
Selective redistribution: Programs like conditional cash transfers (4Ps) exist, but they often do not fully address structural poverty, and sometimes they are politically targeted.
4️⃣ Cultural and Historical Factors
Colonial legacy: Centuries of hierarchical governance (Spanish, then American) left a pattern of elite dominance and a focus on controlling the populace rather than empowering them.
Urbanization without planning: Slums and informal settlements grow because of urban migration, but often without sufficient social services, creating cycles of poverty that are easy to exploit politically.
Yes, I don’t agree with the far-leftists that the oligarchs purposely want to keep the people poor, or even that most dynasts want to keep the people poor. After all oligarchs want more people to buy more things and services while dynasts might want to bring prestige to their community (i.e. themselves as the leader). The hard question then is if they are willing to give up their current power and gamble on transforming power into another form that benefits more people, and of course bring them accolades and new riches too. The default behavior is often “easier to do things the way we’re used to doing it” which doesn’t need to have nefarious motives behind the inaction.
But vote buying is very much alive.
Some observations about vote buying I developed over many years might be different from how most Filipinos who might view vote buying as a purely corrupt and anti-democratic act.
1.) Despite having “national parties,” the Philippines has very weak political parties
2.) Weak political parties have weak party apparatus to engage with voters outside of the immediate lead up to the election
3.) Without a strong party apparatus politicians rely on local brokers to act as middlemen to connect to voters
4.) I have seen the same broker “switch parties” before, then back, so it seems to me that candidates buy the services of brokers
5.) Brokers identify trusted individuals within a community or neighborhood to “spread the news” across the trust network
6.) The trust network acts as enforcement for vote buying, putting up posters/banners, and passing out handouts
7.) The vote seller is disincentivized to report as they value the vote bribe and don’t want to be placed on blacklists for future vote bribes
That’s in a nutshell why “everyone knows it” but no one gets caught unless a network runs afoul of the coalition in power.
I know of many instances of government campaigns to “teach” voters on why vote selling is “bad.” But voters who sell their votes are unable to connect WHY vote selling is bad to why the vote buying politician is bad. A function of voters who don’t have their material needs met and little to protect.
Keen senses per usual
Terrific parsing of vote buying. The morality structure is wholly outside our capacity to relate.
It reminds me of the cockfighting scene from the Noli that CV shared (and what I have been told about how cockfighting works in the Philippines, traditionally) or of hueteng among part of the Filipino community in Bonn, Germany for some weeks back in the late 1980s – just some weeks because 2 of the wannabe hueteng bosings worked for the American community there – one in the sandwich store – and got wind that their game was “under observation by the MPs” so they stopped. Sabong also has its pointmen who gather the bets and keep track of them, the “Kristos”, mentally agile like stockbrokers on the trading floor, while hueteng has its cobradores. Being honorable has a different meaning in such a world, in sabong it means you pay the bet you made or get paid, everything was done just by hand signs. In vote buying you honor your promise to vote who you were paid to vote. Hueteng bosings honor their part of the deal by paying out winners.
The world of moneylending among the DE classes is also a world totally outside what even the middle class experiences, even as they might have their ATM cards pawned to loansharks. Joey mentioned collateral and I faintly remember a movie where a house containing a sari-sari store was the collateral for a 60/40 loan.
Wonderful glimpse of the local “moral” conventions.
There are instances documented by observers from the Spanish period until the American period that described it being “honorable” to one-up someone seen as richer or more powerful — the Filipino version of “sticking it to the man.”
Tupada (illegal cockfights) is still quite common in informal settlements and towns just outside of earshot of the authorities. There is a lookout to watch out for the law, but in many cases policemen are taking part in tupada as well. Tupada has its own rituals of honor that are distinct from officially sanctioned cockfights and are enforced within the circle engaging in tupada.
In Negros Oriental a few weeks ago there was a case where a PNP staff sergeant got into an altercation with his colleagues, including the PNP station chief, then executed a bargirl at a restobar. He was “apprehended” by the station chief and other 2 colleagues, but that turned out to be them trying to help him get away. After that the perpetrator murdered his three colleagues. Obviously it was a case of jealousy as all 4 policemen who were married were visiting the restobar during work hours, in uniform, and were interested in the same bargirl. Of course the bargirl was the one who was slut-shamed across socmed even though she was the provider of her children and two disabled siblings. I angrily corrected a few acquaintances who shared the story from this angle. Even for certain policemen, honor and the law works differently.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/2166376/cop-kills-three-police-officers-civilian-in-negros-oriental-town
In the DE world not all members will be loose with money and borrowing, but it happens often enough, and is almost always covered up or excused within the immediate community. All manner of rationalizations arise: sob stories, playing the victim, warfreaking when that doesn’t work, “they’re rich anyway,” and so on, up to running away to another barangay to escape accountability. I almost feel sorry for mabait Filipinos who are affected.
It’s not unusual for BPO workers who often come from the DE classes to act “one day millionaires” when they get their sweldo, only to borrow from other coworkers a few days later. There is an informal system of ATM pawning by BPO workers who provide utang services to ensure that the loan is paid back on the borrower’s next salary, otherwise the aforementioned scenarios may occur.
As BPO workers get more money, many are compelled to buy expensive stuff to hambog: mobile phones, tablets, laptops, motorcycles, even cars. To access motorcycles and cars they often need to obtain a secured loan (from a bank) due to the amount of money. Here arises all manner of shenanigans loosely called “talon-casa” (“jumping the house,” the house being the bank or securitized lender). Basically obtain a loan, make a few payments then abscond with the vehicle. There is an entire genre of TikToks and FB reels glamorizing talon-casa and offering tips on how to get away with it. My ex’s kuya kept doing this with internet service, mobile phone installments, progressing to motorcycles until he was effectively banned from most loans with debtors following him everywhere. He thought it was funny that he got away with it for as long as he did. Then he tried to scam others (even friends and family) into being co-signers or ghost signers, with which he had some success.
Of course there are also the “tirador ng AFAM” who don’t feel even a bit remorse scamming any foreign man, because of course all foreign men are rich right? Their exploits and advices are all over TikTok and FB as well, with FB groups having hundreds of thousands of members.
I’m not sure how much of this is known to more educated Filipinos who inhabit different social circles, but it’s quite common among DEs. So while vote selling might be understood loosely as “corrupt” and “bad,” and certainly has an aspect of a lack of material means (the seller really needed the money), most who sell their votes don’t feel bad at all. Well I guess they didn’t really need the money since most vote bribes get spent within a few days. In the midterms the PNP investigated cases of “ulan-ulan” after netizens posted a lot of pics of them flaunting their vote bribes, some amounting in 10-15k per head for Duterte-aligned party-lists. I myself received pics from acquaintances of their own vote bribe hauls, and their amusement they were able to get bribes from more than one party-list. IIRC in Misamis Oriental the local economy experienced a one-week boom from people splurging. The question really is who or what groups were funding such abnormally large vote bribes? I have my suspicions the funders were Chinese-aligned, China-based groups. Of course the PNP came to the conclusion that the ulan-ulan reports were “political propaganda.” Too much effort to investigate things apparently unless there is massive uproar like in the Alice Guo case.
https://www.inquirer.net/440138/northern-mindanao-cops-probe-viral-vote-buying-claims-called-ulan-ulan/
Chavit Dingson is a power broker.
Summary: Impunity, Power, and Conditional Accountability in the Philippines The profiles illustrate how impunity in the Philippines is sustained less by legality and more by networks of power, wealth, popularity, and political protection. Figures such as Atong Ang, Chavit Singson, and Apollo Quiboloy demonstrate how influence, political alliances, media control, and semi-legitimate enterprises can shield individuals from full legal accountability despite serious allegations. Political dynasties like the Teves family show how wealth, private armed influence, and international legal complexities can delay or obstruct justice while maintaining local power. Conversely, the collapse of protection networks—seen in the Parojinog clan and Rubén Ecleo Jr.—reveals that impunity is fragile and conditional. Once political favor, cult authority, or elite backing erodes, enforcement becomes possible. The Duterte family case underscores a central tension: domestic political strength versus international legal mechanisms, where popularity and entrenched political machinery can resist accountability, yet external institutions (e.g., ICC) may breach elite immunity under specific conditions. Core Insight: Impunity in the Philippines is not absolute; it is politically contingent. Accountability tends to occur when protection structures weaken, alignments shift, or enforcement becomes politically viable.
The last sentence is not necessary. Presumptuous.
The concept of “citizen” and “citizenship” descended from Greek democracy wherein only a small subset of the residents of a polis (city-state) had full *political* rights that were connected to *social* responsibility. A citizen was distinguished from the “demos” (commoner, or inhabitant of a polis). Those citizens who committed egregious crimes against the polis (and thus their social responsibility) were liable to being temporarily stripped of citizenship (“atimia”), exiled (ostracism), or forfeited their rights (permanent loss of citizenship).
The Romans expanded citizenship first to the other (non-Roman) Italian tribes, then to conquered non-Italians who adopted Roman culture. The Romans retained the Greek bifurcation of the rights of residents (though all were now citizens), into the patrician and plebeian classes.
When the Western Roman Empire collapsed areas outside of Rome defaulted to being under the leadership of local Roman military commanders, later the Carolingians, who formed the early Medieval nobility. The need to localize the economy in the absence of Roman trade networks caused the those outside of nobility to be reduced to serfdom, attached to the demesne (land) controlled by the local noble. Castles were a descendent of Roman forts and started off being simple earthworks and defensive ramparts, inside which the family and retinue of the local lord lived. By this time most settlements were simple undefended villages organized around the exploited resource (hunting, fishing, farming, forestry, etc.).
The more prosperous commoners who tradesmen and merchants tended to build their homes near the lord’s castle *outside of the castle walls* both to facilitate trade as the market was usually situated within the castle courtyard. Over time these “castle-towns” were differentiated from outlying villages. The lord would often grant certain privileges and rights to the castle-town dwellers, recognizing their importance in the demesne’s economy, which gave rise to the burgher class from the serfs. The castle-towns if prosperous enough would build their own walls (town walls) which served as a second ring of defenses outer to the castle (citadel) walls. Those walls might have been simple earthworks, wooden stockades, masonry or stoneworks in progression of complexity.
The burgher class further differentiated between petty burghers, burgher and grand burgher; tradesmen/merchantmen, richer tradesmen/merchantmen, and guild leaders/wealthy merchants respectively. The town council which was made up of grand burghers and burghers were the authority which conferred citizenship, which like in the Greek and Roman system expected the citizen to fulfill social responsibilities to the town in return for citizenship rights (to live and operate within the town/city walls).
All these previous forms of citizenship required *active* participation in the social responsibilities, which started being understood as *civic* responsibility. The Renaissance and French Revolution abstracted the meaning of citizenship and its connection to social responsibility and gave citizenship to all subjects.
The US Founders recognized the danger that comes with the abstraction of civic responsibility, which is why an *informed citizenry* was quite important in the American context as compared to the European (French) context. While all people residing in the American territories following the Revolutionary War were citizens, only those who were sufficiently educated and held property (and thus had an incentive to protect theirs and others rights through acts of civic responsibility) were enfranchised. Each phase of enfranchisement (all White men of “Anglo” descent, all White men, all Black men, all women, and so on) came with great emphasis on preparing the population to be receive the franchise to be able to fulfill their civic responsibilities. Starting in the Antebellum Period (pre-Civil War), progressive American cities and states built educational institutions and lyceums in order to accomplish this, the effort which was greatly accelerated post-Civil War during Reconstruction and into the Progressive Period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
So here we arrive at the Philippines, which became an American territory in 1899. Regardless of whether the American political influence was on the side of permanently integrating the Philippines into the US or preparing the Philippines for independence, there was great care in jump-starting the civic institutions alongside the education that is necessary for civic participation. Somewhere along the way (due to Filipino opposition and agitation for *faster* independence, from my reading of history), those efforts did not stick and progress regressed.
Important to note that *education* is the primary way by which to prepare citizens who lack material wealth through property to fulfill their civic responsibilities. In the US following 1968 there was a concerted effort by the American right to regress education in the states they controlled (“Red states”), and therefore create compliant citizens who are unaware of their civic responsibilities. They have been largely successful in that endeavor, if not for those born before the 1970s. Otherwise we have “citizens,” but we do not have the collective civic responsibility needed to maintain the social contract.
Some form of hukou system existed in what is now China since early history (as the baojia registration) and was used as a form of census and to organize government.
Chinese Republicans (who have intimate connections to the Chinese Communists through common founders) additionally used the hukou system as a means of surveilling, regulating and controlling potential agitators, though did not use the hukou to restrict movement. This was done by checking a Chinese person’s hukou at various checkpoints in and out of cities.
After the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War, the Chinese Communists in the 1950s additionally adopted some elements of the Soviet propiska system in order to regulate internal migration in order to facilitate a socialist planned economy. Over time the hukou was a way to distribute rations, healthcare, and effectively became hereditary.
The Soviet propiska originated in the late Russian Empire as a police registration to restrict internal migration when it became increasingly hard to keep serfs as effective slaves tied to the land.
I’m not aware of a German connection, but Catherine the Great of Russia (a Prussian) did encourage German migration to Russia, and some Russian concepts may have flowed back into the later German Empire. The Carlsbad Decrees (anti-liberal, anti-nationalist) which *did* restrict internal movement within the German Confederation may have some connection to Catherine the Great? I do recall however that internal movement in the German Empire was required to be reported to the registration authorities (Meldebescheinigung) but as far as I’m aware this was more of an administrative and surveillance measure.
hmm, many thanks. Meldebescheinigung still exists for foreigners, while Germans just get a new address sticker on their credit card format national ID. Every resident of Germany has to have ONE official address known to the state. Students often officially stay at their parents while studying in other towns, even sticking to their old address when they start working. People get their voting invitations based on that system as well.
Just read up on how things were in the German Empire and it turns out in principle everyone could move around (so NOT as strict as the Soviet Union or China) but one needed a job to be able to get residence in a place one didn’t come from, and if one was poor they could send you back to your home town. Police laws also regulated who was considered “undesirable” and could be sent away. As for Weimar, the freedom of movement made it easy for jobless veterans to fill big cities like Berlin, for extremist militias both Left and Right to move around and cause trouble. So there is the big picture of unrest and instability that lead to many people wanting the wrong kind of stability by the 1930s. The Federal Republic finally achieved its stability through strong institutions.
Serfdom in the Russian Empire was particularly harsh compared to Western European serfdom. Western European serfs had some degree of freedom of movement if they gave their lord a good reason and were able to access upwards social mobility by learning new skills that were valuable (like becoming a blacksmith or cooper). In Western Europe there was an expectation that the lord will care for and protect his serfs and thus serfs there had certain privileges (not rights). Russian serfs had none of those protections, privileges and possibilities and were treated little more than expendable slaves. Something seen in the Russian “meat assaults” in Ukraine.
It’s also important to point out that the privileges of serfs increased substantially during periods of population decline (e.g. the Black Death or other major plagues). A smaller labor pool is correlated with increased privileges and rights as now the labor source can begin to make demands. Well the Philippines has a massive available, underutilized labor pool that is unseen by most ABCs but exists right outside of view. So we may draw our own conclusions.
a relic of those privileges in some suburbs of Munich (those close to the woods) and outskirts towns is what is now the right of residents to gather fallen wood (NOT cut wood in any form though) and take it home to use for their fireplace – if they still have one, which is getting rarer especially in the city.
somewhat related: (58 minute read, I will check this out after WFH which starts in 30 minutes) https://www.academia.edu/34120748/IMELDA_MAYNILA_ISANG_PANIMULANG_PAGTINGIN_SA_PAG_IIBA_NG_LANDSCAPE_AT_KAPANGYARIHAN_AYON_KAY_UNANG_GINANG_IMELDA_ROMUALDEZ_MARCOS
quite OT, but the discussion with Joey and Joe got too long about Filipino “pride” that Joey called pridefullness, way more accurately, and in that context I remember this:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13392/pg13392-images.html
– from Mary Fee, “Woman’s Impression of the Philippines”, 1912
That former Thomasite wrote a lot of stuff similar to what Joey has observed these days. The last para is NOT quite OT as wanting the best of everything in the Philippines led to the elites racing ahead in getting the best of everything for themselves.. P.S. the main difference between Joey’s and Mary Fee’s opinion of the Philippines is that she sees the archipelago as “not a very promising baby from the beginning”
Mary Fee held a belief that was common in those times (i.e. the “White race” is superior), but Mary Fee and her fellow Thomasites *did* hold very progressive views for their era (i.e. Filipinos might not become equals to White Americans, but Filipinos can get *close* with help from others).
Sadly 2026 is 114 years after Mary Fee wrote that in her travel narrative “Woman’s Impression of the Philippines.” Not much has changed aside from a few shiny neighborhoods being built in large cities.
My optimistic view is that OFWs and BPOs were able to (independent of a national policy) raise their family’s economic outcomes somewhat where they can send a sibling or cousin or two to college in order to get an even better job abroad (nursing, primarily, but also engineering, business, teacher). Over time that is organic development, if just slowly.
Well, one can do things the established, known, and easy(er) way, or one can deal with doing things the hard way and suffer rediscovering stuff others have already discovered and documented decades, centuries ago. This mentality affects mostly the elites, who have *pretense to uphold.* I think the masa, who are burdened by none of those pretenses, are open to learning new, beneficial things if they have patient and understanding teachers.
I gave in to temptation and asked ChatGPT for possible solutions to the issues mentioned in this article and got this:
Ok, that is probably sufficient food for thought..
TY
Good starting points from chatGPT, Irineo. Thanks. Very related to Karl’s essay. Each of the six solutions offered is a whole topic in and of itself.
The Philippines lacks strong political parties and party organizations. Effectively the major (both old and new) parties act more like a banner or “brand” a politician can stand under, rather than something organized at a provincial or national level. Famously Marcos Sr. switched from Liberal to Nacionalista when he came into conflict with Macapagal.
As party apparatus is lacking in the absence of party organization one effect is that campaigns lack resources, only making a big push a few months before the polls. Leni Robredo made a final (and really only) voter turnout push shortly before the 2022 election.
The inability (or rather, disinterest) to gather supporters then fundraise from those supporters leads parties to seek support from big time donors, who undoubtedly do not give their money away for free. Yes, there is a legal limit on how much a politician may spend on a voter, but does any politician adhere to that law?
Here’s a 10-year old article in the Philippine Star from the 2016 election that illustrates this problem:
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2016/12/06/1650865/only-830-filipinos-bankrolled-campaigns-5-presidential-bets/
Before one moans that Filipinos are not capable of building organizations, I think that is bunk as religious organizations and scams have no problem organization building. Apollo Quiboloy’s KOJC cult and Joel A. Apolinario’s KAPA Ponzi scam come to mind. There are plenty of Filipino evangelical pastors who are able to collect enough supporters to buy themselves luxury houses, cars, perhaps even helicopters and private jets. Mike Velarde is an example of this organization building. Clearly even poor Filipinos are willing to part with their pesos to support a cause they believe in, even if that cause is a cult or scam.
So why can’t political parties, namely liberal-minded parties, replicate the same organization building? I think there are a number of reasons for this:
1.) Parties and coalitions seem more to be political alliances between dynasties and dynasty interests
2.) Political alliances may shift, sometimes wildly, depending on the interests of participating dynasties
3.) As a result parties akin to convenient names or a “flag” that the politician runs under rather than based on a set of ideological principles
I personally think that the obstacles are not so insurmountable. Since parties and political organization is so weak to begin with, and funded by so few Filipino families, a party that is able to organizationally build *just a little bit better* would probably win. Leni Robredo seems to be laying the groundwork for this type of organization building now, which requires patience and methodical application which is great, but Leni is just one person. It would be nice if other liberal-minded organizations sprout.