258 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy, Second Edition Problems of horizontal accountability and its most dramatic manifestation--that of a “delegative democracy”--- where presidential power is weakly checked by other state institutions, is best addressed by strengthening other state institutions and ensuring their relative independence. As O'Donnell puts it: “Effective horizontal accountability is not the product of isolated agencies, but of networks of agencies (up to and including high courts) committed to upholding the rule of law.” (1998: 119.) Aside from strengthening the legislature and the courts vis-à-vis the presidency, accountability processes in the country will gain from enhancing the institutional capabilities and independence of other constitutional bodies such as the Commission on Audit, the Civil Service Commission, the Commission on Elections, the Ofce of the Ombudsman, and also the Commission on Human Rights. Finally, in the Philippine context, the lack of a strong party tradition, the oligarchic domination of elections by a few powerful families, and even the political culture that has been generally accepting of patriarchal and authoritarian values have all contributed to weak accountability mechanisms. The Way Forward In countries such as the Philippines with long histories of poor economic performance, unresolved armed conict, weak political institutions and the rule of law, it is not unusual that the process of change and reform has been ignited by the emergence of strong, authoritarian leaders usually backed up by the military and a political party. Such a tumultuous process of change has generally taken place in the context of a revolution, a military confrontation with an external enemy, or a bloody civil war. Indeed, our own history has incarnated various aspects of these cataclysms and yet our political birthing also features an unsettling legacy of aborted revolutions, failed reforms, and compromised leaderships. To paraphrase Marx, is this tradition weighing like a nightmare on our present history? For all its failings and weaknesses already well discussed in this book, our political system, however, also features long established formal institutions and practices associated with democratic rule such as elections, formal civil and political rights, and the presidential system of institutional checks and balances. The presence of these institutions has not precluded the emergence of authoritarian-dictatorial leaders such as Marcos but claims to political legitimacy by various actors and parties still need to be worked out within these institutions, short of a successful revolutionary rupture with the past. We know from various survey results that our people prefer a democracy to any other system even while there is no consensus on how democracy is understood beyond the recognition of our basic civil and political rights. Through the contributions of various authors in this book, we hope that we have provided a clearer understanding of democratic political systems and how we can improve the functioning of existing political institutions to further enhance the democratization process in our country. To sum up, we highlight at