64 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy Table 6: Region with Smallest Number of Political Families Region Number of Regional Political Mean Families CAR (Cordillera Administrative Region) Abra Apayao Benguet Ifugao Kalinga Mt. Province 5 Human Major Political Families Development Index Rank (2006) 0.83 2 1 1 0 0 1 24 64 1 45 65 48 Valera, Bersamin Bulut Cosalan Dominguez Out of the 77 provinces examined, only five ( Ifugao, Kalinga, Nueva Vizcaya, Catanduanes, and Eastern Samar) had no dominant political families as defined in this study (see Table 7). These provinces with no political families share two things in common: single congressional districts and low HDI rankings, except for Nueva Vizcaya which showed a high HDI. Catanduanes, Kalinga and Eastern Samar are in the bottom 20 of the provincial HDI rankings while Ifugao is in the lower third of the list. Moreover, Kalinga used to be part of the old province of Kalinga-Apayao and started electing its own set of officials only in 1998. Table 7: Provinces with No Dominant Political Family, 1987-2010 HDI Rank 2006 1.Nueva Vizcaya 2.Ifugao 3.Catanduanes 4.Kalinga 5.Eastern Samar 9 45 59 65 70 No. of Congressional Districts 1 1 1 1 1 The poorer economic status of these provinces, except for Nueva Vizcaya, suggest that the local elites may have less resources and capabilities to expand their power bases and enable their family to win the peak electoral positions. Interestingly, in all of these provinces there have emerged strong individual politicians who have served at least three terms as governor or representative, laying the foundations for the possible rise of new dominant political families. On the whole, provinces with better income, health and education indicators (HDI) show a higher number of political families. Thus, the top 20