ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the development of ‘agrarian reforms’ as a form of discourse using the critical perspective of biopolitics. From a post-development perspective, ‘development’ has become on one hand, the ‘amoeba-like concept, shapeless, but ineradicable, with contours so blurred it denotes nothing’; on the other hand, it is a ‘Western concept’ used by powerful states ‘for their own ideological projects of domination’ and exercise of power. The genealogy of ‘liberal design of power’ for development initiatives can be traced to the Cold War initiatives of US President Truman that determined the donor’s agenda about ‘fostering “their” development’ in order ‘to improve “our" security’. The US was aware of the danger of Marxist ideology with the ‘normative power of example’ of the Asiatic ‘development project’ for poor agrarian societies in Asia. Thus, there was a need to start its own ‘development project’ that would be competitive enough to contain the popularity of Marxism among impoverished peasants in the periphery. This study will trace the genealogy of the ‘agrarian reforms’ initiatives in the Philippine political history as part of the US ‘development project.’ How did ‘agrarian reform’ come to almost permanent existence in the history of the Philippines through generations of political leaders? Ultimately, is the term reform still meaningful if the biopolitical process appears to be endless? The agrarian reforms may not have resolved the problems of rural poverty and food insecurity in the Philippines; however with the collapse of the Soviet Union, they provided an illustrative case of a biopolitical ‘development project’ in the context of Cold War rivalry.
