Long before Dante C. Simbulan’s path-breaking study on the Philippine elite, “The Modern Principalia: The Historical Evolution of the Philippine Ruling Oligarchy,” was published by the University of the Philippines Press in 2005, it had become “the much-quoted thesis on the socioeconomic elite in the Philippines,” according to Mark Turner, writing on the History of Philippine Studies in Australia.

Originally submitted as his Ph.D. dissertation at the Australian National University in 1965, this seminal work on the roots, evolution, and practices of the Philippine ruling oligarchy quickly became known as a classic in elite studies. His findings and observations remain ever relevant as political dynasties in the Philippines continue to be well-entrenched, treating politics as a family affair, with interlocking interests with other elites and foreign partners.

The blurb describes the book as “about the values and behavior of the elite in politics and government, how they exploit the poverty and ignorance of the masses to win political power and what they do with that power.” Indeed, this empirical study had such a strong influence in academia that it triggered more scholars to study the continuing phenomenon of political dynasties, which scholars like Walden Bello have identified as the principal obstacle to Philippine development.

In his review of “The Modern Principalia” in the December 2009 issue of the Philippine Political Science Journal, political economist Edberto M. Villegas observed that “the findings regarding the nature of the ruling class in Philippine society” are “as accurate today as they were during the period covered by the book.” 

Villegas wrote: “The greater significance of the book… is that the concentration of wealth in the forms of land and incomes in the hands of a few elite families during the period surveyed has worsened at present… Though more than 40 years have passed since the book was written, the plight of the Filipino masses has remained as miserable as ever… Because of the great disparity of incomes in the Philippines, almost 80 percent of its population is living below the poverty line.”

Beginnings

Dante Simbulan passed away on Oct. 12, 2024, at the age of 94.  A documentary on his life and work, produced by Ramon Prado Mappala, was screened three times at the UP Diliman Film Institute. 

He was born in San Simon, Pampanga, a town inhabited by poor farmers and fishers. He was only 10 years old when his father, Ignacio, a veterinarian, died. His widowed mother, Apolonia, sold fish in the neighboring town of Guagua to feed and clothe him, the only son, and his eight sisters.  

Young Dante entered the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) in Baguio City because it was the only way then to get a full scholarship for his tertiary education and a monthly allowance to help support his family. It was in this context that he decided to take the PMA entrance examination; he graduated with distinction in the Class of 1952.  

This was the trajectory in his life that shaped his career and thinking. Poverty drove him to join the ranks of the country’s premier military school that trains the future officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. And he never forgot the face of poverty exemplified by the tenant families in his barrio.

He was a promising Army officer when he was assigned to the Scout Rangers, then newly organized under Capt. Rafael Ileto, a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, to hunt down the Huks (or Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan) in the early 1950s. The son of a poor family experienced a “conversion” like the apostle Paul: He shifted his sympathies to the insurgent farmers he was hunting down and whose leaders he was interrogating. Unlike other military officers who focused on their promotion and career, he felt sympathy for his former sworn enemies.  

Dante Simbulan sought to reform the military when he joined the PMA’s corps of professors. He made changes in the curriculum, and invited known Filipino nationalists to lecture before the cadets on the Vietnam War and the Philippines’ involvement in America’s interventionist wars.  

Ostracized within military circles for his progressive ideas that influenced future generals and other officers, he opted for early retirement from the military service.

He eventually became an educator in the Philippines’ leading universities — UP, Ateneo de Manila University, and the Philippine College of Commerce (later renamed Polytechnic University of the Philippines), where he became the first dean of its College of Arts and Sciences.

Books

With an M.A. from UP and a Ph.D. from the Australian National University, Simbulan authored three influential books starting with the seminal “The Modern Principalia: The Historical Evolution of the Philippine Ruling Oligarchy.”  

His autobiography, ‘Whose Side Are We On? Memoirs of a PMAer,” is a reflection on his transition from a defender and protector of the status quo and the ruling Philippine elite to a soldier of the people and a defender of human rights. It is a highly readable personal journal. 

Because of his opposition to the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr., he was arrested and detained for three and a half years at Camp Crame and Fort Bonifacio. He was forced into exile in the United States, where he became the executive director of the Church Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines, which lobbied the US Congress to cut off military assistance to the Marcos dictatorship. 

His third book, “When the Rains Come, Will Not the Grass Grow Again?  (The Socialist Movement in the Philippines, 1920-1960),” is about his former enemies. It was hailed by Ben Kerkvliet as a landmark volume on the root causes of the armed peasant rebellion in the Philippines. 

His best friend and PMA classmate, the military historian Col. Cesar Pobre, described him as “a renowned scholar who exemplified intellectual honesty, passion and political engagement.”

Discipline

Dante Simbulan was also widely admired for being well-organized and for practicing spartan discipline in his personal life. As his eldest child, I personally witnessed a daily routine that exhibited rigorous planning — from his morning jogging to a packed schedule for writing, reading, and spending quality time with his family. I learned much from him — his words, his advice, and most of all, his example. 

In his 70s and up to his 80s, he was still joining the Senior Citizen Olympics in Virginia in the United States, participating in many events that earned him a haul of gold medals. Throughout the year he kept fit — physically and mentally — in preparation for this annual event.

Dante Simbulan is and will be remembered not only as a distinguished scholar through his lectures and writings but also as a mentor to military officers and to many student leaders of the First Quarter Storm of 1970. 

For the human rights organization Karapatan, he is and will be remembered as a people’s soldier, a nationalist, and a human rights defender who fought the Marcos dictatorship. 

He left behind works that will endure among the best studies on the Philippine elite and oligarchy, as well as on the counter-elites and their movements in the Global South. 

He was a true “officer and gentleman” and an “outstanding scholar-activist.” Rarely have these cliches been better applied to any other. Perhaps this was the internalization of the military bearing and self-discipline that made him a people’s soldier and scholar.

Roland G. Simbulan is a retired professor of the University of the Philippines. 

Read more: Like a bridge over troubled water: The life journey of Luis Jalandoni