250 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy, Second Edition legislation, vast appointment powers over the civilian and military-police bureaucracies, control over the budget process, immunity from suits, and the difculty of impeaching the president, among others. But why is an overly strong executive vis-à-vis the legislature and the judiciary a problem for democratic consolidation? One simple reasoning goes back to the dangers inherent in the exercise of power which is not restrained by institutional or legal means. If one combines this with an all too human predisposition to deploy power for selsh, private ends, then the risks that the substantial powers of the executive could be abused are certainly magnied. Can the extraordinary exercise of executive or delegative powers even to the point of sidestepping normal legal rules and procedures be justied in pursuit of a clear reform agenda for the common good? One problem with this approach is that it detracts from the more serious challenge of building and strengthening institutions that will last and survive the initiatives of any single willful leader. Thus, ironically a strong leader who decisively initiates a reform process by ignoring or defying established systems of horizontal accountability may end up further damaging institutions in the long run. However, a fuller understanding of the problem requires an examination of the cultural, institutional, and structural context of our presidential system. For instance, the political culture of the Philippines appears to be tolerant if not welcoming of authoritarian, strong leaders who promise decisive actions to urgent problems. This derives mainly from the weakness and failure of institutions but is also rooted in a long history of a polity deeply fractured in its geographical, cultural, and political moorings. In such a situation, it has been more compelling to look for solutions not in the painstaking process of building appropriate institutions but in the strong leader who promises quick salvation to persistent social ills. It is also a fact that the particular institutional arrangements of our presidential system provides the presidency with far greater powers vis-à-vis the other major branches of government, a status that can be easily abused without effective horizontal accountability. There is strong comparative empirical evidence that presidents who are much more powerful vis-à-vis their legislatures create problems of instability. One study by Shugart and Carey (1992: 148) shows that: Systems that score high on presidential powers, in particular those that are extreme on presidential legislative powers, are often those systems with the greatest trouble sustaining stable democracy. Systems that give presidents considerable powers over the composition of the cabinet but are also low on separation of survival of executive and assembly [legislature] powers belong to “troubled cases”. It is tempting to argue that we need strong, even authoritarian presidents who can ensure the efciency and coherence of policy outputs in the face of