26 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy deficits of Philippine governance across the years. All Human Development Reports (HDR), whether it be the global study annually published by the United Nations Development Program or the nationally-focused Philippine Human Development Report (PHDR) of the collaborating Human Development Network, show little progress when critically read. Across the decades, the national economy has grown mostly unimpressively in comparison with its more dynamic vicinal states. Furthermore and much more critically, this growth has not been attended by sufficient improvements in the living conditions of most Filipinos whether one considers the decades-long patterns of income distribution or people's access to health services, education and even basic nutrition.3 Poverty incidence has remained quite high and improvements suggested by proportional analysis cannot conceal the fact that the absolute number of poor people had markedly increased in the country. Thus a sense of systemic neglect, of numerous inequities and social injustice is shared by many who have been vulnerable to recruitment in destabilizing armed rebellions (HDN 2002; HDN 2005; HDN 2009). The persistence of Muslim and communist rebellions in the country marking both as among the most enduring insurgencies worldwide, together with periodic coup attempts by disgruntled military elements, testify to the high level of resentment smoldering among many Filipinos. Poverty and inequality, ethnic conflict and an increasingly resentful sense of being left grossly behind even as economies grow are among the reasons identified for why even democracies already in place fail (Kapustin and Converse 2000:60-67). In polities where democracy has not yet established a secure foothold in the body politic, these factors invariably prevent democracy from gaining even the most marginal toehold. The 2002 PHDR, identifying a core reason for the country's problematic economic growth, underscores the political factor but makes its point using low key language The 2002 report restrainedly notes that: As a final reason for the instability and low level of Philippine growth, one must point to the historical instability of the political process itself. Objectively speaking, formal political processes in the Philippines have been periodically challenged and subverted, for both good reasons and bad. The sources of instability have run the gamut from the usurpation of power by Marcos, to threats of armed rebellion, coups d'état, and, yes, even the two or three EDSAs. Such instances are found to be a powerful discouragement to both domestic and foreign investments since they often raise the prospect of wholesale changes in laws, policies and even individual contracts. At bottom, however, the record of large scale change in the Philippines must be traced to the failure of normal political institutions to accommodate and address what are deemed by significant sectors of the population to be fundamental inequities and injustices. It is this basic institutional failure that gives rise to attempts at redress that are extra-constitutional, at times even violent (HDN 2002:13).