192 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy nature of many civil society groups; their limited mass base; intra-civil society differences along ideological lines and differing orientations on people empowerment and engaging the state. At the heart of these problems are two interlinked issues: the nature of civil society and how it is demarcated from the state or the public sphere; and the relationship between civil society and the state. It should come as no surprise that in democratic or democratizing societies, the universe of voluntary organizations that make up civil society are by nature plural and particularistic: plural because these are voluntary organizations with diverse interests, identities, and political-ideological orientations and particularistic because these are primarily propelled by the interests and identities of the groups themselves. In the Philippines, the struggle against the authoritarian rule of Marcos spurred the emergence of a critical mass of politicized civil society organizations committed to an agenda of reforms and radical changes in power relationships. However, given the inherent pluralism and particularism of these groups it is unrealistic to expect a common and stable form of political engagement with the state or to people empowerment. Moreover, even the most politically active of civil society groups cannot replace the government unless they transform themselves into a political movement or party that systematically seeks to win state power. If there is no such open challenge, then the more realistic option is for civil society to clearly delineate “much clearer criteria . . . for entry into and support for state programs” or risk being “absorbed by and constituted on the basis of clientelist and semi-clientelist relations” (Reid 2008 as cited by Holmes). Notwithstanding its own weaknesses and limitations, Philippine civil society groups, as pointed out by Holmes, do have a significant record of reform advocacy and have played major roles in the initiation and passage of key legislation such as the Urban Development and Housing Act, the Anti-Rape Law, the Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act, the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, and others. Given their extraordinary diversity and oftentimes conflicting priorities and contradictory goals, civil society can maximize their collective action through what may be considered as their “overlapping consensus”5 on specific issues that enhance developmental and democratization goals. This “overlapping consensus” also makes possible the formation of reform coalitions between civil society and government actors as articulated by Ronas in his chapter. Decentralization is another process that has been seen by many policymakers as a “magic ingredient” for democratization. But as a contested political