The Philippine presidency in Southeast Asian perspective: imperiled and imperious presidents but not perilous presidentialism

ABSTRACT

Among the neglected cases of presidential systems in Southeast Asia, the Philippines is particularly interesting as the oldest in the region and as a ‘pure’ case of presidentialism which provides seemingly strong evidence for its ‘perilousness’. ‘First wave’ presidentialism theory appears to explain how competing legitimacy claims between a president and the legislature contributed to the downfall of a sitting president (Joseph E. Estrada in 2001). Yet, Philippine presidents have usually dominated other branches of government. O’Donnell's concept of ‘delegative democracy’ helps elucidate the hegemonic position of Philippine presidents generally and sheds light on the illiberally transgressive nature of the Marcos and Duterte presidencies in particular. When these twin perils of imperiled and imperious presidents are examined regionally, however, striking parallels are apparent in parliamentary Thailand while the Indonesian case provides a contrasting example of a relatively stable presidential system.

KEYWORDS:

• Philippines
• presidentialism
• delegative democracy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Mark R. Thompson is professor and head, Department of Asian and International Studies (AIS), as well as director of the Southeast Asia Research Centre (SEARC) at the City University of Hong Kong. He is the author of The Anti-Marcos Struggle (1995), Democratic Revolutions (2004), co-editor of Dynasties and Female Political Leaders in Asia (2013), and editor of/author in a 2016 special issue on the early Duterte presidency for the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs. He is completing a co-authored book with Julio C. Teehankee about the Philippine presidency.

Notes

1. Strategic groups are not reducible to a social class (e.g. the bourgeoisie) that form a homogenous ruling elite (Evers, 1973). As group consciousness emerges in a society, heterogeneous elite groups begin to act strategically to accumulate power resources and attempt to influence state policy. Strategic groups have elitist leaderships (sometimes hierarchical, in other cases decentralized) with a lower-level membership, clientele, or mass base. These groups are distinguished by their different power resources: in the case of the military force/coercion, for big business capital/property, and for religious leaders a widespread belief system. These groups may unite around a program of political action based on common interests and ideological commitments (Berner, 1995). As extra-electoral power brokers, strategic groups can buttress or challenge the power of elected politicians, the president in particular. On the role of business as a strategic group see Fukuoka (2015) and Hedman (2006). Hedman also discusses the role of the Catholic church (in addition see Barry, 2006) and the military (also see Hall, 2004) as well as stressing the role of the U.S. in intra-elite conflict.

2. An important exception is the 2013 Supreme Court decision that the Priority Development and Assistance Fund (PDAF), the chief vehicle or presidential patronage to the legislature was unconstitutional. But then president Benigno S. ‘Noynoy’ Aquino, III managed to partially circumvent this decision by distributing funds directly to congressional districts. Earlier court rulings (as well as public protests and press campaigns) against presidential-legislative pork barrel also did not led to the abolition of the practice. Not surprisingly, since then pork barrel has not only returned under the current Duterte administration but has been substantially increased (Porcalla, 2016).This has led Ronald Holmes (in press) to argue the pork barrel in the Philippines is continuously transmogrified’, defying efforts to abolish it.

3. Marcos’ presidency did, however, resemble Manuel Quezon's Commonwealth administration. Quezon used the powers of patronage during the late colonial era in which domestic power had been returned to Filipinos to control the legislature and politicians generally while holding the judiciary and military under his sway to such an extent that his became a quasi-authoritarian regime, providing a precedent for Marcos's establishment of a full-fledged dictatorship (McCoy, 1988).

4. A group not discussed in detail here – the above ground communist left which is subsumed under the category of ‘civil society activists’ in this paper – is missing in the Thai case given its defeat by the Thai government in the late 1970s. Although the Philippine left has weakened significantly since 1986 (Abinales, 1996), its above ground activist groups have remained important in civil society protests even as its armed insurgency has ebbed. Yet a stronger far left in the Philippines had little impact on the dynamics between traditional elites and pro-poor populists in the Philippines which it is suggested were quite similar to the situation in Thailand.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee [grant number 9042600/9041939].