Criminalizing Colonialism

Abstract

This chapter is about the process of criminalization as it arose in the struggle for control over a region of urban land among Metropolitan Manila intergroup networks. Disputes over land intensified in the resurgence of democracy that followed the Philippine People Power Revolution and the disintegration of President Ferdinand Marcos’s dictatorship. Network participants used the criminal identity, which had not been salient in intergroup disputes, as they created narratives of nationalism that legitimized both their rights to land and their ways of occupying and controlling vast tracts of urban real estate. As components of these networks, officials in the government and the legal system as well as religious leaders actively participated in using them to develop their versions of the Philippine state and nation. Manilefios put their views of the state and nation into action through the different ways they composed intergroup networks, structured participation in them, and developed network strategies for gaining permanent residence on urban land. The process of criminalization emerged for the first time in disputes across these and other intergroup networks as officials of the church and state became more involved in their disputes. Their participation, along with the end of dictatorship and the ascension of people power, seemed to create clearer demarcations among networks.