76 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy no links to parties” (2002: 292). In the Philippine presidential system, the nationwide electoral mandate enjoyed by the Senate further complicates the problems of representation and governmental efficiency. In presidential systems, there is an inherent tension between national and particularistic representation, with the executive generally addressing broader national policy matters and the legislature usually tied down to parochial district interests (Shugart and Carey 1992). One institutional response to this tension has been the practice of endowing the executive with significant legislative and related powers vis-à-vis the legislature. In the absence of a strong and stable party system, this is a convenient mechanism to address the competing demands of governmental efficiency and representation but is also fraught with a lot of problems. The key problem lies in how to check the overly strong powers of the presidency once the executive is allowed to act as the surrogate legislator to solve the problems of collective action embedded in the naturally particularistic legislature. It is in this context that the role of a well-institutionalized and stable party system can best be appreciated as an important mediating and aggregating mechanism for the competing demands of district interests and national policy concerns. Without this important institutional mechanism of a party mediating between the president and the legislature and local officials and also attending to intra-party affairs, presidential powers become heightened and prone to abuse. One major rule that has had a direct bearing on the party system since 1987 concerns the one-term limit imposed on the presidency. A one-term rule can weaken the president's incentive to strengthen parties because the sanctioning or disciplining effect of prospective elections is lost. In short, if the incumbent president is not qualified for reelection, the same official faces no strong pressure to strengthen the party to win prospective elections.31 Moreover, a one-term rule for the presidency lowers the entry barrier for prospective candidates for the next round of elections resulting in the proliferation of candidates and their ephemeral parties (Kasuya 2009). This has been validated by the big number of presidential candidates in every presidential election since 1992: 7 candidates in 1992; 10 in 1998; 5 in 2004; and 9 in 2010; or an average of 8 candidates during the last four presidential elections. Each presidential candidate not affiliated with any of the established parties normally creates a new party just for the election contest and which disappears with the defeat of the candidate.