Grass roots democracy the Philippine way

Earlier this week, the Philippine voters chose their local representatives for the coming three years. This major democratic exercise undertaken in around 42,000 barangays with more than 700,000 positions for barangay captains and local counselors to be filled is a tremendous feat by any standard. To hold an election of this scale requires a smooth-running organization as well as the commitment and discipline of the electorate towards a fair and inclusive process. Applying this benchmark, Monday’s elections can be judged as effectively accomplished. Clearly, election related violence is bound to taint any democratic process, and the killing of even a single person is never acceptable, all the more so in the name of democracy. The commitment by the Philippine authorities to hold all perpetrators responsible will further help to sustain the legitimacy of this week’s elections.

As the primary planning and implementing entity for government policies, programs and activities on the community level, the barangay is not only the closest expression of the state’s presence for its citizens. Being the smallest administrative unit in the Philippine system of governance, it enables the local communities in a unique way to recognize their ambitions, express their concerns, and to define their shared visions. In other words: by using the age-old shared notion of the “barrio” to legitimize the barangay’s organizational role, it allows its community to define its aspirations in a solidary way. The pioneering Local Government Code (LGC) of 1991 manifests the Philippine society’s wish for effective participation and decentralized power sharing. The trust and responsibility assigned to the elected barangay officials is further highlighted by the fact that elections are held in a non-partisan manner and that the LGC allows their recall if the electorate loses confidence in them. The Code defines the barangay as “a forum wherein the collective views of the people may be expressed, crystallized and considered, and where disputes may be amicably settled.” In this sense, elections and the institutionalized participation of the population on the lowest political level are fundamental manifestations of democracy.

Observing this grassroots approach first hand here in the Philippines evokes a number of similarities to the Swiss system of democracy. Based on the principles of federalism, decentralization, subsidiarity and broad participation, the Swiss constitution consistently assures active participation of the people on all statutory levels: national (federal), state (cantonal) and local. Direct democratic instruments such as an initiative for a constitutional change, a referendum against a new law, or a plebiscite to compel the legislator to act are widely used on all three echelons. More than two thirds of all national referenda conducted in Western democracies since World War II were undertaken in Switzerland, where the electorate has been invited to vote on close to 600 proposals on the federal level alone since the enactment of its first modern constitution in 1848. Nevertheless, it is the active involvement of the citizenry in the political decision making process on the local level that assures LGU accountability (and its sanctioning in case of mishandling), safeguards the principle of subsidiarity, sets the standards for the people’s participation in the democratic decision making process, and provides the sense of ownership and trust in the government institutions that permeates from the local through the cantonal all the way up to the national level.

While Switzerland’s direct democratic system has developed in its own organic way contributing to political stability and good governance, the effective participatory involvement of the people at the local level is one of its key features. This week’s barangay elections confirmed that the Filipino voters also want to have an active say in shaping the aspirations of their communities. The mandate received by the elected officials as well as the call for them to promote local development, good governance and accountability was loud and clear. And another message given by the electorate was equally resounding: grassroots participation is alive and well in the Philippines.

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(Ivo Sieber is the Ambassador of Switzerland)