Overall, huge reasons to be worried and disappointed about, with little positive to hold on to.
In the Philippines, party-switching means nothing. It is as normal for politicians as changing clothes. It is more regular than legislators attending congressional hearings.
FactCheck 2016, as in the previous elections, probed candidate’s position, platform and track record on key issues and agenda identified through consultations with organizations at the local and national levels.
A book chapter that discusses one of the challenges to Philippine democracy – poorly regulated campaign finance – highlighting the importance of making elections inclusive and democratic by making them competitive and fair.
For "Daang Matuwid" to be sustained, expanded and deepened, good governance has to become a norm; good governance practices must become common, not mere islands and best practices up for awards. Political party reforms, Freedom of Information (FoI) and the anti-dynasty law are mechanisms that will make "Daang Matuwid" a norm that will bring about change that can be felt by ordinary citizens.
PoP 2013 is a data pooling initiative of the Ateneo School of Government (ASoG) that aims to arm the citizens with facts and data on candidates for and selected critical issues relevant to the 2013 elections, thereby, facilitating and empowering their engagement as political actors during elections.
The study conducted by the Philippine research team aims to baseline the organizational performance and stability of selected political parties in the Philippines. From the parties’ profiles, we extracted some comparative points that will allow elucidation on the overall picture of party performance and stability in the Philippines.
FactCheck 2013 aims to produce materials that will convince the reform constituencies to engage electoral reform advocacies and the elections to advance and sustain the gains of reforms.
While generally peaceful and credible, there are setbacks in the conduct of the 2013 elections that require attention.
The weakness of parties vis-à-vis personalities and families has a lot of ill-effects on democracy. One of the more serious problems it causes has something to do with making accountability in the exercise of power precarious and extremely difficult. Personalities and families operate in private spaces that are away from the public eye, hence are protected from public scrutiny or any accountability checks. Abuse of power and sheer bad, ill-informed decisions of politicians involving matters of national importance are at the heart of bad governance in the country, which makes accountability one of the biggest pre-requisites of governance and political reform.
In the Philippines, since the end of martial law, civil society has been hailed as “the savior of governance,” playing the roles underperformed by the government or filling the gaps in the services needed by the people. One of the most crucial elements of civil society engagement in the Philippines is its reform work that is varied and encompassing. These actors constitute a large portion of what is being referred to as reform movements in the Philippines, which consist also of the reformers in government, political parties, local government units and other arenas.
This policy study is a follow-up to two cause-and-effect studies of PODER on election-related violence, one in Abra and the other in Nueva Ecija. The project involves scanning of ERV in selected hotspots, documentation of successful civil society initiatives to prevent ERV and policy assessment study of government response to election-related violence, particularly its major perpetrators: loose firearms, partisan armed groups and political dynasties.
These provide profiles of four initiatives in response to election-related violence (ERV) in the 2010 elections. The initiatives profiled are: Abra Multisector Group (AMSG) in Abra; Masbate Advocates for Peace (MAP) in Masbate; Vote Peace (various areas); and Good Wednesday Group (GWG) in Maguindanao.
A chapter by La Viña and Aceron in the book, Agenda for Hope: Democratizing Governance. This chapter proposes a movement for nation-building among reformist leaders from the different local government units (LGUs), the bureaucracy, the citizens’ groups, and even among the circles of some modernizing elites, that would develop a system of synergy and interdependence to be able to connect their efforts, share a common vision for the country, and eventually execute a coordinated strategy of capturing power at the national level.
PoP 2010 is a data pooling initiative of the Ateneo School of Government (ASoG) that aims to arm the citizens with facts and data on candidates for and selected critical issues relevant to the 2010 elections, thereby, facilitating and empowering their engagement as political actors during elections.
The study is a cause-and-effect analysis on election-related violence in Nueva Ecija. It seeks to explain the situation of election-related violence in the said province by adopting a action research that looks into its causes and implications, as well as the definitions and types of election-related violence that are present in the province.
Citizen Reform Agenda 2010 or CReforms 2010 is a consultation process initiated by the Ateneo School of Government (ASoG) through its PODER program that aims to bring together the broadest possible representation of citizen organizations in the country to identify key reform agenda or issues that candidates and political parties must address for the 2010 elections.