SMALL TOWN

DYNASTIES IN CEBU
JOHN T. SIDEL
The municipal elections in Cebu during:

 Pre-WWII
 Hakot (ferrying voters in hired trucks or rigs to public rallies and polling centers)
 Pakaon (feeding the voters)
 Panghulga (intimidation)
 Occasional violent incidents
 Postwar era
 Vote-buying
 Massive fraud and irregularities
 Election anomalies
 violence
Cebu town mayors used municipal
police forces by:
 Regulating and monopolizing illegal activities
 Engaging in selective and extortion enforcement of laws
The mayoral involvement in illegal
activities.
 Jueteng and organized syndicates to smuggle contrabands
 Illegal fishing through imposition of protection payments on local
fishermen
The regulatory/discretionary powers
were used by Cebu town mayors to:

 They used it over key contracts, concessions, and monopoly

franchises
 Manipulate the dispensing of government funds by influencing
location of construction projects
 Fixing employment of workers
 Awarding of contracts
 Skimming of public funds through overpricing, ghost projects, etc.
 Control mining and quarry concessions
 Monopolized awarding of ice plants, gasoline stations, and cockpits
franchises
The main economic sources of power of the
small-town mayors in Cebu

 Vast Land ownership

 Local commercial elite
The roots of Cebu’s political
economy.
 The political economy of Cebu is deeply rooted in the landed
dynasties in its small towns who engaged in commercialization of
agriculture such as sugar cultivation, erected crude milling devices,
and exporting crops
Explain how Chinese mestizo merchants based
in Cebu City became the primary
beneficiaries of Cebu’s emergence in the
1840s and 1850s as a regional emporium.
 Enjoyed less onerous tax burdens, freedom of mobility, and rights to
own property and participate in town government
 Dominant in interisland retail and wholesale trade
 Primary lenders to farmers in need of cash to expand their sugar
cultivation
 Amassed large estates or hanciendas throughout the province in
the two decades following the opening of the city’s port through
purchases and pacto de retroventa (mortgage agreements)
 They crystallized into a Cebuano oligarchy and dominated in small
town politics in Cebu
Explain why state and congressional
patronage were considered key players
in municipal elections.
 Administration’s political party ( Roxas & Quirino) members, especially
mayors, were supported and appointed by the high ranking officials
(president/governor) in many municipal election contests.
 Correlation between the party of the incumbent administration in
Manila and the affilation of the mayors elected in the small towns of
Cebu
 Congressman Ramon Durano Sr (1949-72) assited the installation and
reelection of Pedro Monsanto (Catmon, 1959-86) and Tiburcio Donaire
(Poro, 1967-80) for example
 Congressman Celestino Martinez Jr swept in proteges in all nine
municipalities in the 4th district in 1992
 Congressman Crisologo Abines carried eleven associates to mayoral
victories with siblings and business crony.
 Small town dynasties in Cebu had successfully used their proprietary
wealth, the discretionary powers of the mayor’s office, and state
patronage to control key sectors and nodal chokepoints of local
economy.
 fin