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IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME WELL, there was a time when sugar barons lorded over this nation with their power and influence strongly felt in government and in the private sector.
Many of them and their scions were elected Senators or Congressmen and even sent a brother of their peer to the office of vice president of this Republic; they formed a group in Congress, named the “Sugar Block”. That was a time when the landed gentry, the old and traditional rich Filipinos were on top of the heap of our society and wielded their clout not only in our life style but in politics as well. But when sugar was no longer as marketable as before and prices took a nose dive forcing sugar centrals to close shop, their political clout and influence also gradually melted away. Today, we no longer talk about the wealth of sugar barons even as some of them who were able to reinvest their money in other businesses, such as telecommunication, shipping, construction, banking and others, including media and have remained rich and powerful. Some of them have conveniently blended with the nation’s new rich in the corporate world, the haven of industrialists, big time manufacturers and traders, successful entrepreneurs and the taipans. Most of them have also found Makati City an ideal place to establish main offices, although congestion has forced many to start moving to newly developed neighboring sites, as those in the Global City in Taguig. Today, the influential and powerful sugar barons are no longer lording over the nation’s social, economic and political life but the one asserting as the new power house in Philippine society is big business. On the day I wrote this article the banner of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, my wife’s favorite broadsheet screamed: “BIG BUSINESS HITS SC RULING”, which is about the Makati Business Club’s making public its disagreement with the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Neri case. Of course, there is nothing essentially wrong with this since it is the right of everyone to agree or disagree with the ruling of our courts even if one is not at liberty to disobey its mandate after the ruling becomes final. The business club may have issued a public statement out of disgust that the ruling did not go the way it believes it should, as the club must have grown horns after it helped in ousting former President Estrada and it could no longer accept defeat in its obsession to oust PGMA. Even if I think it’s foolish to bar PGMA from taking communion, I still believe Bishop Cruz is more level headed than any of the members of the Makati Business Club who signed the statement relative to the appreciation of the Supreme Court ruling in the Neri case. The good bishop, one of the bitterest critics of PGMA said in essence that the ruling of the Supreme Court is good for the country. Last update : 01-04-2008 16:00
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