160 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy instance when a popularly elected president was already being subjected to a trial that was openly broadcast and widely monitored by the public. Had the trial been completed and then President Joseph Estrada convicted of the charges leveled against him, then this would have really sealed the people's confidence in a constitutional process of securing the accountability of the highest Executive official. If the trial acquitted then President Estrada amidst allegations that the process was being manipulated by a majority of Senators allied with the President, then a subsequent people power mobilization may have been much more justified. However, the people power mobilization came as a result of a decision of the Senate majority to reject the opening of an envelope believed to have contained incontrovertible evidence linking Estrada to a fictitious bank account. When the Senate minority and the prosecutors walked out of the trial, with some senators reacting hysterically as regards their peers' decision, the incident just snowballed into several days of “people power” mobilization. An equally important question as regards EDSA Dos is whether the event exerted a critical or in the words of Tilly (2004), an independent influence on the outcome? Was it people power that determined the ouster of former President Estrada or was it a collusion among powerful groups that had from the very beginning been opposed to his presidency? Disjoint between leaders and constituents The other dilemma that the definition of divisions within civil society captures is the link between civil society leaders and their constituents. Though we would grant that CSOs have a sizeable mass base, albeit divided across hundreds of thousands of organizations, putting people empowerment and leadership change at both ends of one axis, portrays yet another false dilemma. Though one could not discount the need to form a new and much more progressive and upright pool of leaders, CSOs must not succumb to the delusions that traditional political leaders suffer from, a disdain for participation, an unhealthy regard of their worth as leaders, or a messianic complex. To a great extent, the choice between leaders versus empowered citizens, and even between engaging or withdrawing from state interventions, departs from the view that pursuing reforms is like cooking the Filipino rice cake (bibingka), which requires an even or calibrated amount of heat from the top and the bottom.9 Mobilizing a broader constituency requires CSOs to reflect on the reasons for the unwillingness of the public, in general, to engage in politics beyond participation in elections, or to associate themselves with social organizations