46 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy, Second Edition vulnerability to elite manipulation and coercion. One clear focus of reforms in electoral governance must be the Comelec, the constitutional body that oversees and implements 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, systematic measures to strengthen both the organizational competence and institutional autonomy of the Comelec are required. Needless to say, the culture of impunity in this institution as in many other government agencies must also come to an end. A Working Denition of Democracy In our review of the vast and contested literature on the concept of democracy, we adopt a well-established denition by Schmitter and Karl (2009:4) but add two essential components: 1) a system of making authorities publicly accountable through the involvement of citizens not only in electoral processes but also through “politically active civil society groups”; and 2) a criterion for regime performance in which a democratic system must show a capability for achieving a “progressively human quality of life for its citizens within fty years of a regime's formal democratic initiation”. Modifying the denition originally drawn from Schmitter and Karl, the working denition of democracy used in this book as articulated by Miranda reads as follows (2011: 2). Modern political democracy is a system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives [original denition by Schmitter and Karl] and their involvement in politically active civil society groups. As a system of governance, it demonstrably promotes---however slowly or gradually, even allowing for occasional, temporary reverses---a progressively human quality of life for its citizens within fty years of a regime's formal democratic initiation. [Miranda's modication in italicized text]. The working denition of democracy used in this project addresses two important weaknesses that have beset traditional denitions of democracy. First, by providing a criterion for regime performance, our denition departs from a mainly procedural understanding of democracy that privileges the existence of free and competitive elections and related processes as the necessary and sufcient conditions of a democratic system. As Miranda stresses: “If sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority derives from them, it would be absurd to classify a regime as democratic where the material and other conditions of human life do not improve or at least do not markedly worsen with time”(2011:17-18). Thus, if certain outcomes and practices such as the rule of law and the quality of human development are intrinsic to the survival and reproduction of the democratic process, it is