Foundation of Governments and

Politics
The People
 The ancient Filipino society is divided into
three classes: the nobles, the freemen, and
dependents. The nobles consist of the ruling
class, which includes the chiefs and their
families. They sported titles such as lakan,
gat, datu, rajah, and sultan. Below the nobles
are the freemen who were called locally as
maharlika. The lowest class among the early
Filipinos is the alipin or dependents
Early Government
 The pre-Spanish Filipinos were organized into
small political units known as the barangay. The
barangay is a microstate consisting of 30 to 100
families. The entire archipelago was once
littered by many independent barangays. Each
barangay operated autonomously and although
there was no effort to centralize them, there
were indications that some barangays were
federated for the achievement of some
common purpose like defense and commerce.
Political Structure

 The long Spanish regime in the Philippines has

bred a small group of illustrados, who by their
education and connection with the Spaniards
managed to amass wealth largely in the form of
vast haciendas. This small class focused its
energy and entrepreneurship into the hacienda
since by then; political participation was so
limited that any ambitious non-Hispanic
politician can only aspire to be alcalde mayor or
a town executive.
 When the Americans established a colonial
government in the Philippines, they lacked the
sufficient number of trained bureaucrats to man
many positions in the bureaucracy.
Consequently, they adopted a Filipinization
policy intended to induct Filipinos into the
government service. Since the illustrados were
the people with sufficient training for available
jobs, they came to dominate the government
service both in elected and appointed positions.