The Philippines

Abstract

WESTERNERS TEND TO FIX ON the manifest imperfections of democracy as it evolves (or fails to) in countries as different as Russia and Cambodia. Our press seizes on examples of election fraud, intimidation, or the violation of human rights. In doing so, we ignore our own past, as well as the possibility of real progress in certain countries where the glass is at least half full.In my opinion, after four years of daily observation, the Philippines gives cause for optimism to those who, like Winston Churchill, think that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. The Philippines has passed, and continues to pass, many crucial democratic tests. Filipinos are their own harshest critics, but, in admiring their high standards and their freedom and inclination to express them, we should not lose sight of a real political success story.This is important to Canada because of what it says about the nearly 300,000 Canadians of Philippine descent, but also because it serves as validation of a Canadian policy which assumes that people everywhere want to choose their government as well as to be protected by and from it.The 'projection of Canadian values' was identified as one of the three broad objectives in Canada and the World,(f.1) and consequently the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has identified human rights, democracy, and good governance as policy priorities. Included in this broad view are children's rights, promotion of democracy and better governance, and strengthening both civil society and the security of the individual. CIDA has been effective, within its limited financial means, in a very practical Canadian way in focusing on nurturing, even creating, institutions and programmes that can safeguard democracy and citizens' rights more broadly in individual developing countries. The Philippines has been the home to some of CIDA's most inventive programmes of this kind.As readers of International Journal will know, Canada has been active in promoting and conducting elections worldwide.(f.2) The federal government acknowledges that while elections are indispensable, they are not in themselves a guarantee or even necessarily an expression of democracy. As the minister of foreign affairs, Lloyd Axworthy, stated recently, what is needed in addition to elections is an 'active, effective, civil society.'In The Rise of Illiberal Democracy, Fareed Zakaria, the managing editor of Foreign Affairs, makes an important, if somewhat pessimistic, contribution to the discussion when he establishes 'constitutional liberalism' (the key elements of which he identifies as the rule of law, a separation of powers, and the protection of basic liberties of speech, assembly, religion, and property) as 'theoretically different and historically distinct from democracy.' On this basis he categorizes countries like the Philippines as 'illiberal.'(f.3)For me, however, the Philippines provides an example of how democracy and its accompanying institutions can prosper in parts of the world far removed from the West. While its unique conditions make it unlikely that it will be a model for others, it does offer encouragement and ideas to other developing democracies. In South Africa, for example, it has shared information on the nurturing of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and in particular engaged the attention of President Nelson Mandela when he heard of the work that Corazon Aquino, a former president of the Philippines, has done in strengthening the Philippine co-operative movement.Other than the brief international euphoria over 'people power' in 1986, the Philippines has not been a popular model internationally for reasons I only partly understand. True, it is flamboyantly endowed with an articulate people who often seem larger than life, and it has its fair share of villains and buffoons. Yet, in stark contrast to much of Asia, for more than a decade it has been pursuing economic development within not only a democratic framework but one endowed (not to say encumbered) with the constitutional checks and balances of the American constitutional model. …