Democratization through Non-Governmental and People's Organization

Abstract

This paper attempts to scrutinize the democratic practices of non-governmental and people’s organizations (NGOs and POs)—groups that claim to represent the interest of ‘the people’. It finds a need to do so in light of the democratization wave sweeping across most of the Third World. A clear need to understand the changing patterns of accountability, responsibility, and control between the previously dominant state and the many subdivisions of civil society is unmistakably emerging. This is a matter of particular concern in the Philippines, as its Constitution provides a definite mandate for NGOs and POs. The Local Government Code of the Philippines also provides the legal infrastructure for and the institutionalization of NGO-PO participation in local governance, legally formalizing the collaborative and interventionist roles of NGOs and POs. Such formalization has yielded positive results. Still, there remains much room for improvement as regards the substantive partnership of Local Government Units and the NGO-PO community in the Philippines.