Neoliberalizing Spaces in the Philippines: Suburbanization, Transnational Migration, and Dispossession

by Arnisson Andre Ortega

Amidst the recent global financial crisis and housing busts in various countries, the Philippines' booming housing industry has been heralded as "Southeast Asia's hottest real estate hub" and the saving grace of a supposedly resilient Philippine economy. This growth has been fueled by demand from balikbayan (returnee) Overseas Filipinos and has facilitated the rise of gated suburban communities in Manila's sprawling peri-urban fringe. But as the "Filipino dreams" of successful balikbayans are built inside these new gated residential developments, the lives of marginalized populations living in these spaces have been upended and thrown into turmoil as they face threats of expulsion.

Based on almost four years of research, this book examines the tumultuous geographies of neoliberalization that link suburbanization, transnational mobilities, and accumulation by dispossession. Through an accounting of real estate and new suburban landscapes, it tells of a Filipino transnationalism that engenders a market-based and privatized suburban political economy that reworks socio-spatial relations and class dynamics. In presenting the literal and discursive transformations of spaces in Manila's peri-urban fringe, the book details life inside new gated suburban communities and discusses the everyday geographies of "privileged" new property owners--mainly comprised of balikbayan families--and exposes the contradictions of gated suburban life, from resistance to Home Owner Association rules to alienating feelings of loss. It also reveals the darker side of the property boom by mapping the volatile spaces of the Philippines' surplus populations comprised of the landless farmers, informal settler residents, and indigenous peoples. To make way for gated communities and other profitable developments in the peri-urban region, marginalized residents are systematically dispossessed and displaced while concomitantly offered relocation to isolated socialized housing projects, the last frontier for real estate accumulation.
These compelling accounts illustrate how the territorial embeddedness of neoliberalization in the Philippines entails the consolidation of capital by political-economic elites and privatization of residential space for an idealized transnational property clientele. More than ever, as the Philippines is being reshaped by diaspora and accumulation by dispossession, the contemporary moment is a critical time to reflect on what it truly means to be a nation.--Elvin Wyly, University of British Columbia "Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography"

370 pages, ebook

Published September 9, 2016

Reviews

[hapit na madugta · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important, relevant book that details one of the current neoliberal articulations prevailing in the Philippines: the real estate industry. In the first quarter of the text, Ortega presents to us the theoretical underpinnings of Western neoliberalism and its mutations in our country. Then he takes us back in time, from pre-colonial era to Spanish and American colonization, in order to critique how land was transacted then, and from there he transitions to the second half of 20th century Philippines to account for the real estate industry that began in the Marcos regime and spiraled out of control in Aquino's democracy and her successors. Finally, Ortega spends the rest of the time tracing the mobilities of the real estate industry in more recent times: the dispossession and displacement of farmers and indigenous people in the Southern Tagalog provinces and the demolition, eviction, and therefore relocation of the urban poor in Manila. However, what makes this book important is the accounting for the socio-political and economic agencies that permeate this phenomenon. Ortega painstakingly delineates the public-private relationship between the state, LGUs, and business corporations that enables this narrative. There are so many bold statements made here. Names of powerful elites are mentioned. It was such an eye-opening experience. This is a must-read to understand the history and politics of our country. I am very grateful this book exists.

[jc · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the most lucid, intellectual, and compelling book on the plague of real estate and the accumulation by dispossesion that currently runs rampantly over the country. it ends—beautifully—on an account of macli-ing dulag, the head of an indigenous tribe in kalinga territory who was actively resisting against the chico river dam and was assassinated by armed forces. this book champions the lives of peasant farmers who continues to feel the wrath of cory aquino’s CARP (Law) that enforces the militarization of their lands, and even gives a sympathetic glance towards filipinos living in isolation in gated residences. so fucking good. it’s a book i want to take everywhere and tell people to pick it up (even the theoretical background is foregrounded comprehensively and beautifully in the beginning; i discovered doreen massey from ortega, a thinker i’ll begin appending onto methods of thinking abt space).