The EDSA Republic as Moral Liquidator:Embedded Origins, Unintended Consequences

• Main Author: Cardenas, Kenneth
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2024
• Subjects: EDSA REPUBLIC • EMBEDDEDNESS • GOVERNMENT-OWNED OR -CONTROLLED CORPORATIONS • PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION ON GOVERNMENT REORGANIZATION • PRIVATIZATION
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/phstudies/vol72/iss4/12; https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/phstudies/article/5020/viewcontent/01_20PSHEV_2072_20n4_20Cardenas_20with_20Copyright.pdf
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

This article revisits the privatizations carried out after the People Power Revolution, and how a moralized understanding of the state’s role in the economy was rehearsed and developed by the revolutionary Corazon Aquino government (1986–1987) through the reorganization of the government-owned or -controlled corporation portfolio. It traces how the design and objectives of privatization reflected both “people-powered” ambitions, as well as a distinct, historically embedded ambivalence toward public enterprise. In turn, these departures from mainline neoliberalism shaped a key feature of the EDSA Republic: the continuity of rentierism as the dominant mode of accumulation, despite the apparent rupture of revolution.