Local Governments, Civil Society, Democratization, and Development 113 also equally far-reaching, with a number of interventions extending beyond addressing community or local concerns. Typically, the CSO propagators of such initiatives were conscious to link these activities with larger local, national, and even global issues. Steeped in the tradition of protests, civil society groups retained the capacity to mobilize people on occasions when such mobilizations were needed, be it at the community, local, or national level. The more signicant protests that have shown the power of civil society groups in the past 30 years include the sustained mobilizations against the retention of the US Bases (Carranza 2002), the mobilization against constitutional change in 1997, the popular uprising that led to a change of leadership in 2001, and recently, the relatively more spontaneous uproar against a new pork barrel scandal in mid 2013. In the area of legislation, a number of laws have been signicantly inuenced by CSOs, such as the Urban Development and Housing Act (Republic Act 7279) (Shaktin 1999) (Covey 1994), the Anti-Rape Law (Republic Act 8353) (Reyes in Wui and Lopez 1997), the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (Republic Act 8371), the repeal of Presidential Decree 772 or the Anti-Squatting Law, the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act (Republic Act 9344), the extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (Republic Act 9700) (Pakisama 2010) (Bello 2010), the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012 (Republic Act No. 10354), and the Excise (Sin) Tax reform (Sidel 2014). On the other hand, despite equally, if not more extensive and sustained campaigns, civil society groups fell short in pressuring the state, specically Congress, in passing their own version of a statute that was directed at more signicant asset/land redistribution, such as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (Republic Act 6657) (Wui and Lopez 1997) and the Freedom of Information Act. Aside from lobbying for the passage (or to block the passage) of bills, CSOs have also intervened in the Lower House of Congress to secure the accountability of ofcials of constitutional ofces and those that could only be removed by way of impeachment. As regards impeachment cases, the record of civil society groups has been less than sterling. Impeachment cases led by civil society leaders and groups through members of Congress during the previous Arroyo administration against the former President herself, Comelec Chairperson Benjamin Abalos, and Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, were frustrated by the allies of these impeachable ofcials in Congress. Beyond lobbying efforts in Congress to pass or derail the passage of statutes, civil society groups have also intervened in other branches including the executive and the judiciary. Civil society groups have tried to inuence the executive in a variety of ways and these include the participation of CSO leaders in multisectoral meetings or summits,4 formal and informal meetings with the Chief Executive, cabinet secretaries, or a presidential adviser to lobby for specic provisions in a statute's Implementing Rules and Regulations or