Who – or what – governs Filipinos?

Governance is the process by which a community decides who gets what, where, when and how and – more vitally – how it enforces its decisions with a good probability that community members will abide by them. Where there is effective governance, a government policy covering the entire nation or one applying locally to its smallest political unit – the barangay - has a good chance of public compliance.

It is crystal clear that hardly any governance exists in this country. There is an institution called government and there are others that are supposed to be institutions of governance such as Congress, the Executive and the Judiciary. There are even several constitutionally mandated institutions like the Civil Service Commission, the Commission on Elections and the Commission on Audit. Furthermore, there is a whole complement of agencies – from the Armed Forces of the Philippines to the Philippine National Police, to the National Bureau of Investigation down to the Barangay Tanods – which purportedly enforce governance policies. Yet, the history of this country in the last fifty years shows that whenever there has been a test of institutionalized governance, no institution has worked the way it has been designed to perform.

None of our much vaunted institutions has secured this nation against plunderers nor their parasitical cronies, much less those with a mind to rape the body politic via elections conducted through fraud, violence and all the irregularities an omnibus election code bothers to enumerate. None of these institutional arrangements – so impressively filling up organizational charts with their numerous multitiered and arrow-linked boxes – has managed to prevent predators from looting the national coffers nor has any of them exacted the proper retribution for crimes against this nation and its ever-fledgling "democracy". Unlawful lawyers discombobulate the law and futures-oriented judges, even justices who are supposed to be of a superior mettle, oblige and justice has no recourse but to await the pleasure of a languid judiciary. (Every now and then, when scandalous judicial behavior do get to cross a threshold which a decorum-minded Supreme Court may not tolerate, some judicial knuckles are rapped and even then plunder cases suffer yet more delays.)

Some people point to "people power" as a redeeming feature – the crowning glory as it were – of Philippine "democracy". Our nominal – much too nominal – institutions might be failures, but "people power" cures all. Filipinos govern and are governed by "people power".

The current imperative to use "people power" in deposing political authorities (or loosely speaking, in terminating or initiating political regimes) is actually an indictment of the state of governance in the Philippines. Contrary to the romanticized myth of "people power" being an excellent sign of democratization, one may actually see its growing popularity – three EDSAs in no more than a decade and a half, perhaps a few more awaiting in the eaves – as an alarming indicator of how democratic governance has failed to grow institutional roots among Filipinos.

Political players who have clear interests in specific, predictably self-serving political outcomes have not contributed to strengthening democratic institutions in this country. It makes little difference whether these players be supporters or critics of any given administration, or identify themselves with the business sector, the religious hierarchy or any of those groups collectively referred to as comprising "civil society". By insisting on their preferred outcomes without also committing to the processual requirements for democratically securing them, such people make it impossible for democracies to strengthen and to endure. Constitutional processes are short-circuited, impeachment procedures are ignored and an impeachment trial is finally aborted.

One wonders how another country that does not appear to enjoy as many "blessings" as Philippines manages to run a full impeachment trial and convict its president. Indonesia – definitely non-Christian, with a much bigger, poorer and less literate population, with greater ethnic diversity, a more politicized military and much less experience in so-called "democratic governance" – somehow pulled off what the Philippines for all its talents could not. Megawati now heads the Indonesian state, former President Wahid is appealing his conviction, but while Indonesians continue to suffer devastating problems in their society, there can be no question that they have experienced processual governance.

Who – or what – governs Filipinos? When the law is considered to be at best a mild suggestion which one might deign to follow – as the most trenchant Filipino political scientist now alive has wryly observed – one can be quite sure that the law in this country does not govern. (Even the lawyers would confirm this fact although probably never aloud.) If the law fails to govern, then all the governance institutions are reduced to being papier mache creations, imposing but lacking substance and easily folding up under conditions of national stress.

If the law and the institutions of government fail, how do the authorities govern? They govern mostly as their sectoral and personal interests dictate. Most Filipinos do recognize this historical trend. Confirming it to be a continuing reality despite their serial EDSAs, they decide to govern themselves likewise. People in this country thus govern themselves, each one looking mostly after himself, his family and particular group. No one gets to look after the community and therefore, even as Filipinos most creatively govern themselves, no governance attends their nation.