September 1, 2025
MANILA – Why do some people, particularly those who have become suddenly rich, flaunt their wealth? It’s a question one may ask after watching video clips where owners share glimpses of their opulent houses, their vehicles, jewelry, designer bags, shoes, and latest acquisitions. Aren’t they afraid of inviting scrutiny from customs and tax officials? Aren’t they worried about being robbed or victimized by kidnap-for-ransom gangs?
In short, what are they thinking? The latest example of this phenomenon is, of course, the Discaya couple. Shortly before the last elections, where the wife ran for Pasig City mayor, the Discayas treated some media people to a guided tour of their lavishly furnished multistory home and the capacious garage in which they parked forty high-end vehicles.
Listening to them narrate their rags-to-riches saga, what struck me—more than the expensive cars—was the casual tone in which they attributed their good fortune in the construction business to less than a decade of doing projects for the Department of Public Works and Highways.
They appeared genuinely surprised and pleased by how quickly they had moved from a life of misery and deprivation to one of ease and abundance. They spoke like anyone’s next-door neighbor, though a keen viewer would not fail to notice the Lacoste t-shirts they wore as campaign outfits. I have encountered this kind of redemptive recounting and display of material possessions many times before on social media.
There’s the vlog of a young daughter of a family in Pampanga, whose wealth originally came from jueteng but is now invested in legitimate business pursuits. Her show consists of snippets of the family’s daily routine—exercising, dressing up and putting on makeup, eating, dancing, supervising the househelp, and so on. One episode I chanced upon was a tour of their large house, highlighting the 24-hour air-conditioning of every room, hallway, and corner. The sheer number of rooms was perplexing. I was left wondering why a small family that was not running a hotel or renting out rooms would need so many.
This kind of content, and the way it is presented, has become so popular on social media that an analyst of today’s profile-obsessed digital world will never run out of material to study. I recently watched a video posted by another young woman who, from her family name, appears to be connected to a congressman known as both a politician and contractor. While giving a guided tour of their house and its many entrances and exits, she casually referred to the family’s fleet of helicopters and explained why she personally favored one of them (for the comfort of its seats).
It’s easy to dismiss these videos as nothing more than crude platforms for bragging about possessions. But the fact that they attract millions of viewers proves they resonate with people’s deepest yearnings. I suspect that what is at work is more than just the ostentatious display of wealth that Thorstein Veblen first noted in America at the dawn of the 20th century. What we may be seeing in these performances is revenge accumulation to compensate for past deprivation, a cathartic cleansing of memories of scarcity. This originates inside the self but finds its ultimate validation in front of the camera.
When Thorstein Veblen published “The Theory of the Leisure Class” in 1899, the book became an instant sensation. From it came many words we casually use today—“conspicuous consumption,” “ostentatious display of wealth,” “keeping up with the Joneses,” etc. Since Veblen, consumption has ceased to be viewed as merely economic. It has become a form of communication, a way of signaling status.
Veblen’s critique focused on the new affluence brought about by industrialization, but his sharpest observations were directed at the “wasteful consumerism” that afflicted the emerging American middle class. Today, his thesis is validated even more in the consumption behavior and lifestyles of Asia’s new billionaires. The richest are in present-day China and India, but they are also found in Southeast Asia —in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia—and even in parts of Africa, like Nigeria, where extreme disparities in wealth and power persist.
Behind the explosion of sudden wealth of this kind is the seamless collaboration of corrupt politicians, insatiable businessmen, and dysfunctional bureaucracies. The magnitude of resources these new elites are able to unlock and mobilize through various schemes is mind-boggling. The wealth they siphon off comes from many sources: mineral deposits, public borrowings, the national budget, land conversions, and the meager earnings of ordinary wage workers.
But beneath the big drama of syndicated public corruption and official investigations lies the small theater of sudden wealth and its private meanings. The public feasts on the former but quietly revels in the latter.