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For more than a century the sugar industry was a dominant force in the economic and political life of the Philippines. Perennially among the top three exports of the country, sugar wielded clout far beyond what one would have predicted based upon the number of people the industry employed. The so-called “Sugar Barons”— wealthy hacendero planters located mainly in Central Luzon and on the Visayan island of Negros—were reputed to be a well-organized bloc of power brokers who controlled vast networks of clients and who used their economic might to achieve political ends. Their patterns of conspicuous consumption and attention to the social graces dominated society pages of national newspapers and set the pace for the Filipino cultural elite. That sugar was almost entirely produced for overseas markets and financed with foreign capital required planters to associate with foreign traders, financiers, and officials. Consequently, planters considered themselves to be the most cosmopolitan of Filipinos who were, by virtue of their sophistication and Western-style education, the natural leaders of their more benighted countrymen. Although the hacienda system was described by some as being “feudal” or “quasi-feudal,” industry leaders proudly proclaimed their modernity by pointing to their up-to-date agricultural methods, the technologically sophisticated “centrals” (i.e., mills), and the entrepreneurial genius of the industry’s founders and leaders. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, things began to unravel. Expiration of the post-War U.S. quota and a precipitous and unanticipated decline in world-market sugar prices left producers holding thousands of tons of sugar that they could not sell. By the mid-1980s Negros was being referred to in the international media as a “social volcano” and “Asia’s Ethiopia.” As the profitability of sugar planting declined, hundreds of thousands of workers were idled, half the sugar land went unplanted, and sugar-producing areas became hotbeds of malnutrition, displacement, and political violence. In the wake of roller coaster price fluctuations on the world sugar market, the Marcos administration stepped in to “rationalize” the trading Introduction 1 1 and marketing of Philippine sugar. The unsurprising result was that the industry became yet another cash cow for the president and his cronies, and in the process a major independent power base was emasculated (a gendered trope that planters themselves use) at the hands of superior power and cunning. Sugar could not regain its former position after the 1986 edsa Revolution that overthrew the Marcos kleptocracy, even though former President and People’s Power heroine Corazon Aquino is a member of one of the nation’s wealthiest sugar-planting families. In the 1990s, however, the industry did make something of a comeback. Much of the idled land was brought back under production , there were infrastructural improvements, Philippine sugar consumption (mainly in the form of soft drinks) grew rapidly, and sugar’s price on the domestic market was consistently above the cost of production. Most important, the hunger and violence in sugarproducing regions largely abated. Bacolod, the main city of Negros Occidental province which produces more than 50 percent of the nation’s sugar, experienced a considerable economic boom. And yet, sugar is widely perceived in the Philippines as a “sunset industry.” The great majority of planters today have fairly small land holdings and no longer lead lives of glittering luxury. Annual sugar production is considerably lower than it was in the 1930s, and almost every mill operates well under capacity. Only a small proportion of sugar is exported to foreign markets at high prices by quota or preferential agreement; most goes to satisfy domestic demand at more competitive prices. In some recent years a substantial proportion has been “dumped” on the surplus world market at prices well under production cost, while in others production has failed to cover domestic demand, and the Philippines has had to import sugar. Most of the mills are antiquated and inefficient, and overall farm productivity now lags far behind the first rank of cane sugar-producing countries. The relative power and influence of the various sectors within the industry has also shifted. The trading sector has proliferated to the extent that the greatest profits are being made in the industry’s least materially productive activity. No longer can sugar planters deliver large blocks of votes; many can no longer command even the votes of their own workers. In political squabbles on the national and even local scenes the sugar industry now has difficulty uniting 2 Chapter 1 [18.221.129.19] Project...

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