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Review Essay
Philippine Politics and Governance
Noel M. Morado and Teresa S. Encarnacion Tadem. (eds.).
Philippine Politics and Governance: An Introduction, 588 pages
and Teresa S. Encarnacion Tadem and Noel M. Morado. (eds.).
Philippine
Politics
and
Governance:
Challenges to
Democratization and Development, 303 pages, both published
in Quezon City, Philippines by the Department of Political Science,
University of the Philippines, 2006.
These companion volumes arose from the need for a textbook on
Philippine politics for political science students at the University of the
Philippines (UP). But the efforts of the UP faculty (present and former) as
well as of a few contributors outside the university are of general interest as
well. These two books are the best reference currently available about politics
in the Philippines. Well-researched and clearly written, they offer a "stote of
the art" analysis of the country' politics and represent the most thorough
overview since David Wurfel's Filipino Politics published nearly two decades
ago. Their thematic organization differs from the historical focus of Patricio
Abinales and Donna Amoroso's recent State and Society in the Philippines.
The introduction to volume one by Malaya C. Ronas considers two
paradigms of economic development (authoritarian and democratic), but
points out that despite largely following the latter route, the Philippine
experience has been neither participative nor equitable. A "week state" and
elite-dominated democratization has slowed both economic progress and
political participation. Unfortunately, this welcome comparative perspective
is rarely token up by the other authors, a point to which I will return.
Raymund Jose G. Quilop's examination of notion-state formation in
chapter one distinguishes between the "notion" and the state, showing the
ideological character of their being lumped together as a common
phenomenon and pointing to the difficulties involved in both nation and
state building in the Philippines. He covers ground familiar to most scholars
of Philippine politics, but offers it in the form of a usefully compact summary,
He might have gone further, however, pointing out for example, that the
Philippine "case" oppeors very contradictory as it experienced the first anti-
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"Women and Politics" is the focus of the next chapter by Maria Ela L.
Atienza and Ruth Lusterio Rico. The chapter begins by providing a useful
overview about women's status in the Philippines (put in its comparative
statistical context with a number of tables) in which the country ends up in
the middle of selected Asian countries on the UN's "Gender-related
Development lndex" (though ahead of most on the "Gender-Empowerment
Measure"). Women/s participation in politics is also analyzed statistically
(congressional sects, cabinet representotion, and the bureaucracy). Although
increosinq, it still remains relatively low. Here the role of two female presidents
(Aquino and Arroyo) could have been given more attention. It would have
been also interesting to learn more about how the voting behavior of women
differs from men in the Philippines. Snll, this chapter provides one of the
best summaries of the role of women in politics in the Philippines currently
available.
Ruth Lusterio Rico's contribution to this volume focuses on the current
environmental crisis in the Philippines, recent environmental policies, and
social movements that aim to improve environmental protection. The next
chapter, by Teresa S. Encarnacion Iodern, takes up the matter of cooperatives
in the Philippines. She advocates cooperatives as a way out of rural poverty
through the empowerment of impoverished farmers. But patronage politics
poses a formidable obstacle to the prornisinq, though thus far limited
development of such cooperatives. It is well known that overseas workers
have become a crucial part of Philippine economic development. Jorge V.
Tiqno's chapter deals well with this crucial area.
My major criticism of these two volumes is less "endoqenous" than it is
"exogenous." Although the introduction and a few of the chapters make
referenceto theories and country cases beyond the Philippines, a comparative
perspective is generally lacking. The Philippines belongs to a small category
of long surviving democracies in poor countries (martial law was less than a
decade and a half - among developing countries perhaps only Colombia,
Review EssayfThompson
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Costa Rica, and India can be said to have more significant democratic
traditions). The emergence of a strong mestizo-dominated elite and its early
anti-colonial revolution as well as its colonial and postwar democracy put
the Philippines on a very different trajectory than its Southeast Asian
neighbors, The. impact of the country's "weak state" is also striking. This
criticism notwithstanding, students of Philippine politics - in and far beyond
UP - will find these volumes essential starting points for understanding key
current issues. +)
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Mark R. Thompson
University' of Er/angen-Nuremberg
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