Philippine

Politics and
Governance:
Civil Society and
Social Movements
CIVIL SOCIETY AND SOCIAL MOVEMENT
 According to Bratton (1991), “civil society was the arena for organizing governance,
material activities, and intellectual, moral and cultural aspects of communities.”

 Civil Society represents the “politics of consent”, and hence, the state and civil society
are both simultaneously needed to complete the process of government of society.

 “The State represents the structures of governance and Civil Society creates the values
and normative framework for governance.”

 More precisely, (civil society) is the “politically active popular sector” of society.

 Civil society, which is voluntary and self-generating, is a domain independent of the state,
although it does seek benefits, policy changes, or accountability from the state.

 Civil is rule abiding in the sense that its constituent elements operate by a set of shared
norms that, at a minimum, eschew violence and respect pluralism.
 Civil society is voluntary, rule-abiding, politically active sector of society,
autonomous from the state. It encompasses masses of citizens engaged in
public protest, social movements, and NGOs acting in the public sphere

 Civil society excludes the household, profit-making enterprises, political

parties, and groups striving to gain control of the state through armed
rebellion.

 Another influential layer of civil society revolves around a large grouping of

mass media enterprises (print, radio, and television) and practitioners
representing diverse economic and political interests.

 Finally, the most vibrant aspect civil society lies in a dynamic community of
people’s organization (Pos) and developmental nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs). Rooted in a long tradition of popular militancy and resurgent
nationalism that peaked during the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship,
these POs and NGOs represent various class, gender, ethnic, and sectoral
interests.
 Nongovernmental organizations or NGOs are private, nonprofit, non-
membership organizations formed for providing welfare and development services to
the poor. While most of them take a direct role in implementing development
programs for the poor, usually through working with groups they help to form, the
people’s organizations or POs, others take indirect roles as they help fellow NGOs to
improve their implementation of projects through training, technical assistance,
research, lobbying, etc.

Pos, on the other hand, are local, nonprofit, membership based associations
that organize and mobilize members in support of collective welfare goals while
articulating their aims and objectives within the more general development discourse.

The 198 Philippine Constitution promotes the role and rights of

nongovernmental organizations and peoples organizations. Three articles provide for
the institutionalization of the role of NGOs and POs in the Philippine development
 Article II Section 23. The state shall encourage nongovernmental, community-
based, or sectoral organizations that promote the welfare of the nation.

Article XIII Section 15. The state shall respect the role of independent
people’s organizations to enable the people to pursue and protect, within the
democratic framework, their legitimate and collective interests and aspirations
through peaceful and lawful means.

Article XIII Section 16. The right of the people and their organizations
effective and reasonable participation of at all levels of social, political, and economic
decision-making shall not be abridged. The state shall, by law, facilitate the
establishment of adequate consultation mechanisms.

Three factors are worth mentioning in explaining the proliferation of NGOs in

the Philippines. These are links to social movements, foreign funding, and the
favourable policy environment during Corazon Aquino’s presidency after the
dismantling of the Marcos dictatorship.
 First, NGOs emerged out of the various social movements that sought to
transform Philippine society. Social movements are “collective challenges by people
with common purpose and in solidarity in sustained interaction with elites, opponents,
and authorities” (Tarrow 1994, 3-4)

Second, foreign funding and institutional support from foreign organizations

and external networks were also linked to the proliferation of NGOs in the country.
Foreign assistance came from both church-related organizations and secular
organizations. Solidarity networks in Europe, Japan, and North America provided
financial and technical assistance to grassroots support organizations. NGOs
mushroomed with the increase of official development assistance (ODA) from the
member states of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) (Silliman and Noble, 1998b.)
 Third, NGOs expanded exponentially during the presidency of Corazon Aquino.
Two factors explain this growth of NGOs during this period – Aquino government’s
policy preference for NGOs and policy of channeling financial resources to grassroots
and grassroots support.

One, the 1987 Constitution provides for the recognition and encouragement of
NGOs by the State as promoting the welfare of the nation. It also mandates the
participation of representatives from NGOs in regional development councils or other
similar local bodies.

Two, around four hundred NGOs received an estimated one billion pesos from
the President’s Social Fund to finance potable water systems, school buildings,
livelihood, projects, and rehabilitation of disaster area. Moreover, loans to NGOs and
to cooperates were also provided by the Department of Trade and Industry through its
National Livelihood Support Fund and the Tulong sa Tao (Help the People) program.
 Role Democracy (Approximation)
• People’s participation in the policy making and
Organizers: forming Community and popular grassroots implementation process of the government
organizations
• Opportunity to challenge government policies towards
Advocates/Interest Groups: mobilizing, articulating, empowerment of the people
people’s interest, political demands, and institutional
reforms • Protection of basic rights

Mediators: linking the powerful and disempowered strata • Recognition of people’s initiatives
of the society
• Equitable distribution of resources
Delivers: alternative mechanism for delivery of social
services
ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL PARTIES
 There are two ways of defining a political party. Broadly, a political party includes all
the numerous political organizations that call themselves by the name, political party.
 A more restricted but a better view is that a political party refers only to those
organizations that contest in free (nonfree) elections, primarily those who are able to
win elections over time.
 A more focused definition, however, would refer a political party to “a group of people
that is organized for the purpose of winning government power, by electoral or other
means.”
 In the Philippines, a political party is national “when its constituency is spread over
the geographical territory of at least a majority of regions.”
 A party is regional “when its constituency is spread over the geographical territory of
at least a majority of the cities and provinces comprising the region.”
 A sectoral party is not defined by geographic considerations. Instead, a sectoral party
represents any of the various sectors identified by the law. These sectors include:
labor, peasant, fisherfolk, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, elderly,
handicapped, women, youth, veterans, overseas workers, and professionals.
ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL PARTIES
 A party is regional “when its constituency is spread over the geographical
territory of at least a majority of the cities and provinces comprising the
region.”
 A sectoral party is not defined by geographic considerations. Instead, a
sectoral party represents any of the various sectors identified by the law.
These sectors include: labor, peasant, fisherfolk, urban poor, indigenous
cultural communities, elderly, handicapped, women, youth, veterans,
overseas workers, and professionals.
 According to the law. “(A) sectoral party refers to an organized group of
citizens belonging to any of the sectors enumerated. . . Whose principal
advocacy pertains to the special interest and concerns of their sector.
 Political parties have various functions. They mobilize the voters during
elections, organize public opinion on issues that affect the general public,
and act as a conduit between the voters/ people and the government when
the former makes their demands known to the latter done through interest
articulation and interest aggregation.
 Political parties also reinforce a sense of identity or belongingness,
particularly in its membership and constituency.
ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL PARTIES
 In the Philippines, the electorate does not just vote during the
regularly-held elections for various national and local elective posts.
The electorate also exercise their right to vote in the following:
1. Plebiscite – a popular vote conducted to determine the electorate’s
view on proposed permament changes to the state’s political
structure;
2. Referendum – a popular vote regarding the soundness of a law
proposed by a lawmaking body;
3. Recall – a constitutional measure that empowers the citizens to
officially remove a local official, even before completion of his term
of office due to loss of public confidence; and
4. Initiative – the method by which a given percentage of the
electorate may officially propose a law in order to (1) propose
changes in the Constitution, (2) enact a piece of national
legislation, and (3) pass local ordinances.
ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL PARTIES
 In the 1987 Philippine Constitution, while legislative power is specifically mandated to
the Philippine Congress, such power does not include the extent reserved to the
Filipino people, namely, the initiative and referendum. Article VI Section 32 provides
for the requirements of the initiative and referendum.

“The Congress shall, as early as possible, provide for a system of initiative

and referendum, and the exceptions therefrom, whereby the people can
directly propose and enact laws or approve or reject any act or law or part
thereof passed by the Congress or local legislative body after the
registration of a petition thereof signed by at least ten per centum of the
total number of registered voters, of which every legislature district must be
represented by at least three per centum of the registered voters thereof”.
ELECTORIAL SYSTEMS
The set of rules and procedures that govern the conduct of
elections refers to the electoral systems. Electoral systems translate
votes into seats won by parties and candidates. International IDEA (2005
cited in Jayme-Lao 1999) for instance, believed that an electoral
system is “one of the most straightforward institutions that can affect
changes in representation, participation, and even conflict
management, that is, if properly and thoughtfully done.”

Under the presidential system of government in the Philippines,

the election of the vice president, the members of the Senate and the
House of Representatives (except those reserved for the party-list
representatives), as well as local government officials from the
provincial to the barangay level elective posts follows the method for
electing the chief executive or the president of the Philippines.
 Election of the President in the Philippines: Some Features and
Dynamics

Features Descriptions
Direct election • The chief executive is elected by direct vote of registered voters.

Plurality electoral • The mathematical formula used for determining the winner in a
formula (first-past- multicandidate contest is simple plurality. That is, the candidate who
the-post voting obtains the most number of votes, regardless of the proportion of total
system) votes, is proclaimed winner. Hence, the term “plurality winner.”
Single-member • The entire country is one “electoral district.” From this district is
district magnitude elected one chief executive. The chief executive office is “unitary” or
(SMD) “monocratic” There is one possible winner and only one office to be
filled.
Categorical ballot • Voters write only a single candidate preference on the ballot. He or she
structure has an either-or choice and cannot rank order preferences

Candidate-based • Personalities, not parties, are voted for. Voters choose from among
voting personalities.

Periodic concurrent • Every so often executive and legislative elections occur simultaneously.
elections
PARTIES AND PARTY POLITICS
 Candidate-based voting has, since time immemorial, been a common
feature of every election in the country. Filipino voters vote on
personalities and not parties. Political parties usually cease to matter
or be visible after elections. And even during elections, political party
affiliation and/or identification and party platform do not necessarily
become the central focus of contestation.
 The behavioral explanation, on the other hand, focuses on the
propensity of the party representative to change his/her goals from
party-oriented to self-oriented goals once in office. Members of the
Philippine Congress, for instance, purse three goals –(1) re-election,
(2) constituency interests, and (3) good public policy. In most cases,
however, legislators’ behavior inside Congress is influenced by
electorally-induced preferences and/or priorities. This explains
frequent cases of party-switching and political turncoatism
particularly in the House of Representatives.
 In the Philippines, observers and analysts of Philippine politics and
party politics all agree how our political parties fall short of the
criteria for “real” and functioning political parties.
PARTIES AND PARTY POLITICS
 From the colonial era to the postcolonial period and up to the
present times (with the exception of that period when the
country was under martial law), political parties remain
centered around notable individuals and functioned almost
solely as electoral vehicles. Almost all throughout the country’s
electoral history, political parties are anchored on clientelistic,
parochial, and personal inducements rather than on issues,
ideologies, and party platforms.
 What breeds and perpetuates the weakly institutionalized
party system in the Philippines is a confluence of historically-
based political and structural factors. These include, (1) elite
dominance both at the national and local levels, (2) the
resilience of political dynasties, (3) deeply embedded political
patronage in the whole political system, (4) lack of reliable
and sustainable sources of party funding, and (5) institutional
gaps within the political system
What breeds and perpetuates the weekly institutionalized party
system in the Philippines?

 Is a confluence of a historically based at the national and

local levels

 The resilience of political dynasties

 Deeply embedded political patronage in the whole political

system

 Lack of reliable and sustainable sources of party funding

 Institutional gaps within the political system

 Every party – list system which was intended
to further democratize participation and
representation in the House of Representatives by
providing opening new parties and leaders that
consciously represent the marginalized and
underrepresented sectors of society (Rivera 2006)
has been abused by traditional political parties.
These party-list system has become a mechanism for
traditional parties for gaining additional seats in
Congress, and hence, increasing their political
clout.