78 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy, Second Edition The Stalled Democratization The main problem of this research is to understand why the democratization since 1986 under the formally democratic, presidential form of government in the Philippines has been stalled and has not transformed into a substantive, much less a consolidated democracy. The nearly successful coup d'état of 1989, extra-constitutional transfer of power in 2001, the Oakwood mutiny in 2003, the insubordination of the Marines at Fort Bonifacio and the Scout Rangers in the attempted military withdrawal of support in 2006, the “rebellion” at the Peninsula Hotel in 2007, and the extra-constitutional proposal by the former defense secretary of the Arroyo administration in 2015 for President Aquino III and his cabinet to resign and be replaced by a so-called National Transition Council, show that the elected civilian government has remained vulnerable to military and extra-legal challenges. Moreover, during the campaign season of the periodic national elections, the uncertainty of the electoral process is heightened by the dissemination by mass media from unveried sources of the “Noel” or “Noproc” scenarios. “Noel” is the abbreviation for no election or failure of election, while “Noproc” is the abbreviation for no proclamation of winning candidates. Both scenarios picture the conspiratorial political coalition in power as being out to abort the scheduled election and prolong its stay in power. In 2004, the widely believed rigging of the canvassing of votes in the Presidential election seriously jeopardized the legitimacy of the electoral process. The results of the 2010 elections were generally accepted although questions were raised about credibility of the automated elections. These threats of military intervention and the skepticism about the certainty and legitimacy of elections are symptomatic of the fragile transition of our political system. Added to these are the two longest unresolved direct challenges to the Philippine government: the Communist insurgency and the Moro secessionist movement. The literature on the comparative experiences with democratization of developing countries identies 12 factors that either facilitate or obstruct democratic consolidation (Diamond, Linz and Lipset 1995: 1-66). These factors range from the economic, political, and social structures to the political leadership of a country. Specically, among these factors, are: legitimacy and performance, political parties, political culture, social structure and socioeconomic development, socioeconomic inequality, constitutional structure and civil society. The process is complex as there are no acknowledged deterministic patterns for democratization. There are observed commonalities among consolidated democracies that are instructive. But these are not easily replicated because each democratizing state evolves its own path toward a consolidated democracy. The focus of this research is on the constitutional structure of the Philippines. In particular it looks at the formal political rules, the country's constitutional framework, and its actual practice, in the last 30 years. This period covers the ouster of the Marcos authoritarian regime in 1986 up to the