Philippine election postscript

 (A) The election in Lanao del Sur (where the shootout happened) has finally been declared a failure, largely I suspect because the video went viral. 

(B) Erap (Estrada) is making noises about fraud. Just because they are opportunistic doesn’t mean they are wrong. But I suspect that even if they are right, they won’t generate enough furor to challenge Aquino’s win.

(C) I forgot to mention that when I asked most interviewees what they hoped would change as a result of the elections, they said an end to the economic crisis, in particular lower food and basic good prices. One person has related a story of US AID dogfood mixed with dirt being served in hard hit indigenous communities a few years ago. Poverty sucks.

(D) Spent last day in urban garbage scavenger communities, near Smokey Mountain 2, interviewing Bayan Muna activists. Big fear of evictions and typhoons. Bayan Muna gets its political leverage in Manila slums by offering secure titling. Urban pigsties are the savings accounts of choice, holding up to ₱10,000 per pig in porcine wealth.

Erica Field has an interesting paper on the returns to slum titles. Using data from Peru, she finds that titles increase investment in slum housing, but not because they slumdwellers get more access to credit. Rather, it seems to be due to a lowered fear of eviction.

(E) My earlier post on coercion as a general purpose technology was unclear: I just meant that when there are men with guns in play, they can get used in unforeseen ways, like the local Chamber of Commerce being able to threaten violence.

(F) Apparently one of the only ways of distinguishing the military from the NPA in the countryside is that the latter wear crocs instead of military boots. Who would have thought those hideous pastel sandals would be insurgent footwear of choice?

Comments

[Doug M.]

The Hernando de Soto idea that clean title would unlock a flood of easy credit always seemed a bit on the Underwear Gnome side to me, yes. This makes more sense.

Large swathes of Africa are seriously opposed to the idea of fee simple land ownership, especially in rural villages. The fear -- and IMO it's prima facie reasonable -- is that one bad harvest and, schwoomph, all the land gets snaffled up by a few rich people, forever. Communal and other forms of village ownership are clunky, but may be the least bad hack.

"Who would have thought those hideous pastel sandals would be insurgent footwear of choice?"

http://www.bookcase.com/~claudia/mt/archives/000819.html

Of course, that's a colder climate.

Doug M.

[Noel Maurer]

Hmm. Timberland, good stuff. Comfy, goes on forever. Crocs, well, not so much. Even in swamps, I'd take a good polished leather boot of the kind issued in basic training any day.

So it's still a mystery. Explanations, anyone?