フィリピンのフロンティア開発 : パラワン州にみる国内移住と支村の形成

Abstract

A distinctive feature of development economics has been the attempt to understand the process of migration from rural areas to urban areas under natural population increase in less developed countries. But it has to be noted at this point that the share of manufacturing in wage employment in the whole industry is generally quite small; it is around 10 percent in Philippine case. This situation arises because the government has introduced import-substitution industries and capital-intensive technology, and advanced countries are influenced by the new protectionist wave. On the other hand, the labor force in the traditional sector, such as agriculture or fishing, is quite extensive. Labor out-migration has been slow and the growth rate of the traditional sector correspondingly high in the Philippines, probably as high as that of the manufacturing labor force. The traditional sector accounts for a significant proportion of total employees in rural areas. However the land-frontier in the mainland of the Philippines has reached the point of near exhausion. Nevertheless, the fishing-frontier of Palawan province has absorbed migrants from other regions, especially Visayas. This research is based on fieldwork conducted in a fishing village of Palawan province, Southern Tagalog region, from April to May 1991. Males predominate among migrants and young people migrate more readily than older ones. While labor movement does occur from cities to this fishing-frontier, more frequent is a progression in which inter-rural migration rather than rural-urban migration plays a large part in this case. Most of migrants are skilled in fishing or agriculture, but from the early 1980's some employees in the modern sector with no experience of fishing started to migrate. Information networks are created and maintained by streams of migration. Migrants from specific regions often cluster in the same village neighborhoods, because it allows them to exchange information about job opportunities and living conditions at the frontier. From the viewpoint of labor absorption, the role of public financial assistance for motorizing fishing boats is important for the rural development. It has allowed fishermen to hire more employees and improve the productivity of fishing. However, aquatic resources will be limited for more migrants in the future. It is necessary to assist villagers to start fishery processing industries and feeding fish, in addition to motorizing fishing boats.