84 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy, Second Edition and cooperation of their elected representatives and (2) their involvement in politically active civil society groups. As a system of governance, it demonstrably promotes—however slowly or gradually and 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 2011:2). The concept “democratization” is associated with the dismantling of an authoritarian regime and its adoption of democratic political structures. This concept refers to the transition of an authoritarian regime into a “consolidated democracy”. The process of democratization is facilitated or hindered by many factors, as mentioned above. In this study, the focus is the constitutional structure of the presidential form government, in particular the “species” of presidential government called “delegative democracy” (O'Donnell in Diamond and Plattner 1996: 94-110). This kind of democratization “rests on the premise that whoever wins the election to the presidency is thereby entitled to govern as he or she sees t, constrained only by hard facts of existing power relations and by a constitutionally limited term of ofce” (O'Donnell Ibid.). What is common among these democratizing polities is that their transition appears to have been halted, and worse, they appear to be stuck in that condition with little prospect of attaining the status of substantive democracy. “Democratic consolidation” is the culmination of the process of democratic transition. These are the established democracies of Western Europe and North America. Representation and accountability characterize consolidated democracies, i.e., the elected ofcials are accountable to the electorate through periodic elections and are also accountable to other state agencies for their indiscretions while in ofce. O'Donnell calls these as “vertical” and “horizontal” accountability. These two accountabilities are well-established in consolidated democracies or representative democracies. In the Philippine context, democratic consolidation could be indicated, from the perspective of this study, by the following benchmarks: a Congress and Supreme Court and other constitutional bodies that can truly check the president's employment of delegative authority, and most importantly by legitimacy and performance, i.e. poverty alleviation and economic development. These are more demanding standards when compared to the minimalist view of two or three constitutional transfers of power under the procedural notion of democracy (Thompson 1996: 13). Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stefan, offering another denition of consolidated democracy, hold that: “if there is a functioning state, ve other interconnected and mutually reinforcing conditions must also exist or be crafted for a democracy to be consolidated” (Linz and Stefan 1996: 7). These are: “The conditions must exist for the development of a free and lively civil society; there must be a relatively autonomous and valued political society; there must be a rule of law to ensure legal guarantees for citizens' freedoms and independent