ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how class politics affected technocratic policy-making in the Philippines during the post-martial law period – 1986 to the present. During this period, the country’s technocrats generally followed a neo-liberal development paradigm characterized by rapid liberalization, privatization and trade. High economic growth rates have been achieved but the poverty level has remained high with income inequality widening. This has given impetus to the rise of left-wing civil society organizations (CSOs) in challenging the neo-liberal paradigm of the country’s economic managers. An important strategy has involved forging of alliances with like-minded politicians and “reformist” technocrats in addressing this dire situation. The chapter also highlights how the current Duterte administration has brought to the fore another dimension to these class dynamics: the prioritization of social versus economic policies. This has resulted in conflicts between economically oriented and social-minded technocrats, with the former calling for the continuation of the dominant economic paradigm and leveling the playing field to curtail corruption under the rubric of good governance while the latter have challenged this by proposing social policies that would bring forth structural changes for a redistribution of wealth.
