The Never Ending Democratization of the Philippines
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phone calls, different groups, civic, business and religious, converged at EDSA
protesting the prejudgment by the Senate and calling for the ouster of Estrada.
After days of demonstrations at EDSA, the military again intervened and
“withdrew its support” for the administration.
The impeachment complaint against President Arroyo also dramatized
the inability of the impeachment process to make the President accountable.
In the first impeachment complaint, she was accused of cheating in the 2004
elections. The evidence was the infamous “Hello Garci” tape where the
President allegedly asked “Garci”, Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano of the
Commission of Elections, if she could lead her closest rival in the Presidential
election by one million votes. The conversation was supposed to prove that
President Arroyo manipulated the outcome of the elections.
Again, the civic, business and religious groups demonstrated their disgust
and called for her resignation. Even the icons of “People Power”—Corazon
Aquino and Cardinal Sin—lent their influential voices against President
Arroyo. But their call for resignation went unheeded. Moreover, her coalition
among the members of the House of Representatives, led by Speaker De
Venecia, threw out the complaint by rejecting the tape as illegally obtained and
hence, inadmissible as evidence. The call for her resignation from civil society
groups continued. Again, in 2006, a faction of the military intervened. Elite
units from the Marines and the Scout Rangers Regiment planned to join the
march to the EDSA Shrine and announce their “withdrawal of support” from
President Arroyo. The group was apparently expecting the surge of civilian
support to their cause, reminiscent of EDSA 1 and 2. But the National Capital
Region Command of the Armed Forces and the National Police confined them
to quarters, and prevented their civilian supporters from converging at the
EDSA Shrine through the dispersal of the marchers and the warrantless arrests
of their leaders. This was justified by the government by declaring a state of
emergency. No impeachment complaint against President Arroyo ever
prospered because of her solid support from the majority of the members of the
House of Representatives.
Weak Horizontal Accountability and Dominant Delegative Authority: Their
Negative Impact on Legitimacy and Performance
This study believes that a democratic polity is not limited to “electoral
democracy”. While this conceptualization is widely accepted, the significance
of policy outcomes which improve the economic and social well-being of the
people should be acknowledged as a vital element of the concept (Miranda
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