Dismantling oligarchy requires resuming peace talks

“WITHOUT declaring martial law, I dismantled the oligarchy,” President Rodrigo Duterte claimed. Without specifying, the public opines that the President must have referred to the Lopezes since the statement came days after ABS-CBN Corp. lost its franchise bid. But the Lopezes don’t comprise the entirety of oligarchy in the country. Traditional political parties usually have billionaires and multimillionaires as their patrons. The ruling party is not exempted. Hence, to what extent that the President can go farther in “dismantling the oligarchy” and who benefits from what? Does the President refer to the oligarchs whom social scientists describe as a detrimental to the “progressive Philippines”? In so doing, it needs scientific social analysis categorizing citizens vis-à-vis the country’s concrete condition. In simplistic pilosopo-canto (street-smart) viewpoint, politicians, landlords and tycoons involved in “swapping-sa-swapang,” i.e., the greedy exchanging socio-politico-economic control among themselves, are oligarchs. Dismantling them doesn’t need martial law. Crony capitalism marred the martial law of the late dictator Marcos.

It’s not martial law that can dismantle the oligarchy, but a scientific-progressive-nationalist socio-politico-economic reform. The President may have shaken up some of the oligarchs, but they’re not uprooted. Also, it’s an open secret how other oligarchs suck up fortunes from an amicable administration. The people are tired and seemingly accept how the people in power are doing “puli-puli tikas” (a Cebuano satire of Philippine politics referring to swapping the opportunity to swindle).