The Never Ending Democratization of the Philippines 105 What is common among these democratizing polities is that their transition appears to have been halted, and worse, they appear to be stuck in that condition with little prospect of attaining the status of substantive democracy. “Democratic consolidation” is the culmination of the process of democratic transition. These are the established democracies of Western Europe and North America. Representation and accountability characterize consolidated democracies, i.e., the elected officials are accountable to the electorate through periodic elections and are also accountable to other state agencies for their indiscretions while in office. O'Donnell calls these as “vertical” and “horizontal” accountability. These two accountabilities are wellestablished in consolidated democracies or representative democracies. In the Philippine context, democratic consolidation could be indicated, from the perspective of this study, by the following benchmarks: a Congress and Supreme Court and other constitutional bodies that can truly check the President's employment of delegative authority, and most importantly by legitimacy and performance, i.e. poverty alleviation and economic development. These are more demanding standards when compared to the minimalist view of two or three constitutional transfers of power under the procedural notion of democracy (Thompson 1996: 13). Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stefan, offering another definition of consolidated democracy, hold that: “if there is a functioning state, five other interconnected and mutually reinforcing conditions must also exist or be crafted for a democracy to be consolidated” (Linz and Stefan 1996: 7). These are: “The conditions must exist for the development of a free and lively civil society; there must be a relatively autonomous and valued political society; there must be a rule of law to ensure legal guarantees for citizens' freedoms and independent associational life; there must be a state bureaucracy that is usable by the new democratic government, and there must be an institutionalized economic society” (Linz and Stefan Ibid.: 7). The absence or weakness of accountability among delegative democracies is primarily due to the stronger power of the President relative to the powers of the legislature and the judiciary (Jurgen Puhle 2005: 12). The powerful President could erode the capability of the legislature and the judiciary to control the President and punish him or her in case of abuse of power. Answerability is the common understanding of accountability (Arugay 2005: 64-65, see also Philippine Human Development Report 2008/2009.) However, the executive also needs to be transparent, another aspect of accountability, to enable the legislature and the judiciary to make the executive answerable and