Paving the Neoliberal Path: Presidential Discourses on Farm-to-Market Roads in the Philippines (1946-1985)

Abstract

This study investigates how farm-to-market roads (FMRs) were used by Philippine presidents from 1946 to 1985 not only as tools for agricultural modernization and rural development, but also as symbolic instruments of political legitimation and ideological expression. While commonly understood as logistical infrastructure that facilitated agricultural productivity and market access, FMRs in the postwar Philippines acquired discursive significance. They were employed to articulate visions of state-led development, economic integration, and rural uplift, while also reflecting broader transformations toward market-oriented governance.

Using critical discourse analysis, this study examines presidential speeches, national development plans, and official communications to uncover how FMRs were framed within evolving political and economic contexts. Drawing on Stephanie Lee Mudge’s tripartite framework of neoliberalism, intellectual, bureaucratic, and political, the study argues that  FMRs became material and rhetorical vehicles for embedding neoliberal ideals. Presidents invoked market logics to justify FMR investments, positioning infrastructure as the bridge between marginalized rural communities and national economic growth, while simultaneously reinforcing technocratic governance and state power.

Methodologically, the study combines qualitative document analysis with semi-structured expert interviews, including insights from development practitioners and scholars. It analyzes twenty national development plans and key policy texts produced between 1946 and 1985. The findings suggest that FMRs were discursively constructed to naturalize market-based reforms, often portraying infrastructure as politically neutral while advancing elite interests and Cold War-aligned development paradigms.

This research contributes to critical historiographies of development, infrastructure, and state formation in Southeast Asia by reinterpreting FMRs as ideologically charged spaces. Rather than treating roads as neutral public goods, the study positions them as symbolic and strategic elements in the consolidation of postcolonial governance. It highlights how FMRs helped articulate and institutionalize neoliberal values in the Philippines, turning roads into pathways not just for goods and people, but for the circulation of political ideas, developmental promises, and state legitimacy.