196 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy Another lingering outcome of both the dictatorship and the transition process has been a politicized military. For obvious reasons, no process of democratization can proceed if the military continues to defy legitimate civilian authority. But its politicization as an institution does not take place independently of its relations with civilian authorities. In short, military (and police) tendencies towards politicization are usually driven by perceptions about the illegitimacy and continuing incompetence of civilian leaders. Moreover, civilian machinations for the pursuit of power and wealth also enlist military allies, further politicizing the institution. Not surprisingly, the most dangerous displays of military rebelliousness during the transition process also took place during the administration of civilian leaders seen as illegitimate and corrupt. Thus, the long term response to the dangers of a politicized military lies not so much in reforms within the institution, although these are important, as in reforms in the civilian institutions that direct and legitimize the military's activities. A major failing of the transition process has been its inability to improve the process of electoral governance in the country. Both procedural and substantive approaches to democracy agree that credible electoral exercises are necessary conditions for the initiation and maintenance of democratic regimes. But as discussed above, elections continue to suffer from endemic violence and fraudulent manipulations. Moreover, free and fair elections cannot be assured as long as many areas of the country remain as arenas of armed conflict and significant numbers of voters are in effect disenfranchised by their poverty and vulnerability to elite manipulation and coercion. One clear focus of reforms in electoral governance must be the Comelec, the constitutional body that enforces and oversees all laws and policies related to the conduct of elections. For much of its disreputable history, no less than Comelec heads and commissioners have been directly implicated in the rigging of elections. To address this problem, a systematic campaign to strengthen both the organizational competence and institutional autonomy of the Comelec is required. Needless to say, the culture of impunity in this institution as in many other government agencies must also come to an end. As a whole, we believe we have conducted a rigorous critique of the key concept and practice of democracy and offered an alternative reconceptualization that is analytically sharper and more politically relevant for our community. For a number of reasons, we stress that we have not had any successful transition to a democratic regime or that we are now living in a democracy. We have failed to meet even the minimum conditions of a procedural democracy: free and fair elections. We have failed to show any