Political Socialization in the Philippines: Learning about Democracy 229 In the last election, there was enthusiastic support for the presidential candidate who voiced authoritarian tendencies and the acceptance of a vicepresidential candidate who was unapologetic about his family's dictatorial past. Are these indicative of a shift in perspective and a weakening of support for democracy? It should be noted, that in the 1976 adolescent survey by Sicat, there was a fairly high, 75 percent, support for the authoritarian martial law government which was then perceived by the young as a positive replacement for the "bad" political system prior to martial law. That was understandable, of course, in the context of the recent declaration of martial law at that time and the suppression of all negative information about the new regime. And yet all these examples only strengthen Miranda's earlier case for the misrepresentation of democracy in the Philippines. It should be pointed out, however, that in none of the surveys conducted by the Social Weather Station or Pulse Asia did the researchers look into how Filipinos truly understand democracy or probed into the values and practices associated with it. A small exploratory survey of young Filipino citizens found some indications of authoritarian inclinations among today's college students (Gastardo-Conaco & Quiñones, 2015, in press). In this survey, the following question was asked: "In a democratic country, do elected political leaders have the right to utilize the following means to ensure respect of the law?" The responses to this question and their degree of support among the respondents were: Ÿ urging people to obey laws (98.7 %) Ÿ threatening people with punishment in case laws were not obeyed (66.7%) Ÿ using the police force to enforce the laws (80.8%) Ÿ punishing people who do not obey the laws (84.6%) Urging people to obey laws may be acceptable but supporting threats, force and punishment are rather heavy-handed and could possibly lead to outcomes like the Kidapawan massacre and other similar examples of state violence. A sizeable proportion of the respondents also expressed dissatisfaction with the way government works in our country (85.9%). And while 70 percent were in agreement that their "participation as a Filipino citizen can help bring positive changes in our country," only 38.5 percent registered to vote in the next election. In addition, they admitted that they rarely do active seeking of information about current social events (79.5%), do little or never participate in discussions about current social events (84.6%), rarely or never participate in political rallies (91%). As in the earlier studies cited, however, no explicit questions were asked about respondents' understanding of "democracy" or "a democratic political system" and researchers assumed that answers provided would give us an idea of how people understood democracy. But what do Filipinos truly understand of the meaning of democracy?