186 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy got activated. In much of the colonized, developing world, however, the process of democratization (as typified by the foundational system of elections after independence) oftentimes took place under conditions of contested national identities and the absence or weakness of functioning state institutions (Fukuyama 2004). In short, most developing countries including the Philippines had to undergo highly compressed, simultaneous challenges of nation-building, state-building, and democratization with oftentimes disastrous outcomes. But while this knowledge hopefully leads to a better understanding of the formidable challenges of these processes, it cannot also be made an excuse for perpetually dysfunctional systems that continue to be referred to as democracies. After all, the Philippines has the longest experience of elections and formal democratic processes in the region. It also had the most promising record of economic growth in Southeast Asia during the decade after World War II. More than six decades later, we have become the laggard in the region. What went wrong? The remaining chapters in this book examine various aspects of the democratization process, focusing on developments since 1986. In chapter two, I provide detailed historical and political evidence to argue that even on purely procedural grounds, the Philippines fails to qualify as a democratic regime. In chapter three, Ronas examines the concept of “horizontal accountability” as applied in the Philippine context and explains why the overly strong executive vis-à-vis the legislature and the judiciary has been an obstacle in the democratization process. Finally, in chapter four, Holmes discusses the “innate systemic limits” of civil society and the decentralization process and why these “have not really propelled the democratization process in the country”. In my chapter, I examine the applicability to the Philippine experience of the most widely used indicator employed by the procedure-oriented approaches to democracy to determine the presence of a democratic regime: “free, fair, and competitive elections”. While it is true that most procedural definitions of democracy include other key factors such as the guarantee of basic civil and political rights, the universality of the franchise, and civilian control over the military, I focus my analysis on the electoral process to dramatize the fact that even on the most minimal aspect of elections alone, the Philippines cannot qualify as a democratic regime.2 However, I also analyse the infirmities and dysfunctional operation of the party system in the country. By examining in detail the electoral processes and outcomes at the gubernatorial and congressional level from the 1987 to the 2010 elections,3 I provide concrete historical evidence showing that the Philippines fails to qualify as a democracy even from a mainly procedural definition of the concept.