xiv Preface resourcefully, decisively work to change history for the better. Truth-seeking, truth-saying and truth-acting are categorical imperatives for those seriously interested in initiating, nurturing and sustaining democratic governance in the Philippines. Nothing else will do. A final note has to be sounded. The authors express their sincere thanks to two enlightened and enlightening agencies that made possible the conduct of this challenging study: the Philippine Commission on Human Rights that refuses a merely ornamental role in governance and thus often is at odds with politically powerful agencies in the country and the United Nations Development Program-Philippines. Both institutions have not only paid lip service to elusive democracy and problematic democratic initiatives in the Philippines; in providing the grant for this project, they have fully and actively supported critical academic studies focusing on wherefores and the historical course of Philippine democratization. The Philippine Social Science Council is another progressive institution the authors would like to acknowledge for its exemplary assistance in the administrative management of the present project. It is probably indicative of the times that venerable institutions like the United Nations and the World Bank as well as other reputable international and national agencies, now explicitly include democratic governance, human rights and comprehensive human development in their critical program thrusts. Indeed when traditionally conservative, politically cautious institutions like these openly involve themselves in sensitive issues of global as well as national democratic governance, one may remark as a prescient French democrat did over a hundred fifty years ago: “Mightier than the tread of marching armies is the power of an idea whose time has come.” That idea indubitably is democracy.