28 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy A "culture of impunity" is widely acknowledged to overwhelm the country with some regularity (Freedom World 2010). This negative perception is inferable from the perennially poor performance of the Philippines in comparative corruption measures used by the Transparency International (Transparency International 2010), the dubious distinction of being among the world's leading violators of human rights specifically in the case of terminal violence victimizing conscientious journalists, activist community organizers and, in November 2009, even ordinary voters out to register candidates opposing a Maguindanao dynastic politician and his family (Amnesty International 2011; [US]State Department 2010; Freedom World 2010; [UN] Human Rights Council 2008; McIndoe 2009), the persistent inability to rise from Freedom World's ranks of the world's "partially free" nations to those of the "free" (Freedom World 2010) and the grim prospect of becoming a failed state as the country merits a warning from the Fund for Peace's 2011 Failed State Index (Fund for Peace 2011). All of these glaring national deficiencies, sustained over a relatively long period of time, militate against a reasonable description of the Philippines as a democratic polity, or a non-democratic but nevertheless seriously democratizing country. Beyond the weak, even fragile governance institutions and political processes that democracies require in order to operate, the persisting armed challenges to the constitutional order, the relatively poor economic performance and historically problematic inequities, the long demonstrated inability at effecting the delivery of basic services in transport, public safety, health, nutrition and education—indeed a long list suggesting subpar performance in modern governance—another blatant indicator of governance failure in the Philippines cannot be missed: the great number of Filipinos daily leaving their country and trying to find gainful employment abroad. Roughly one out of ten Filipinos now regularly vote with their feet in seeking a livelihood that their system of governance has failed to provide for at least the past three decades. Scattered in all parts of the world, overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have been the single most effective buffer keeping the economy of their country afloat. Contributing as much as 10% of the Philippine GNP, they are decisively critical in enabling the nation's real estate and the much bigger final consumer market to survive, most particularly in these times of global economic and financial crises. Not only do OFWs bring in much needed revenue, they also ease the unemployment pressure that increasingly stresses the economy much. The education market too, particularly at the tertiary level, probably is as much indebted for its survival to OFW remittances as the real estate market. Neither would do well without millions of Filipinos leaving their country, finding jobs abroad, sending home a big portion of their foreign earnings and investing much in housing and education.