Chasing the Wind: AssessingAssessing PhilippinePhilippine DemocracyDemocracy FelipeFelipe B.B. MirandaMiranda TTemarioemario C.C. RiveraRivera MalayaMalaya C.C. RonasRonas RonaldRonald D.D. HolmesHolmes Chasing the Wind Assessing Philippine Democracy Felipe B. Miranda Temario C. Rivera Malaya C. Ronas Ronald D. Holmes Published by the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHRP) With the Support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Chasing the Wind Assessing Philippine Democracy ISBN 978-971-93106-4-8 Printed in the Philippines PUBLISHED BY Commission on Human Rights, Philippines U.P. Complex, Commonwealth Avenue Diliman, Quezon City 1101, Philippipnes WITH FUNDING SUPPORT FROM United Nations Development Program Book layout and cover design by Fidel dela Torre Copyright©2011 by the CHRP and the authors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage retrieval system, without written permission from the authors and the publishers, except for brief review. iii Table of Contents Foreword iv by Loretta Ann P. Rosales Chairperson, Commission on Human Rights Foreword v by Renaud Meyer UNDP Country Director Preface viii Felipe B. Miranda Chapter 1 1 Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy Felipe B. Miranda Chapter 2 46 In Search of Credible Elections and Parties: The Philippine Paradox Temario C. Rivera Chapter 3 95 The Never Ending Democratization of the Philippines Malaya C. Ronas Chapter 4 139 The Curious Cases of Philippine Civil Society and Decentralization Ronald D. Holmes Chapter 5: Conclusion 182 Rethinking Democratization in the Philippines Temario C. Rivera About the Authors 200 Index 201 iv Foreword Foreword The struggle for democracy and human rights [in Burma] is a struggle for life and dignity. It is a struggle that encompasses our political, social and economic aspirations. - Aung San Suu Kyi I have been working for the cause of human rights for over five decades. It began with a burning passion and a certain feeling of restlessness to correct what I saw were the gross inequalities of human societies where the rights of every person have been – and, as I now realize without overly being cynical, will always be – determined by the prevailing relationships of power. Having come full circle in this work only to see the same equations result in the same exclusions the solutions proposed by countless scholars notwithstanding, I can say that I have seen enough to conclude that a “career” in human rights is much better spent actually working to unravel exclusions embedded in the power relationships that enmesh society rather than on dismantling it within the safe confines afforded by academic freedom. I say this not to denigrate in any way the value of scholarly works, but to underscore their critical function in all struggles for liberation, which is to ensure that participants never lose sight of the fundamentals even in the thick of fighting. The essays in this book collectively serve this purpose not only by mapping both conceptually and empirically the deficit and growth areas of Philippine democracy since 1986, but by presenting it using four institutions serving as proxies: multiparty elections, the Executive, local governments and civil society. Thus, they are all able to move the discourse forward, and draw action from out of its depths. In his piece, Temario Rivera describes the paradoxical impact on Philippine democracy of multiparty politics, but solves it almost immediately by re-tracing its origins back to the American colonial order where electoral politics, the most prominent organ of the fledgling Philippine democracy, was Foreword v purposely designed as a way of leveraging economic resources in order to wean local elites away from the crushed Revolution. The solution therefore, is to push for the development of alternative political forces, representing distinctive social constituencies rather than entrenched interests, as the driving force behind a full-functioning system of open, protected and protracted conflict. Malaya Ronas carefully scrutinizes the institution of the Presidency and sees it for what it has always been from the beginning: a human institution bogged down by its own humanity, or rather the humanity of its present and previous occupants. Ours is veritably an imperial presidency whose origins may, on the surface, be traced to its older American cousin, but on closer inspection actually stops midway, on institutions that grew out of the American Civil War and which had provided firepower to the colonial enterprises that followed after. Ronas suggests the restoration of the powers the Executive arrogated to itself from the Legislative and Judiciary by way of cooperative mechanisms like the LEDAC and the JELACC, respectively. Rather conspiratorially however, I suspect a more radical motivation behind Ronas' seemingly innocuous proposal, wherein horizontal accountability will be facilitated not just through the expansion of the deliberative space, but by the dispersal of decision-making from one monolithic center to peripheral spaces where civil society organizations and reform institutions such as the Commission on Human Rights and Ombudsman can have a greater say. This I welcome with much excitement. Civil society receives greater attention in Ronald Holmes' essay on decentralization. Local governments, he posits, provide natural environments for civil society organizations to thrive in a more sustainable way than does the National Government. But these comfortable environments can actually serve to limit the capacity of civil society in general “to shape political events”, hence care must be taken by civil society not to build their lives too parochially. The Commission on Human Rights' own institutional experience with decentralization, in the area of reproductive health, provide ample support to this proposition. Whereas reproductive health bills have languished in five consecutive sessions of Congress and counting, local measures mirroring them have fared much better in sanggunians all over the country, thanks to the vigorous presence of non-governmental institutions on the ground. On the other hand, the same institutional experience may highlight one pitfall of decentralization – the dichotomization of the responsibility of ensuring that the State performs its human rights obligations – especially in relation to economic, social and cultural rights. One need not look beyond the understaffed, un- supplied and rotting hospital facilities run by provincial governments, or the vi Foreword disappearance of billions of pesos intended to bring water to waterless communities in the ARMM in order to appreciate the need for national accountability mechanisms to keep pace with decentralization. Civil society can contribute a lot to this effort. I would close this journey of self-introspection with Felipe Miranda's invitation to conceptualize Philippine democracy. Indeed, too much space has been devoted to measuring democracy while taking for granted its conceptual underpinnings, thus ill-equipping us against the “nightmare” that we must all overcome. Such a macabre characterization of our cherished democracy is borne out by credible evidence, that its political processes have generally been subverted; that oligarchic elites still maintain a stranglehold on local and national politics; that formal mechanisms for governance have lagged behind and have even become tainted with corruption; that true political parties are still a rarity; that civil society groups have yet to wrest influence from ruling non-democratic elites; that horizontal public accountability is ineffectual in ending impunity while vertical public accountability continues to be hampered by the effects of such impunity; that human quality of life has stagnated in the past five decades; that political legitimacy is still being resolved through armed struggle; and finally, that the civilian character of democratic governance has time and again failed to resolve the fate of civilian governments without the participation of the military. As a human rights activist, these indictments on Philippine democracy do not surprise me. On the contrary, they have added to the restlessness. Fifty years have hardly made a dent. After reading the four essays however, I feel that the next fifty years has become a challenge less daunting. Loretta Ann P. Rosales Chairperson Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines Foreword vii Foreword Since the 1986 EDSA revolution, the Philippines has made great efforts to widen and deepen its democracy. The establishment of a presidential system of government, the restoration of national and local elections, and the sudden explosion of a vibrant civil society suggest that significant strides have been made in this endeavour. However, there are a number of great challenges ahead. The dynamics of political patronage, the entrenchment of corruption, and the zones of impunity are factors which still inhibit democratisation efforts. “Chasing the Wind: Philippine Democratization After EDSA 1986”, is an assessment of Philippine politics in the last 25 years, written by prominent Filipino scholars: Felipe Miranda, Temario Rivera, Malaya Ronas and Ronald Holmes. The study reaffirms democracy in its modern setting as a framework that not only safeguards human rights, but also upholds the imperative of basic human needs and development. From this perspective,