110 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy, Second Edition 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. In working towards facilitating democratization, civil society groups are expected to mobilize individuals and collectivities to expand the space for political participation and push for redistributive reform. The strategies that civil society organizations (CSOs) employ meeting these ends vary. At the base of these strategies is the process of organizing individuals in communities or sectors. From this base of organization, civil society groups may engage in protests; lobby for policies; implement community or sector focused development projects independent of or in collaboration with local/national government agencies and international development organizations; and organize election oriented parties. In all these strategies, the numbers of individuals and groups that constitute civil society determine its inuence. Measures of robustness and the limits of bonding organizations 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). In a more recent volume, Clarke (2013) placed the number of CSOs at 124,506, broken down as follows: Table 1. Registered CSOs in the Philippines, 2007 Type Non-stock corpora ons (NSCs) Trade unions Coopera ves Housing associa ons Poli cal par es Organiza ons created by an Act of Congress TOTAL Total 81,436 14,489 19,939 8,534 103 5 124,506 Source: Clarke (2013). Data from the Securi es and Exchange Commission, the Department of Labor and Employment, the Coopera ves Development Authority, the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board, the Commission on Elec ons and legisla ve establishing organiza ons. Though these gures 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 a number of 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 2). With a projected population of 94 million (National Statistics Ofce