ABSTRACT
The Philippine economy has grown at record pace recently, bringing into sharp focus those helping drive and benefitting from the country’s good fortune: domestic economic elites. While building on the state-society and varieties of capitalism literature, this chapter advances a distinct approach to the study of political economy that focuses on sectoral development in order to discern the changing bases of capital accumulation in the country. At the core of this analysis is the critical role that the dramatic increase in overseas workers’ remittances since the 2000s has played in fueling domestic consumption that, in turn, facilitated the country’s transition to a full-blown service economy. The study combines analyses of government policies and business groups’ changing interests, nature, and organizations. Specifically, it examines the investment decisions of the top ten Philippine business conglomerates and finds that whatever their starting point, their interests have converged in the service sector (notably, banks, real estate, and retail) and in high-yielding, non-manufacturing industrial activities (e.g. infrastructure and energy development). Moreover, as key tycoons more fully immersed themselves in such activities, they have also developed business institutions that deepen their commercial interests, thereby impacting the larger institutional context of capitalism in the country.
