106 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy controllable. As Philippe C. Schmitter says, “Horizontal accountability is a matter of interaction, not between rulers and ruled, but between the arms and branches of the regime and state acting according to preset constitutional or legal rules” (Schmitter 2004: 53). Outside the executive-legislative-judicial nexus, horizontal accountability is also served through the constitutional bodies, e.g., Commission on Audit, the Ombudsman, Commission on Human Rights and Civil Service Commission (Schmitter Ibid.: 53). The inability of these bodies to control or make the executive answerable for abusing his powers is what the weakness of “horizontal accountability” means. In case of an “executive coup”, the President assumes unlimited power for life, which makes him unaccountable to the electorate regarding his term office and program of government. This is what the absence or weakness of “vertical accountability” means. Effective horizontal accountability is not the product of isolated agencies but of a network of agencies (up to and including high courts) committed to upholding the rule of law (O'Donnell 1998: 119). It may even involve civil society if we accept the possibility of Schmitter's “oblique accountability”. As earlier noted, accountability is often associated with answerability for violations of law. In this study, the transparency and controllability aspects of accountability are emphasized rather than its answerability aspect. These are what could be considered the preventive rather than the punitive elements of accountability. In a Presidential system where horizontal accountability is weak, the executive is uncontrollable and unanswerable. When the vast powers of his office are employed for self-interest, the so-called checks on the executive are not able to stop it. This employment of power is called “delegative authority”. Guillermo O'Donnell defines it as: For those who hold political authority that I call “delegative”, the republican notion of restraint is counterintuitive. Why recognize power other than one's own when one is striving for the public good? Why not help your self, your relatives, and your associates while in office, if at the same time (at least notionally) you are aiming at some aspect of the public good? (O'Donnell Ibid. 118). Moreover, his immunity from suits and the rigid impeachment process make him virtually above the law. With this near guarantee of executive immunity, the President has tended to abuse his powers. The economic and social programs of government have suffered as a result of clientelism and corruption engendered by weak horizontal accountability. The policies of a democratic polity, where horizontal accountability is effective should be for the public good. The policy outcomes should lead to the “expansion of freedom”,