The Never Ending Democratization of the Philippines 95 Senate Committee Report 743 dated November 11, 2009, the committee says: This is a story of how people in high places—the relatives of the most powerful men and women in government—took advantage of their relationships, either with their parents or spouse, to cajole the Executive into entering a national broadband contract that would obtain something our country does not need and which is manifestly disadvantageous to the Filipino people. It is about the war of the most powerful, most inuential and most organized syndicates in government, some members of which are public ofcers, who were at each other's throats because of an alleged double-cross. It is about the never-ending battle among the political elite for economic power, domination and control. (Senate Committee Report 743 November 11, 2009: 4). The disbursement of the legislators' development fund and the executive power over the execution of the expenditure program, as well as the ofcial development assistance, show how the powers of the executive could employ delegative authority. The challenge in these cases is how to make the executive accountable for this self-interested exercise of his powers. This challenge is exasperating in view of the fact that in 2001, the government with the support of civil society and the World Bank launched an action plan to combat corruption amid the optimism and hope for the new administration installed through EDSA 2 (“Combating Corruption in the Philippines: An Update” World Bank September 30, 2001). The anti-corruption action plan failed to stop the Fertilizer Scam and the NBN-ZTE scandal. The “Daang Matuwid” of the Aquino III administration also failed to stop the corrupt practices as regards the PDAF and DAP. Weak Horizontal Accountability and Dominant Delegative Authority: Their Negative Impact on Legitimacy and Performance This study believes that a democratic polity is not limited to “electoral democracy”. While this procedural conceptualization is widely accepted, the signicance of policy outcomes that improve the economic and social wellbeing of the people should be acknowledged as a vital element of the concept (Miranda 2011). In this context, the developmental role of the state should be geared towards improving the quality of life of the people. Sen calls this the “expansion of freedom”. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) calls it “human development”. The link between good governance and human development has long been recognized by the United Nations. Good governance has been a high priority of international nancial institutions. The World Bank, for example, has supported anti-corruption programs to help member-states to more efciently utilize development assistance. This is also a priority of donor countries like Japan, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. In the Philippines, the anti-corruption programs launched by both the government and civil society groups have not signicantly curbed the