Kitsch, Whimsy, and the Aesthetics of Kleptocracy: Wealth Accumulation and Misappropriation under the Marcos Administration

Kitsch, Whimsy, and the Aesthetics of Kleptocracy: Wealth Accumulation and Misappropriation under the Marcos Administration

A Study. August 25, 2025

Introduction

In the Philippines’ unfolding socio-political drama, the materialistic accumulation of wealth and systemic corruption under the current Marcos administration has rippled through every sector of society—art included. As ghost flood-control projects siphon billions from public coffers, the visual landscape of Philippine art has responded with two unexpected yet profoundly intertwined strategies: kitsch’s flamboyant excess and whimsy’s subversive play. Far from mere aesthetic detours, these modes function as critical reframings—reflecting, critiquing, and at times coping with the grand theft of the commonwealth.

The Political Economy of Ghost Projects

Since 2022, the Department of Public Works and Highways allocated roughly ₱556 billion for flood-control infrastructure, part of a ₱2.6 trillion three-year budget. Yet investigations have revealed a staggering pattern of “ghost” and substandard works across Bulacan, Pampanga, Cavite, and Metro Manila. In Bulacan alone, contracts worth nearly ₱19 billion were awarded to a single firm, Wawao Builders, for projects that either collapsed or never existed. Seminal leaks expose license-renting schemes: triple-A contractors lease their credentials to smaller firms, ensuring both shoddy construction and swollen kickbacks. Reports estimate that only 30–40 percent of allocated funds actually reached tangible infrastructure; the rest vanished into private pockets, financing luxuries far removed from flood-ravaged communities.

This “ghost flood-control scandal” has triggered Senate and House inquiries, the creation of the Sumbong sa Pangulo website for citizen whistle-blowing, and calls from groups like the Association of General and Flag Officers for an independent fact-finding body. Yet each new revelation only confirms what many Filipinos have long suspected: that a culture of impunity underwrites the nation’s political economy, where public service becomes personal enrichment.

Kitsch as Critique: Glittering Excess and Historical Residue

Kitsch art—often dismissed as manipulative and populist—finds new urgency in this corrupt milieu. Its hallmarks—overblown sentimentality, mass-market imagery, religious trinkets—mirror the flashy materialism of corrupt elites. When a ceremonial concrete river wall costs ₱55 million yet never materializes, the state’s spectacle of “infrastructure” becomes indistinguishable from the saccharine parodies of mass culture. By appropriating the very iconography of exploitation—plastic rosaries, gaudy neon plastics, commemorative souvenir plates—kitsch artists hold a mirror to the grotesque priorities of kleptocracy.

In praxis, these works collapse the distance between civic crisis and everyday culture. A series of printed banners replicating ghost-project documentation becomes a public altar for erasure; resin-encased DPWH budget line items transform into devotional icons to lost public trust. Here, kitsch is not ironic contempt but an affective corollary: it encodes resentment, disbelief, and a sardonic lament for institutions that pump borrowed funds into private vaults.

Whimsy as Resistance: Playful Reenchantment of Public Spheres

Whimsy appears an unlikely ally in the face of systemic plunder, yet it possesses a crucial edge: by invoking play, absurdity, and childlike wonder, it fractures the veneer of authoritarian gravitas. The Marcos presidency—described by critics as a “ghost presidency” reliant on PR stunts and phantom leadership—is well suited to whimsical counter-illustration. In open-air installations, cartoonish flood barriers tipped over by giant inflatable ducks satirize both engineering failure and political folly. In digital realms, meme-inspired animations reenact budget hearings as puppet shows, exposing how policy scripts are co-written by contractors and district engineers in clandestine collusion.

Such whimsical interventions do more than lampoon; they reintroduce collective agency. When audiences are invited to manipulate the oversized inflatable ducks—signifying misplaced concrete walls—they enact a form of symbolic repair. Whimsy here becomes a communal ritual of recalibration, reminding viewers that systems are not immutable ghosts but assemblages of human decisions open to reconfiguration.

Material Accumulation, Cultural Commodification, and the Art Market

The art market itself is not immune to the logic of accumulation. Prices for works employing kitsch tropes have soared at Manila galleries, often underwritten by the same network of patrons and contractors whose wealth depends on misappropriation. Ghost-project profiteers become silent investors in whimsically titled exhibitions—“Concrete Dreams,” “Flood of Fortune”—thus laundering both funds and reputations. The spectacle of a ₱3-million oil painting festooned with faux-plastic lilies echoes the absurdity of a ₱5-million commission fee for a ₱10-million multi-purpose building in Laguna, where no building ever stood.

This convergence calls for a trauma-informed critique within art institutions. Rather than merely reifying price tags as measures of success, curators and critics must interrogate provenance: Whose capital empowers these acquisitions? Which networks of graft remain hidden beneath glossy auction catalogs? Only by situating artworks within the broader political economy of corruption can the field resist becoming complicit in kleptocratic culture.

Towards a Relational Aesthetics of Accountability

In response to these entanglements, a relational aesthetics grounded in ethics of witnessing emerges as a vital alternative. Community-based workshops in Mandaluyong and Bulacan collect oral testimonies from those displaced by non-existent flood walls. These sessions produce collaborative scrolls—hand-painted timelines of broken promises, overlapping with personal narratives of loss. When exhibited, the scrolls demand viewers navigate the spatial gaps between public records and lived experience. They enact accountability not through juridical evidence alone but through shared encounter.

Simultaneously, artist-led fact-finding projects align with citizen journalists to map ghost projects using GPS-enabled drones. The resulting data visualizations—project footprints with blank interiors—function as both artistic evidence and civic toolkits. They invite collective use: community groups repurpose the visuals to file local government complaints on the Sumbong sa Pangulo platform, transforming artistic labor into acts of civic engagement.

Conclusion

The materialistic accumulation of wealth through systemic corruption in the Marcos administration has inflicted deep wounds on Philippine society. Yet in the interstices of this kleptocratic landscape, kitsch and whimsy emerge as two intertwined aesthetic strategies—one reflecting the spectacle of excess, the other invoking playful refusal. By embedding archival residue, oral histories, and citizen-sourced data into their works, artists can reframe stolen wealth not as private triumph but as public reckoning. The challenges are immense: state apparatuses of regulatory capture, media complicity, and market commodification persist. But through a relational ethics of artmaking—one that privileges accountability, community agency, and imaginative repair—Philippine art can reclaim its role as both mirror and catalyst, bearing witness to kleptocracy while forging pathways toward collective transformation.

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August 25, 2025 

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