LOOKING BACK, Abad says that it was not so much feudal interests that blocked land reform, and not so much the desire to keep the hacienda way of life that rallied congressmen against radical land redistribution.

	Batanes Rep. Florencio Abad fought against the landlord bloc in Congress. [Rolly Salvador]

Abad was one of the few legislators who walked out in 1988 to protest the efforts of the landlords in Congress to block genuine land reform. In 1990, President Corazon Aquino named him secretary of agrarian reform amid stiff opposition from legislators who thought his vision of land redistribution was too radical.

"The power of agricultural land as a source of wealth is seeing its end," he says. "Landowners are moving into commercial, real estate, or industrial enterprises. When I was secretary, I didn't realize that I was being hit more by politicians identified with realty, rather than agricultural, interests. At one point, especially in semi-urban areas, there was a lot of speculation on land and the problem of land conversion became very serious. This was the time of the real-estate bubble, when real money could be made by converting farm land to commercial enclaves, housing estates, etc."

Throughout the country, the decline of agriculture's share of the national wealth (it now accounts for some 20 percent of the country's gross national product) has also seen the decline in power of landowners in the legislature. Today, the sugar planters in Congress are a poor shadow of their former selves: factionalized, demoralized, and no longer as fabulously wealthy as they used to be, they have not even succeeded in legislating measures that would protect the ailing sugar industry, such as farm subsidies for planters or high tariffs for imported sugar.

"There is no effective sugar bloc," says Negros Occidental Rep. Apolinario 'Jun' Lozada, a former diplomat who, together with Rep. Juan Orola Jr., a lawyer and former tourism official, are the first representatives from that most feudal of Philippine provinces who are not sugarcane planters. "We have no agreement on what the problems of the sugar industry are and how to get the support of government for it."

Lozada, the Manila-educated son of a hacienda encargado (overseer), says he was elected to represent the fifth district of Negros Occidental because of the support of the Church, NGOs, middle-class professionals, and even the New People's Army (NPA). Now on his second term, he is also the only congressman in the province who is not allied with Danding Cojuangco.

For the last 100 years, the legislators representing Negros have been for the most part heads of major planters associations and members of the old haciendero families. But the election of the likes of Lozada and Orola indicate real cracks in planter hegemony. Moreover, the sugar planter-representatives themselves now have multiple interests and now draw influence and legitimacy not solely — and in some cases, not mainly — from landed wealth.

Monico Puentevella, a first-termer who is the current representative of Bacolod City, may be a planter but is better known as an athlete, TV host, and developer of memorial parks.

Edith Yotoko-Villanueva, who represented the third district in the 11th House, is a planter's wife but she has also been deeply involved in NGO work and social development projects, thus representing the younger generation of small-scale sugar planters who feel the urgency of introducing social equity and progressive politics to feudal Negros.

In contrast, Julio 'Jules' Ledesma IV, the three-term representative of the first district, is a descendant of some of the wealthiest Negrense haciendero clans. He is also the nephew of Hortensia Starke; but unlike his aunt, he does not behave like he had just fallen off the set of Gone with the Wind. A relative unknown in Congress until his marriage in 2002 to the young and stunning movie star Assunta de Rossi, Ledesma comes from a landowning clan that is also into shipping and fisheries. Yet while the Ledesmas are still filthy rich, their holdings are nowhere near that of the Chinese-Filipino taipans who are now the real captains of Philippine industry. Instead, Jules Ledesma is carving out a niche for himself through a combination of reflected showbiz glamour and a display of expertise in the House ways and means committee that he chairs.

It can be said that the most successful of the cacique descendants are those that have diversified from landed wealth into industry and services, using their cash, their connections, and their property to invest in the more dynamic sectors of the economy. That has necessitated a shift from a feudal to a more modern worldview, a transition from the renter mentality of the hacienda economy to the more entrepreneurial and competitive mindset required in modern business. While Philippine business is not exactly an even playing field, it is more open to competition and to new entrants than hacienda agriculture ever was. The rise of once-pariah Chinese-Filipino businessmen to the heights of the Philippine economy provides the most dramatic proof of this.

In some cases, the influence of cacique families has been enhanced by the magic of movies and the media. Thus, the celebrity marriages of Ledesma and de Rossi; of third-generation legislator Ralph Recto and movie star Vilma Santos; of Charlie Cojuangco to actress Rio Diaz; and of Tonyboy Floirendo to former Miss Universe Margie Moran. In the past, cacique families made sure they had a member in politics and another in business. Recognizing the power of celebrity, they now see that it is important to have a representative in the media or the movies as well.

These families endure, not only because of inherited wealth and privilege, but also because of their ability to sense and take advantage of new business opportunities, to constantly reinvent themselves, and to tap into fresh sources of popular legitimacy.