Transition pathways and democratic consolidation in post-marcos Philippines

Contemporary Southeast Asia

Volumn 24, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 466-483

  Rivera, Temario C ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO   (Japan)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84937381559     PISSN: 0129797X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1355/CS24-3B     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. For an excellent discussion of the political and administrative aspects of this process between 1900 and 1913, see Paul D. Hutchcroft, “Colonial Masters, National Politics, and Provincial Lords: Central Authority and Local Autonomy in the American Philippines, 1900–1913”, Journal of Asian Studies 59, no. 2 (May 2000): 34.
2. For a detailed discussion of this process and its outcomes, see Paul D. Hutchcroft, “Colonial Masters, National Politics, and Provincial Lords: Central Authority and Local Autonomy in the American Philippines, 1900–1913”, Journal of Asian Studies 59, no. 2 (May 2000):, pp. 277–306.
3. See Dankwart A. Rustow, “Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model”, Comparative Politics 3 (1970): 337–63.
4. See Dankwart A. Rustow, “Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model”, Comparative Politics 3 (1970): p. 360.
5. For a convenient collection of articles discussing various aspects of the rise and fall of the Marcos dictatorship, see Aurora Javate de Dios, Petronilo Bn. Daroy, and Lorna Kalaw Tirol, eds., Dictatorship and Revolution: Roots of People’s Power (Metro Manila: Conspectus Foundation, Inc., 1988).
6. A detailed narration and analysis of the politics of the transition process is provided by David Wurfel, “Transition to Political Democracy in the Philippines”, in Democratic Transition and Consolidation in Southern Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia, edited by Diane Ethier (London: MacMillan Press Ltd., 1990), pp. 110–35.
7. See Stephen Macedo, “Transitions to What? The Social Foundations of Democratic Citizenship”, in Pathways to Democracy: The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions, edited by James F. Hollifield and Calvin Jillson (New York and London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 53–54.
8. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 5–6.
9. To qualify as a democratic developmental state, Adrian Leftwich argues that the primary developmental criterion is an annual average rate of growth in GNP per capita of at least 4 per cent over a period of twenty-five or thirty years (2000, p. 173). Under this criterion, the Philippines fails to qualify. Leftwich further notes the tension between democracy and development in that consolidated and stabilized democracies oftentimes lose the ability to make decisive policies to transform the fundamental structures of economic and social life necessary for development to take place. See Adrian Leftwich, States of Development: On the Primacy of Politics in Development (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000).
10. By “contentious politics”, I adopt the framework used by McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly when they refer to episodic, public forms of collective struggle usually targetting the government as an object of claim, and especially when innovative forms of collective action (unprecedented or forbidden within the regime) are used. See Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 4–9.
11. For the human and socio-economic costs of the war waged by President Estrada against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in 2000, see Fermin D. Adriano, “Mindanao: The Making of the Crisis”, in Between Fires: Fifteen Perspectives on the Estrada Crisis, edited by Amando Doronila (Pasig City and Makati City: Anvil Publishing, Inc. and Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2001), pp. 200–11. Between January 2000 and July 2002, the government admitted losing 750 troops, with another 3,000 wounded in resurgent battles with Muslim rebels and communist guerrillas (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 17 October 2002, online edition).
12. The new Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), which leads the armed struggle, was established in 1968, but the movement has suffered organizational splits provoked by ideological and political differences generated in part by different responses to the restoration of formal democratic rule in 1986. The main and largest guerrilla units continue to be under the leadership of the CPP.
13. In the peace agreement concluded in 1996 between the Ramos administration and the MNLF led by Nur Misuari, the facilitative and persuasive role of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and one of its leading members, Indonesia, was an important factor in the process.
14. The immediate effect of this order was the freezing of the bank account (with about 1,000 Euros) in the Netherlands of Jose Ma. Sison, exiled founding leader of the re-established Communist Party. The Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Blas Ople, also started a campaign to convince the European states to declare the NDF-CPP and the NPA as terrorist organizations. Subsequently, the European Union included Sison and the New People’s Army in its list of international terrorists.
15. In the 2001 elections, the left legal organizations referred to as “national-democratic” and identified with the main communist formation (CPP) set up Bayan Muna, a political party to contest the party-list election. Bayan Muna topped the party-list slate, winning the maximum of three representatives allowed for an organization in the party-list process.
16. The Abu Sayyaf (Bearer or Father of the Sword, in Arabic) traces its roots to the CIA-financed mujahideens who fought the Soviets in the Afghan war. The Abu Sayyaf presence in the Philippines was orchestrated by Abdurajak Janjalani, an Afghan war veteran, and his brother Khaddafi. Abdurajak espoused a radical Islamist vision for the Filipino Muslims but this political agenda got sidetracked after his death in 1998 and the Abu Sayyaf has since broken up into autonomous small armed units mainly in the Muslim dominated provinces and islands. For the roots of the Abu Sayyaf, see John K. Cooley, Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism (London: Pluto Press, 1999); and also Marites Danguilan Vitug and Glenda Gloria, Under the Crescent Moon: Rebellion in Mindanao (Quezon City: Ateneo Center for Social Policy and Public Affairs, and Institute for Popular Democracy, 2000).
17. Vice-President Teofisto Guingona was critical of American military intervention in the battle against the Muslim rebels and was later pressured to resign from his concurrent position as Secretary of Foreign Affairs.
18. For reports about these linkages, see Maria A. Ressa, “Infiltrating the MILF”, Newsbreak, 28 October 2002 (online edition).
19. In 1997, when the Asian economic crisis erupted, poverty incidence in the country was at 32 per cent, and between 1985 and 1997, official poverty estimates show that poverty declined by an average of one percentage point a year. This rate of poverty reduction is slower compared with the rates in East Asia and the Pacific as a whole (1.6 percentage point a year). See Arsenio M. Balisacan, “Did the Estrada Administration Benefit the Poor?” in Fifteen Perspectives on the Estrada Crises, edited by Amando Doronila (Pasig and Makati City: Anvil Publishing House and Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2001), pp. 98–112.
20. Adam Przeworski et al., Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 137.
21. Adam Przeworski et al., Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 211.
22. For a source book rich in case studies detailing various aspects of civil society–state relations in policy-making, policy advocacy, and political mobilizations for different causes, see Marlon A. Wui and Ma. Glenda S. Lopez, eds., State–Civil Society Relations in Policy-Making (Quezon City: Third World Studies Center, 1997); and Miriam Coronel Ferrer, ed., Civil Society Making Civil Society (Quezon City: Third World Studies Center, 1997).
23. During each of the post-Marcos administrations, the broad NGO community and people’s organizations have shaped important policy debates, influenced policy outcomes, and contributed members to the presidential Cabinet staff. For instance, in the Aquino administration, the organizations and alliances of the urban poor succeeded in pushing for the creation of the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor and the passage of the 1992 Urban Development and Housing Act. See Anna Marie A. Karaos, “Urban Governance and Poverty Alleviation in the Philippines,” in Urban Governance and Poverty Alleviation in Southeast Asia, edited by Emma Porio (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University, 1997), p. 69. During the Ramos and Estrada administrations, the Cabinet positions for the Secretary of Agrarian Reform were filled up by NGO personalities, and during the Arroyo administration, the Secretary for Social Work and Development was assumed by a woman NGO leader.
24. Charles Tilly, “Social Movements as Historically Specific Clusters of Political Performances”, Berkeley Journal of Sociology 38 (1994): 7.
25. Representing various left tendencies, Bayan Muna, Akbayan, and Sanlakas act simultaneously as social movements and party-list organizations. Their core constituencies include labour, peasant, urban poor, women’s organizations, and progressive professionals and middle-class elements. Akbayan has the most diverse grouping of left organizations, Sanlakas’ core political support is the trade union movement, while Bayan Muna was launched by the “national-democratic” left forces, the biggest organized left movement in the country.
26. The best known case of this new breed of elected local politicians is Mayor Jesse Robredo of Naga City in Southern Luzon, who received the Magsaysay award for public service. For the dynamics of his rise to power, see Takeshi Kawanaka, Power in a Philippine City (Chiba: Institute of Developing Economies and Japan External Trade Organization, 2002).
27. The established political clans continue to be dominant, particularly in the provinces with the highest human development indicators (income, health, and education). For instance, from 1946 to 1998, they continued to win and dominate congressional elections in 20 out of the 25 richest provinces. See Temario C. Rivera, “Political Clans and the Philippine State: A Rethinking” (Paper presented at Sophia University, Tokyo, 12 May 2001).
28. In a span of one year, between April 2001 and April 2002, Bayan Muna reported the killing of 17 co-ordinators and members, 6 abductions, and 64 cases of various kinds of human rights violations against its members in various parts of the country.