What factors have been important in the development of Philippine civil society?
Philippine civil society is one of the most dynamic in the region, with a long history and currently up to 500,000 NGOs. It really came to prominence, however, under the Marcos dictatorship when, following the shooting of his former rival Benigno Aquino Jr in 1983, NGOs and citizens’ movements staged mass protests culminating in the People Power Revolution, which brought Marcos down. Under the subsequent Aquino administration, the number of NGOs began to grow. The new-found freedom to organize and the influx of official development assistance (ODA) were key factors here. Government recognition of the sector was also important. The 1987 Constitution gave NGOs the power to represent the people’s interests in consultations on local and national issues, as well as in governance and policy-making.[1] In 1991, the Local Government Code devolved the provision of certain services to Local Government Units (LGUs) and made NGO involvement in these bodies mandatory. The Code specified that LGUs s
