144 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy organizing individuals and groups in communities; engaging in protests; lobbying; collaborating with political parties; monitoring elections; implementing community- or sector- focused developmental projects · liaising or obtaining support from foreign governments and international inter-governmental or international nongovernmental organizations for developmental projects; and · formation of coalitions or networks with other civil society groups for issue specific or broad/long term goals · · · · · · The definition and diagrams above also underscore civil society as an arena of contestation (Alagappa) among elements that originate from the other spheres and among the groups that are organized within civil society. In civil society, through processes of discussion or deliberation, the notions of what constitutes the public good—the political engagement of citizens; the limits to power of the state and the market; and the role of political society—are supposed to be freely and civilly discussed and consequently lead to collective action. As an inclusive arena of contestation, it is expected that civil society organizations will be divided along class, gender, ethnic, religious, and ideological lines. How these divisions are managed, especially when larger political goals are at stake or more powerful social forces are confronted, will determine the effectiveness of civil society in pursuing its ends, or for the purpose of this assessment, furthering democratization. Measures of robustness Estimates of the number of civil society organizations (CSOs) in the Philippines go as high as 500,000 (Cariño 2001) (Tuano in Yu-Jose 2011). Though this number may indicate the robustness of civil society, there is a need to qualify how deeply rooted the groups within the sphere are by checking just how many people have formally associated with these groups as members. Though many organizations have membership counts, it is hard to estimate just how many have formally joined and remain actively participating in these organizations. In a survey done by Pulse Asia Inc. in October 2010, less than 5% of Filipinos were reported to be members in a socio-civic organization. (See Table 1).With a projected population of 94 million (National Statistics Office 2011) in 2010, this figure translates to around 4.7 million Filipinos reported as members of a range of civil society organizations.