What type of government does philippines have

The apparatus of exclusion of popular groups from the formal political system extends to legal and extra-legal limits on their ability to organize themselves. These instruments were sharpened during the long years of martial rule under Marcos and justified as counterinsurgency. Another aspect of Philippine politics is the prevalence of violence. Political violence is a function of the central state's failure to secure a monopoly over the legitimate uses of violence.

With its competition over public lands, precincts, and transportation routes, provincial politics involves a zero-sum struggle for hegemony over an electoral or commercial territory that encourages organized violence".

John Sidel characterizes Philippine politics as "bossism" as a "sophisticated form of brigandage". He points out that "an examination of the complex processes through which inequality, indebtedness, landlessness, and poverty are created has highlighted how so-called patrons have - through predatory and heavily coercive forms of primitive accumulation and monopoly rent-capitalism - expropriated the natural and human resources of the archipelago from the broad mass of the population, thereby generating and sustaining the scarcity, insecurity, and dependency which underpins their rule as bosses".

Sidel, The weakness of the Philippine state is also manifested in the contradictory character of local-central government relations. The Philippines' unitary and presidential form of government is, by most measures, a centralized government. But because the central government has not had a dominant ruling class behind it and has been either formally or informally dominated by foreign powers, the central government has, historically, been a weak body.

Among other things, the ability of the central government to impose its writ on local governments has been, in practice limited. The Spanish colonial legacy of a highly centralized state is in large part an illusion. The state's civil apparatus penetrates little beyond Manila, and where it does it is a poor instrument since its directives are subverted by its officials' alliances with local power holders who work for their own particular interests.

Until martial law, there were remarkably few central government officials in the rural townships apart from the school teachers Moreover, when elements of the transplanted US model of local government were adapted to Philippine political culture, local elites were able to manipulate them to continue and reinforce the long history of "everyday resistance" by local elites against an alien state power and its colonial law.

They used autonomy of municipal government, municipal police, and the courts to maintain local customary law and their prerogatives as a rural oligarchy. Elite aims could best be achieved by keeping the central-state officials out, weak, or controlled, thereby preventing the state from converting their clients and dependents into its citizens".

Fegan, Most local politics in this century can be characterized as competition among local elites for who would be first in line for central government largesse. Tax collection is centralized and customs levies, the other main source of government revenue are collected by the central government.

Until recently, local government units had minimal taxing powers. The structure of the bureaucracy has been highly centralized. But because of the weakness of political parties, the President and other national government officials are dependent on local politicians to organize votes during national elections.

The national legislature, especially the powerful Lower House, is dominated by local politicians. This pattern of contradictory local-central government relations can be traced back to the colonial period. Although the Spanish colonial administration established a central government in Manila, the small size of the colonial bureaucracy prevented the central government from having an effective presence in the hinterlands of the colony, leaving the exercise of authority to the local indigenous principalia the native aristocracy and the friars".

Doronila, Americans also played a major role in developing the institutional setting for central-local government relations. Where the Spanish had violently resisted the attempts of a nascent Filipino elite to be integrated into national colonial structures of power, the Americans carefully orchestrated this integration.

Because few Filipinos held economic power that stretched beyond the local, it made sense that the Americans began the process with municipal elections. Provincial elections became occasions for coalitions of municipal elites. By the time a national legislative body was formed, the coalitional pyramid which became the characteristic structure of Philippine politics had been set.

The centralizing role of the American governor general was replicated in the powerful presidency tailored to the requirements of Commonwealth president Manuel Quezon. It is easy to understand why the form of government developed under American colonial tutelage was presidential.

These vast executive powers were almost literally transferred, with little contest, to the Philippine presidency by the drafters of the constitution". Bolongaita, The political system established by the Americans reached its definitive form in the Commonwealth government of Although several changes were made in the course of the next decades, this is the form of government and the political party system that has survived to this day.

There was a short interregnum during the years of the Marcos dictatorship , but the pre political system was reestablished with the approval of the constitution. The various elements of this system include the presidential form of government, the contradictory character of local-central government relations, and for our purposes, a party system anchored on coalitions of local elites and shifting membership.

In many ways, elections constitute the central political act for both the elite and the people. Much less attention has been paid to the hegemonic functions of the electoral process itself and to the cultural meaning this process has for Filipinos". Mojares, This process may be seen in the centrality accorded to the election itself as field of action and a channel for effecting political change.

Formal education in "civics", the force of custom and law, rhetoric that invests the event with the charter of the "traditional" and the "sacral", and other factors imbue elections with symbolic power.

In elections, obeisance is rendered to the "state" and the people are constituted or reconstituted as its "subjects". In effect, the periodic holding of elections nourishes and renews the system. In the process, it also tends to reify the existing system and de-emphasize other areas of political work such as mass organizing, interest-group lobbying, and "armed struggle".

The electoral system is anchored on a presidential form of government, single member district constituencies for the national legislature, and 'first past the post' system for all elective positions. The "zero sum" character of electoral contests in this system raises the highly personal stakes of election contests. Without effective political parties, families and clans have become the effective political units in local politics.

Since victory and defeat in elections determines the economic fate and "honor" of the clan, the use of all available means to gain victory including violence and fraud is understandable. Since people know from experience that elections are mainly occasions for choosing between one member of the elite and another, there is pronounced cynicism towards the process.

Why not make a little bit of money by selling your vote when election results do not directly affect you. Since politicians do not have programs that they follow, voting on the basis of establishing personal, clientelistic connections become the other major criteria for choice. Kerkvliet and Mojares, Philippine political parties, strangely enough, are often defined by what they are not. Following the conventional Western definition, the Philippine Omnibus Election Code of says "A political party is an organized group of persons pursuing the same ideology, political ideas or platforms of government".

Leones, Moraleda, But nobody would accuse Philippine political parties of being such an animal. Philippine political scientists cannot even agree whether the Philippines has a multi-party system, a two-party system or even, as some have seriously suggested, a one-and-a-half party system.

Tancangco, Because Philippine political parties are so organizationally indeterminate, it is difficult to analyze them on the basis of their internal development. More than parties in the West, it is more fruitful to analyze the development of Philippine political parties in relation to other institutions. Philippine political parties cannot be understood outside of their development in relation to the Philippines' presidential form of government, the nature of local - central government relations and elections.

Most importantly, they are best understood in relation to political factions and political clans. Carl Lande, perhaps the most influential student of Philippine politics in the last four decades, defines Philippine political parties in terms of "Members of the Philippine political elite, ranging themselves under the banners of two national parties, compete with each other for elective offices.

Each is supported by his kinsmen, both rich and poor, by his non-kinsmen clients, and by whoever else among the 'little people' of his community can be induced, by offers of material or other rewards, to vote for him. The two rival parties in each province, in short, are held together by dyadic patron-client relationships extending from great and wealthy political leaders in each province down to lesser gentry politicians in the towns, down further to petty leaders in each village, and down finally to the clients of the latter: the common tao".

Lande, Filipino sociologist Randolph David's definition goes further than Lande's politically neutral anthropological definition. The elites themselves do not form stable or exclusive blocs or factions. Their boundaries are provisional and porous at any point in time. They revolve around political stars rather than around ideologies.

They nurture networks of followers and supporters who are dependent on them for money, jobs, favors and political access, not party members loyal to party principles and alert to any perceived betrayal of party causes". David, Lande's and David's descriptions, it should be noted, are separated by some three decades, three constitutions, and by at least fourteen years of Marcos' dictatorial regime in the s and s.

The period before Marcos' declaration of martial law in was marked by the dominance of two major parties, the period after , by what might be characterized as a multi-party system. But the parties remain apparently the same. The most important characteristic of Philippine political parties is that they are parties of the elite. In some senses, parties anywhere in the world are elite formations whether one defines elite in functional terms as those who lead or in sociological terms as those who hold economic and political power.

But many parties at least attempt to organize regularized support from a broader segment of the population or to institutionalize discourse justifying mal-distribution of economic and political power.

These efforts result in more or less stable membership, regularized patterns of interaction within and between parties, and characteristic forms of ideological or political self-definition. In contrast, Philippine political parties are unabashed 'old boys clubs'. There are non-elite individuals, mostly men, who identify with one or another party, but all of them are followers "retainers" might be a better word of elite individuals.

These individuals are linked together in shifting coalitions from barangays the lowest government unit all the way to the national government in Manila. Shantz, This electoral system, and the actual practice of elections have been one of the most important factors shaping political parties. The intensely personalized character of parties derive partly from the fact that individual candidates are elected in a "first past the post" system. David, Because at the base of the electoral system, the municipality, the power and status of families are at stake, all means are availed of including cheating and violence to achieve victory.

Although elections were held during the Spanish colonial period and during the short period of revolutionary government at the turn of the nineteenth century, the experience of elections most relevant to the current situation trace back to the American period starting in The elections in for municipal officials was limited to those towns already pacified by the occupation army.

Elections were by viva voce. Although broader than elections during the Spanish period which were limited to former officials, the right to suffrage was, at this time, confined to a very small, elite segment of the population. Over the course of the next decades, the electorate expanded. Property requirements were lifted; the age limit was lowered first to 21 in , then in the s to 18; reading and writing English or Spanish was replaced with simple literacy liberally interpreted to mean ability to write one's name and that of candidates; then in , women were given the right to suffrage.

The number of registered voters rose steadily from , in , to 1. These changes in the character of elections provide a useful way to conceptualize changes in the nature of Philippine political parties. The increase in the size of the electorate, combined with urbanization and extensive radio and TV use has changed the way election campaigns are organized and therefore also the character of political parties.

Elections during the Spanish period provide a kind of "pre-history" of Philippine political parties. There was no need to organize parties because elections were no more than discussions among officials, incumbents and former officials. Elections in the early American period did not significantly expand the electorate in quantitative terms. But while the expansion may not seem like much from a contemporary vantage point, by expanding elections outside of the circle of officials, the Americans brought other sections of the elite into the circle of governance and began the process of shaping the elite into an instrument of local rule.

Political parties were formed at this time, but electoral campaigning was mainly a matter of organizing elite factions. Where elections during the Spanish and early American colonial periods were limited to the elite, once the electorate broke elite boundaries, elites now had to convince non-elites to vote for them.

At first, patron-client ties and deeply embedded traditions of social deference were sufficient. The organizational requirements of electoral campaigning remained simple. This allowed elites to concentrate on the task of building factional coalitions in ascending order of complexity as elections moved from municipal, to provincial, to the national level. This process was facilitated by the fact that differentiation in the elite at this time was not very complex. Most of the elite were landowners so differentiation focused on geographic representation and whether they were exporters of agricultural products or not.

Combined with Quezon's organizational skills, this was a major reason for the dominance of the Nacionalista Party. This sociological situation changed radically after the second World War. The Japanese occupation from to weakened the Philippine elite by disrupting the colonial economy. Landlord control over their tenants and farm workers was attenuated because landlords moved out of the countryside and their collaboration with the Japanese occupation army impaired their moral hold on the peasantry.

New elite factions, especially guerrilla leaders, moved into this power vacuum. Although the returning Americans facilitated the political exoneration of prewar elites, many guerrilla leaders were able to consolidate their positions through electoral politics. The more complex differentiation in the elite after World War II complicated the organizational task of political parties. Where factional dynamics could be accommodated within the Nacionalista Party before, a two party system came into place during the first postwar elections in The next stage in the development of political parties was set by the candidacy of guerrilla leader Ramon Magsaysay in the presidential elections of Where campaigning for national positions in the past had been mostly a matter of negotiations among provincial elites, Magsaysay went directly to the people during his campaign.

In the process, he undercut patron-client ties already weakened during the Japanese occupation. The Magsaysay campaign in generated significant changes in political parties. Where municipal party organizations were relatively simple in prewar years, at this time, elite families began constructing municipal political machines. Closely related to these changes was an increase in the importance of provincial and national considerations and a decline in the importance of local considerations in shaping the faction's character and its actions in all arenas".

Machado, The continuing rapid growth of the electorate, combined with the expansion of mass media in the s amplified the impact of changes brought about by the Magsaysay campaign.

National campaigns now had to be organized on the basis of the segmentation of the vote into what can be called the "controlled vote" mobilized by local party leaders and the "market vote" which required increasingly elaborate campaigns adding media strategies to Magsaysay-style barnstorming.

Rural leaders frequently try to anticipate the direction of change in order to be associated with leaders who have strong images as national candidates Many national politicians pay vast sums of money to representatives of the mass media for a good image, not to win votes but to bandwagon sub-elites concerned about their future successes.

Once the tide begins to flow, the national politician assumes judicious urban financiers will follow". These developments led to significant change in political parties. The vastly increased financial requirements of national campaigns strengthened the national leadership vis-a-vis local party leaders because the amounts required could only be raised from sources at the center, especially in Manila.

Since campaign costs for local contests also increased, local candidates became more dependent on national party leaders for their own campaigns. Marcos accelerated this process even more. There was a geometric jump in campaign expenses during the election campaign due mainly to Marcos.

In addition, " Shantz, The centralizing effect of these moves culminated in Marcos' declaration of martial law in when he cut out Congress altogether. Because no elections were held for many years, combined with Marcos' monopoly of political power, the pre-martial law political parties were severely weakened. Even after Marcos' downfall in , both the Nacionalista Party and the Liberal Party never recovered their power and dynamism.

Marcos built his own political party, the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan New Society Movement , creating a virtual one-party state. The downfall of Marcos and the Presidency of Corazon Aquino generated a lot of hope for a more democratic political process. With the ouster of Marcos, the dynamics of the pre-revolution political terrain have been fundamentally altered". Tancangco, Instead, Aquino presided over the same elite-dominated, undemocratic politics of the pre-martial law period.

President Corazon Aquino had an opportunity to transform the party system. She failed because she refused to become a member of any party, but allowed her brother to sabotage the reform process by recruiting KBL and other unsavory trapo traditional politician types into what became the de facto ruling party, the PDP-LABAN Pilipino Democratic Party-Struggle. She had so much personal authority that if she had chosen to do so, she could have led in the formation of a political party that incorporated the reform thrust of the EDSA revolution which toppled Marcos.

The system of constitutional democracy put in place by Pres. Aquino created a contradictory situation for the development of political parties. The presidential form of government put in place by the constitution restored the conditions for a two party system. But the two dominant parties of the pre-martial law period were, apparently irretrievably, weakened.

Other parts of the constitution including the party list system pushed in the other direction, towards a multi-party system. Indeed, in the ten year period since , the Philippines has had what appears to be a multi-party system, but with rather weak parties.

Interview with Aquilino Pimentel, February 19, Ramos' rise to power provides a perfect example of the weakness of political parties relative to government, and political clans. Laban nang Demokratikong Pilipino LDP had been the ruling party since the elections when it won an overwhelming majority of contested seats in both national and local elections. Because Pres.

Aquino, however, refused to support LDP's candidate, instead supported Ramos, campaigning for him and using the resources of the government, LDP's candidate, Mitra lost badly. The same thing happened in the election when the presidential candidate of Ramos' party, Lakas, lost badly to Joseph Estrada and his ragtag coalition party, LAMMP.

They were led by Manuel Villar who went on to become Speaker. Two years after the election, the ruling party LAMMP does not have a party constitution, officers or a headquarters. It was only in June that early organizing efforts were made in anticipation of the May local and Senate elections. Three aspects of Philippine party behavior derive from this dynamic. One is that the incumbent president and the opposition presidential candidate, the "presidentiable" in Filipino pidgin English, are dominant in their parties.

They can be reelected but they are no longer eligible to run for a third consecutive term. The House of Representatives may opt to pass a resolution for a vacancy of a legislative seat that will pave way for a special election. The winner of the special election will serve the unfinished term of the previous district representative; this will be considered as one elective term.

The same rule applies in the Senate however it only applies if the seat is vacated before a regular legislative election. The judiciary branch of the government is headed by the Supreme Court, which has a Chief Justice as its head and 14 Associate Justices, all appointed by the president on the recommendation of the Judicial and Bar Council. Other court types of courts, of varying jurisdiction around the archipelago, are the:.

The Philippine Government. Executive Branch The executive branch is headed by the President who functions as both the head of state and the head of government. The Judicial branch holds the power to settle controversies involving rights that are legally demandable and enforceable. This branch determines whether or not there has been a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part and instrumentality of the government.

It is made up of a Supreme Court and lower courts. The Constitution expressly grants the Supreme Court the power of Judicial Review as the power to declare a treaty, international or executive agreement, law, presidential decree, proclamation, order, instruction, ordinance or regulation unconstitutional.