18 The Politics Philippine Presidents Make Presidential Style Patronage Based or Regime Relational

The Politics Philippine Presidents Make
Presidential Style, Patronage-based, or Regime Relational?

THOMPSON, Mark Richard
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Thompson, M. R. (2014). The Politics Philippine Presidents Make: Presidential Style, Patronage-based, or
Regime Relational? Critical Asian Studies, 46(3), 433-460. DOI: 10.1080/14672715.2014.935135
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Critical Asian Studies
46:3 (2014), 433–460
Thompson / Philippine Presidents
THE POLITICS
PHILIPPINE PRESIDENTS MAKE
Presidential-style, Patronage-based,
or Regime Relational?
Mark R. Thompson
ABSTRACT: In political systems with a powerful chief executive, such as in the Philip-
pines, an essential element in the analysis of politics is a clear understanding of the
the impact of presidential politics. Two analytical theories have tried to understand
this phenomenon: (1) a voluntarist, actor-centered, presidential-style approach,
and (2) a structuralist, patronage-based approach. This article shows that neither
approach provides a satisfactory account of the country’s presidency. A more useful
approach, the author argues, is the relational one developed by U.S. political scien-
tist Stephen Skowronek to analyze the presidency in the United States. Skowronek
studies whether presidents attempt to govern in accordance with, or in opposition
to, an existing presidential regime—a prevailing set of ideas, interests, and institu-
tional arrangements. This approach allows for the assessment of the choices
presidents make within structural constraints while differentiating the performance
of presidents from their role as patron-in-chief. In order to apply this theory to the
Philippine presidency, however, it must be modified to take into account campaign
narratives, strategic groups, and institutional instability. Post- Marcos presidents,
the author concludes, can best be evaluated based on how close their association
was, or is, with the dominant reformist regime, which employs a narrative of good
governance and democratization.
The Philippine presidency, the oldest in Asia, has been the subject of only lim-
ited social science analysis. While there have been many biographies and
journalistic accounts of Philippine presidents, few studies have examined the
1
presidency as an institution. This is surprising as the Philippine chief execu-
ISSN 1467-2715 print/1472-6033 online / 03 / 000433–28 ©2014 BCAS, Inc. DOI:10.1080/14672715.2014.935135
Recent Presidents —
Republic of the Philippines
Ferdinand E. Marcos
30 December 1965 – 25 February 1986
Corazon C. Aquino
25 February 1986 – 30 June 1992
Fidel V. Ramos
30 June 1992 – 30 June 1998
Joseph E. Estrada
30 June 1998 – 20 January 2001
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
20 January 2001 – 30 June 2010
Benigno Aquino III
30 June 2010 – (term expires
30 June 2016)
(Graphic credit: Presidential Library / malacanang.gov.ph)
tive is extraordinarily powerful. A recent comparative analysis, for in-

stance, cited the Philippines (along with Argentina) as an example of hyper-
presidentialism due to weak restraints on the appointment powers of Philip-
pine presidents, their demonstrated ability to circumvent legislative and
judicial constraints, and their domination of theoretically independent regula-
2
tory and oversight agencies.
Macro-oriented, comparative analyses of presidentialism have focused on
3
the perils of a powerful presidency. Initially scholars concentrated on Europe
and Latin America, but then soon turned to cases in Africa and Asia to explore
whether presidential systems are inherently more unstable than parliamentary
systems. They focused on the problem of fixed terms, which can lead to pres-
sure to remove an unpopular president through extra-constitutional means, as
well as deadlock between the executive and legislative branches, often involv-
ing competing claims of democratic legitimacy.
This comparative literature has lost some of its sting, however, given the in-
1. Exceptions are Romani 1956; Cortes 1966; Bacungan 1983; Agpalo 1996 (Leadership) and
1996 (Philippine); Rebullida 2006 (Executive) and 2006 (Philippine); Kasuya 2005 and 2008;
Teehankee 2011; Kawanaka 2013.
2. Rose-Ackerman and Desierto 2011. Bolongaita Jr. (1995, 110) argues that “among presidential
democracies, the Philippine president virtually has no equal in terms of aggregate executive
power.” The president controls the bureaucracy and policy execution (including the use of ex-
ecutive orders) and also has the power of budget making and implementation (de Dios 1999;
de Dios and Esfahani 2001). The presidency was marginally stronger under the 1935 Com-
monwealth than the 1987 post-Marcos constitution, particularly due to limitations placed on
emergency powers and the single term limit under the newer constitution. Both changes can
be seen to have been driven by fears of presidential abuse of power given the country’s author-
itarian experience under martial rule. But surprisingly presidential powers remained
otherwise strong, perhaps because legislators had little input into the writing of both constitu-
tions (Kasuya 2008, 86).
3. Linz 1990; Stepan and Skach 1993; Linz and Valenzuela 1994; Cheibub 2007; Reilly 2013.
434 Critical Asian Studies 46:3 (2014)

stability of parliamentary systems in many developing countries (including
neighboring Thailand). It has also declined in importance as military coups
have become less common. In his major comparative study, which draws upon
extensive quantitative data, José Cheibub concluded that presidentialism is not
a major risk factor for democratic breakdown.4 Matthew Shugart and John Carey
have shown that in the twentieth century parliamentary not presidential sys-
5
tems in developing countries were more likely to fail.
Given these difficulties with the macro-oriented literature on the supposed
instability of presidential systems, Yuko Kasuya, in a recent comparative study of
Asian presidencies, recommends instead a mid-range perspective that analyzes
the authority of the president vis-à-vis the legislature and other major institu-
6
tions. This approach allows for the assessment of the presidency’s relative
power in the political system as well as establishing a framework for evaluating
presidential performance. The impact of presidential leadership is essential in
the analysis of the political system, or in other words to understand the “politics
7
presidents make.”
If we adopt this mid-range viewpoint, we find that most studies of the Philip-
pine presidency are of two kinds. The first is a voluntarist, action-centered,
presidential-style approach; the second is a structuralist, patronage-based ap-
proach.
The presidential-style approach stresses the agency of presidents rather than
focusing on the institution of the presidency. Convinced that political agency is
crucial to understanding the success or failure of an incumbent, scholars who
favor this approach analyze whether the powers of a president are sufficient to
meet the demands put upon her or him. The president is shown to be operating
within the governmental system like a star athlete competing in a sports sta-
dium. How well presidents perform depends on their skill in playing the
political game. Given how important a president’s personal qualities are, schol-
ars working within this tradition have high expectations of what a president can
accomplish, yet they also worry that little may be achieved. I show below that
this presidential-style approach overemphasizes individual personality charac-
teristics while underestimating structural constraints chief executives face.
Missing in this approach is how presidents change the rules of the game, how
their actions are influenced by their predecessors, and how their decisions will
affect their successor’s scope for political influence.
If the scholars who take the presidential-style approach stress the perfor-
mance of individual presidents, agency and the personal qualities of particular
presidents virtually disappear in the second approach, a structuralist one that
reduces presidential action almost entirely to the demands of the patronage sys-
tem (the president functioning as patron-in-chief). Given the extraordinary
powers the Philippine president possesses over the budget and the extensive
4. Cheibub 2007.
5. Shugart and Carey 1998.
6. Kasuya 2013.
7. Skowronek 1997.
Thompson / Philippine Presidents 435
clientelist ties evident in Philippine politics, this approach portrays the presi-
dent as little more than a dispenser of patronage (although there is the
occasional patronage distribution–challenged president, as we will see below).
Although patronage distribution is crucial for influencing legislative deci-
sion-making, I contend that an exclusive focus on the powers of the presidency
in this regard leads to an overly structuralist view of the Philippine presi-
dency—one that is unable to explain why extra-electoral strategic groups have
proved capable of overthrowing presidents despite chief executives’ control of
pork barrel.
I begin this article by describing and critiquing the structuralist approach to
the Philippine presidency. I then turn to the presidential-style approach. Critical
of what I show to be weaknesses in both of these approaches, I next introduce
and propose an alternative analytical approach, namely, the concept of presi-
8
dential regimes developed by the U.S. political scientist Stephen Skowronek.
The Structuralist Approach

The structuralist approach, long dominant in the study of a country’s politics,
9
has also been influential in the analysis of the Philippine presidency. This ap-
proach posits that politicians are elected thanks to their clientelist ties, which
10
pyramid upward from voters to local and then national politicians. Presiden-
tial candidates after the era of Ferdinand E. Marcos (1965–1986) have often
founded their own political parties (and/or party alliances), revealing that par-
ties are not well-institutionalized vehicles that presidential candidates join to
run for the country’s top office, but are instead little more than clientelist net-
11
works put together for a particular presidential campaign. Once elected,
presidents use pork barrel to reward their network allies and create majorities
12
in Congress. In the structuralist approach, then, the presidency is, in Herbert
13
Kitschelt’s words, the “fountain[head] of clientelist linkage building.” Reduc-
ible to its role within a patron-client system, the presidency as an institution is of
little independent interest as it is the network of clientelism that is of real impor-
8. Ibid., 2008.
9. For a good overview of the literature on clientelism see Quimpo 2005. The patron-client
framework has recently been challenged by arguments about “bossism.” These stress the role
of local strongmen in electoral politics (see Rocamora 1995 and Sidel 1999). Advocates of the
bossist approach are critical of clientelism, which in Carl Landé’s influential analysis (1965)
portrayed the smooth functioning of interpersonal ties between poor clients and paternalist
patrons. This overlooks, these critics argue, the role coercion plays in relations between voters
and leaders. This critique has some validity, as the Ampatuan (the clan that carried out the
Maguindanao massacre of 2009, which left fifty-eight dead in the run-up to elections) and
other warlord clans have so violently demonstrated in recent years in the Philippines. But it
does not logically lead to rejection of the clientelist approach, but rather points to the need to
expand its scope: both votes secured through consensual ties between patrons and clients and
more coercive bossist relationships can be viewed as “command” votes (Teehankee 2002).
Moreover, it remains unproven how widespread bossism really is in the Philippines until a de-
tailed political mapping of the country is undertaken.
10. Landé 1965, Kerkvliet 1995.
11. On the weak multiparty system created by the 1987 constitution, see Magno 2006.
12. Quimpo 2009. “Pork” can be understood as politically useful government-funded projects that
are often economically inefficient (Kasuya 2008, 71).
13. Kitschelt 2000, 860.
tance in Philippine politics.
A further implication of the structuralist approach is that there are no funda-
mental differences of ideology between parties: since they consist only of
clientelist networks, parties do not have platforms nor do they offer major pol-
icy alternatives. In Carl Landé’s clientelist analysis of the Philippines, party
leaders are united not by common ideological commitments but rather by
14
“their common desire to be elected.” In order to maximize their chances of
electoral victory, parties construct cross-class, multi-regional clientelist elec-
toral alliances. Focusing on divisive political and social issues such as labor
policy or birth control can undermine their electoral strength, which is based
on personalistic ties not ideological commitments. In short, the clientelist per-
spective shows why presidents in office cannot rely on their electoral mandate
or ideological commitments to rule effectively. They have to use patronage to in-
15
fluence legislators in order to maintain power.
Writing within this structuralist framework, Yuko Kasuya argues that the
House of Representatives impeached President Joseph E. Estrada (1998–2001)
in November 2000 because he had lost control of the presidential patronage he
16
needed to control (or at least contain) the Lower House. Kasuya allows non-
clientelist elements into her analysis in that she admits that Estrada’s “serious
wrongdoings” were the catalyst for defections. But she points out that not ev-
eryone defected, just the weakest links in the clientelist chain: those party-
switching legislators known in the Philippines as “political butterflies,” or
balimbings, from the many-sided starfruit. These legislators joined the Estrada
camp late and thus received less patronage; they also anticipated getting less
than others in the future. Thus, they had less to lose by defecting. The bottom
line, then, is that presidential performance depends largely on presidential pa-
tronage. Presidents who fail to live up to the role of patron-in-chief may be
removed from office, as Estrada’s case shows.
The structuralist analytical approach is not so much wrong as it is both too
general and incomplete. It draws on a core understanding of Philippine politics
as highly oligarchical. Whether called cacique democracy or booty capitalism,
this is not “real” democracy given that “elite dominance, institutional weakness,
and widespread abuse of public office [meaning] true representation is largely
17
illusory.” This approach reduces politics to little more than a battle for the dis-
14. Landé 1967.

15. In mid 2013, a scandal around Congressional pork barrel (sometimes dubbed the “Napoles
scam” after a business intermediary who funneled money from the Priority Developmental As-
sistance Fund (PDAF), the official name for Congressional pork barrel, via “fake NGOs” back to
the Congressional representatives themselves) has led to renewed calls to abolish such patron-
age distribution. Philippine presidents have made ample use of their budgetary discretion
over pork to influence Congress. It was thus not surprising that the current president, Benigno
“Noynoy” Aquino, initially opposed the abolition of the system, calling only for its reform.
(Even after he later conceded to calls to abolish the PDAF he suggested that it be transformed
into budgetary earmarks that he claimed would be more transparent.) The controversy points
to how the power pork gives a president also has a clear downside as it taints politicians associ-
ated with its misuse, a point that will be further discussed below.
16. Kasuya 2003, 2005, and 2008.
17. Anderson 1988; Hutchcroft 1998; Dressel 2011, 529.
tribution of government resources (patronage) among an avaricious elite,
loosely governed by electoral rules restored after the fall of Marcos in 1986.
Viewed this way, the Philippine presidency is a mere epiphenomenon in which
the president is enmeshed in a patronage system and the larger structures of oli-
garchical domination. This perspective does not allow for a differentiated
assessment of post-Marcos presidents as they have all been drawn from the oli-
garchy.18 What is the point of studying particular presidents if they are all just
oligarchs with extensive patronage networks?
The structuralist approach is also incomplete insofar as it ignores evidence
that national elections are now won through direct media appeals to voters by
candidates; provincial bosses and leaders of clientelist networks no longer have
19
the control over voters they once enjoyed. To sway voters candidates need a
20
convincing media-based campaign narrative. By focusing exclusively on the
ties between political leaders and their followers, those who favor the
structuralist approach overlook the importance of these campaign narratives.
Corazon C. Aquino (1986–1992), though clearly outgunned, outgooned, and
outgold by incumbent Ferdinand E. Marcos in the 1986 snap presidential elec-
tions, won the election (according to some observers), even if she lost the
21
(manipulated) counting. In almost all post-Marcos presidential elections (e.g.,
Ramon Mitra in 1992, Jose de Vencia, Jr. in 1998, and Manuel Villar in 2010) can-
didates who lacked convincing direct media appeals—whatever the strength of
their political machinery— have been decisively defeated. The exception is Glo-
ria Macapagal-Arroyo (2001–2010), who was able to use all the patronage
22
available to an incumbent president to win the 2004 elections. Yet even here
the populist appeal of Arroyo’s opponent, Fernando Poe Jr., was strong, despite
his very limited patronage machinery.
In his study of the 1992 presidential election, Landé relativized the theory he
23
had earlier formulated about the clientelist nature of Philippine politics.
Landé pointed out that in 1992, Ramon Mitra finished a distant fourth in spite of
the fact that he had the most money to spend and the strongest political ma-
chine (which Landé measured through the numbers of successful provincial
political leaders each candidate counted as allies). The winner in 1992, Fidel V.
Ramos (1992–1998), had the backing of fewer than half as many elected gover-
nors, representatives in the Lower House, and senators as Mitra did (60 to
24
Mitra’s 129). And he reportedly spent less on his campaign than Mitra. The sec-
ond place finisher in the 1992 election, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, had almost
no political machinery measured in Landé’s terms, and she is said to have spent
18. Despite Estrada’s best effort to appear a “man of the masses,” his elite background is undeni-
able.
19. Teehankee 2002, 2010; Hedman 2010.
20. Thompson 2010; Teehankee 2013.
21. de Guzman and Tancangco 1986; Namfrel 1986.
22. The 1987 constitution prohibits a president running for reelection but as Arroyo was serving
out Estrada’s truncated term she was seeking election as president for the first time.
23. Landé 1996.
24. Ibid., 106 and 109.
only a miniscule percentage of what Mitra and Ramos did. Yet she lost to Ramos
by fewer than four percentage points. (Mitra finished nearly 10 percent behind
Ramos in that election.) Citing interviews with politicians who agreed with his
analysis, Landé concluded that “leaders can no longer deliver their constituents
blindly”; the media has become the chief means by which voters assess national
candidates.25
The structuralist approach is also unable to account for limits on presidential
power. A weakness of Kasuya’s clientelist analysis of Estrada’s impeachment in
2001, for example, is its failure to explain what triggered the action by the Lower
House. Kusaya says it was outrage at Estrada’s corruption, but this, while impor-
tant, is in line with her focus on personal ties not political emotions. Moreover,
Kusaya’s clientelist approach cannot explain how Estrada actually lost power.
After his impeachment in 2001, Estrada was not then convicted by the Senate,
which is also a major recipient of presidential pork barrel. Rather, he was forced
out of office by a people power coup in which elite-led demonstrators backed
by the armed forces forced him to step down. The Catholic Church hierarchy
and big business had never trusted Estrada; in the end civil society activists and
26
the top military brass also withdrew their support. Extra-electoral elite opposi-
tion such as in the Estrada case is not accounted for by the structuralist
(clientelist) approach, which focuses on ties between rich patrons and poor vot-
ers and presidential pork barrel disbursements to legislators and politicians,
not on bishops, business people, civil society activists, and military generals.
Estrada’s successor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, was a clear master of patron-
age politics, but even she was not able to stop the populist juggernaut of
Fernando Poe Jr.—Estrada’s friend and even more popular movie star politi-
cian—in 2004. Enjoying the strong backing of elites who feared Poe, Macapagal-
27
Arroyo turned to electoral manipulation to ensure her victory in that election.
Arroyo paid for her electoral wrongdoings, however, when she was later caught
on tape apparently discussing voter manipulation in the 2004 national election
with then election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano. This so-called Hello Garci
scandal of mid 2005 revealed the extent of the cheating involved and resulted in
a loss in her popular support. But Arroyo was able to cling to power because
three of the country’s chief strategic groups—big business, the Catholic Church
hierarchy, and the military brass—did not turn against her, as will be discussed
28
below, despite the vehement opposition of civil society activists. Estrada was a
failed president in structuralist terms because he lost the support of the Lower
House in Congress. In addition, he also lost the support of the key elite strategic
groups. Yet, he retained enough support from the poor Filipino masses (the
masa) to finish second in the 2010 presidential elections despite very limited
patronage machinery. Arroyo, by contrast, masterfully distributed patronage
and skillfully divided potential elite opposition but was the most unpopular
25. Ibid., 107.

26. Landé 2001; Abinales and Amoroso 2005, 275–77.
27. Raquiza 2005.
28. Abinales and Amoroso 2005.
In his analyses of the characteris-
tics of leaders and presidents in
the Philippines, Remigio Agpalo
focused on their programmatic
beliefs and organizational support.
Both of these qualities, he points
out, are found in strong supremo-
style presidents such as Filipino
revolutionary leader Andrés
Bonifacio (see left) and, in recent
times, President Ferdinand
Marcos. Both Bonificio and
Marcos had strong ideological
convictions and the organizational
means to carry through on these
commitments.
post-Marcos president: opinion polls conducted during her second term in of-
fice (2004–2010) showed that she was the most hated president since Marcos.29
A broader form of analysis that goes beyond structuralism is needed to capture
both these elite and popular dimensions of presidential performance.
Presidential Style: Character and Performance

In contrast with the structuralist approach, the presidential-style approach is
excessively voluntarist, reducing analysis to idiosyncratic personality traits. This
approach—common in the analysis of other presidential democracies, particu-
larly the United States—stresses that the character of presidents is crucial in
30
determining their effectiveness. An inherent problem in the presidential-style
approach is deciding which personal qualities help a president perform well in
office and which might undermine such achievements. Another problem is that
in trying to identify objective personality characteristics, the subjective charac-
ter of such evaluations is overlooked. Perceptions of presidential performance
are, after all, shaped by a prevailing narrative of the presidency, a discourse used
to legitimize a president independent of objective measures of political perfor-
mance (the rate of economic growth, the degree of political stability, etc.).
Lacking a theory with which to analyze this discursive framework, personalistic
evaluations of a presidents become arbitrary and contradictory.
In the Philippines, two examples of the presidential-style perspective illus-
trate its subjective character and the competing conclusions that often issue
from it: Remigio Agpalo’s pangulo regime and Corazon Aquino’s moral crusade
31
to rid the nation of a corrupt dictatorship.
In his analyses of the characteristics of leaders and presidents in the Philip-
29. Wilson 2010.

30. Neustadt 1990.
31. Agpalo, ed. 1996.
pines, Agpalo focused on their programmatic beliefs and organizational
support. Both of these qualities, Agpalo points out, are found in strong sup-
32
remo-style presidents such as Filipino revolutionary leader Andrés Bonifacio
and, in recent times, President Marcos. Both Bonificio and Marcos had strong
ideological convictions and the organizational means to carry through on these
commitments. In Agpalo’s estimation, Marcos is the best example of the presi-
dent-as-strongman. Marcos believed that the nation’s oligarchical structure had
weakened Philippine society, Agpalo explains, and he was thus determined to
use all the powers of the bureaucracy to transform the Philippines into a “new
society.” Agpalo may overlook Marcos’s many character flaws and the fact that as
a lawyer-politician he was not a military man on a mission to transform his coun-
33
try into an industrial power à la South Korea’s Park Chung-hee, but Agpalo still
regards Marcos as the most developmentalist president the Philippines has ever
34
had. For Marcos endeavored to use all the powers of the president—which he
expanded significantly, of course, with the declaration of martial law and the
establishment of a dictatorship in 1972—to advance his developmentalist pro-
gram.
If Marcos was the ultimate supremo, in Agpalo’s eyes “Cory” Aquino was his
exact opposite inasmuch as she had neither the clear political vision nor strong
organizational backing that Agpalo considered essential for a successful presi-
dency. A last-minute compromise choice to run for president when the
opposition was divided in the run-up to Marcos’s February 1986 snap election,
Aquino ran under the banner of several political parties and nongovernmental
35
organizations (NGOs). Assuming the presidency as a result of the people
power uprising against Marcos, she ruled over an (unruly) coalition that ranged
from conservative oligarchs to radical activists. Infighting later broke out among
her political allies, with frequent demonstrations and coup attempts directed
against her. Her governing style was largely reactive, fending off those trying to
weaken or overthrow her administration. Marcos’s presidency may have started
well, but Aquino’s began disastrously, with the biggest surprise being that she
survived politically to the end of her term.
Diametrically opposed to Agpalo’s views on Aquino is the so-called yellow, or
32. Agpalo 1996 (Philippine).

33. Hutchcroft 2011.
34. Because of its developmentalist goals, Marcos’s presidency had a different quality than that of
his predecessors (and his successors to date), not simply because of its authoritarianism, but
also for its ideological and organizational commitment to transform the country economically
and socially. Eric Batalla (2011) offers a fascinating analysis of the contingent nature of
Marcos’s failure as a developmentalist dictator when compared to other authoritarian Asian
leaders such as Park Chung-hee in South Korea. Marcos did not appear to see a contradiction
between authoritarian developmentalism and cronyism, thus failing to use performance crite-
ria to maintain economic efficiency despite close state–business ties as was the case in South
Korea under Park (Amsden 1992). One of the few authors who has given Marcos his due as a
tragic figure is the seldom-read Lewis Gleeck (1987). There are, of course, Marcos’s own
(ghostwritten) apologia for his dictatorship, such as Revolution from the Center (1978). What
Philippine president will ever again make a claim as baroquely melodramatic as this?
35. The NGOs were often in conflict with one another. See Agpalo 1996 (Leadership), 261;
Thompson 1995, chap. 8.
pro-Aquino, perspective, which takes into account her unusual background,
personality, and moral appeal. Maria Lourdes G. Rebullida sums up Aquino’s
presidential style this way:
As she entered the political limelight, Cory’s political strength was re-
ferred to as the “Cory magic” drawn from her personal background, as one
without the trimmings of a traditional politician, as a cloistered woman
not only in terms of education and upbringing but also as a housewife
who stayed in the background of her husband who was a dynamic political
figure. Cory’s political style as president has been attributed to her per-
sonal characteristics, such as her being a devout Catholic, her fatalistic
orientation.… She had political exposure, especially amongst politicians
in her family.… But it seemed obvious: she did not take much liking to the
ways of politics as exercised by past presidents, and avoided tactical politi-
cal alliances. Her sincerity and innocence were refreshing.… Aquino was
thrust into politics as the opposition candidate against Marcos without a
party of her own. Her support came from the so-called mass base…the
millions who voted for Cory in the snap elections and the millions who
joined the EDSA [Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, the main road on which
people power demonstration of February 1986 took place] revolution
had one single thing in their minds—to drive out Mr. Marcos and end his
36
autocratic government.
In such moralistic terms, the tables of presidential performance are turned. A
37
supremo like Marcos is cast as a demon, while Aquino, by contrast, becomes
the unassuming hero willing to lead the nation toward democracy despite her
lack of interest in politics. (To Marcos’s charge that she knew nothing about pol-
itics, she countered that she was inexperienced in graft and corruption.) Judged
only by his developmentalist goals, Marcos once appeared to have been a suc-
cessful Philippine president. But in the wake of the August 1983 assassination of
Aquino’s husband, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., the Marcos project came crash-
ing down under the twin burdens of debt overload and the devaluation of the
peso. In this environment the pro-Aquino, reformist narrative’s portrayal of
Marcos as a corrupt dictator struck a chord. According to Agpalo, Marcos was
the nation’s greatest president, but he is now regarded as the worst, certainly
38
the most corrupt. By contrast, the national mourning that followed Cory
Aquino’s death in 2009 shows how for many Filipinos she had become the
country’s leading icon thanks to her moral capital, despite her being a weak
president in Agpalo’s terms.
This discussion of presidential style may seem to be subjective and contradic-
tory, but the basis for a critique of this perspective has already been established.
How a president’s performance is judged depends very much on the expecta-
36. Rebullida 2006 (Philippine), 185.

37. Marcos complained that Aquino’s campaign had tagged him as a combination of Darth Vader,
Machiavelli, Nero, Stalin, Pol Pot, and maybe even Satan himself.
38. In 2004 Transparency International ranked Marcos as the world’s second most corrupt leader
after Indonesia’s Suharto.
tions and perceptions of the observer. It can be asked, for example, why the
corruption scandals that dogged the administration of Fidel V. Ramos (1992–
39
1998)—such as the PEA–Amari deal —did not undermine his reformist presi-
dential narrative, while illicit dealings under the populist Estrada were
sufficient to justify his extra-constitutional ouster (under the guise of revived
people power). Similarly, we can ask why rapid economic growth under the cur-
rent president (2010– ), Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, has boosted his
popularity—vindicating in his mind his “good governance is good economics”
slogan—while high growth during the era of his predecessor, Macapagal-Ar-
40
royo, won her no popularity whatsoever. Judgments about a president are
clearly not formed in a vacuum, but according to a dominant regime narrative
and how the narrative is applied to each presidency. Ramos’s self-proclaimed re-
formism made his presidency teflon-like in regard to corruption charges. By
contrast, Estrada—already tagged by middle- and upper-class supporters of the
reformist regime as a lazy buffoon with only cheap movie star appeal to the
poor—could easily be portrayed to elites as corrupt. What is needed then is a
framework that allows more systematic assessment of the construction of presi-
dential narratives.
A Relational, Regime-based Approach

Political scientist Stephen Skowronek’s influential studies of presidential per-
formance in the United States are based on a relational approach that he
41
developed in reaction to the presidential-style perspective. Skowronek argues
that presidents cannot be judged adequately by their personality, individual at-
tributes, or manner of governance. Their performance must be placed in the
larger context of a presidential regime that is shaped by particular ideologies,
dominant interest groups, and institutional configurations established by their
predecessors. Presidential regimes, Skowronek explains, are constructed
around ideologies and the upholding of interests embodied in a preexisting in-
42
stitutional arrangement. Except for rare cases in which a regime becomes ripe
for reconstruction, a president ascends to power within a politico-institutional
setup that shapes perceptions of the particular administration. The political
identity of an incumbent president is judged then according to whether s/he is
affiliated with or opposed to the prevailing regime. Opportunities for success
available to an incumbent president hinge on how resilient or vulnerable a re-
gime has become: a regime that remains strong is good for affiliated presidents,
but harsh on would-be preemptors to it; the opposite holds true for a weakened
39. The PEA–Amari deal, which has been termed the “grandmother of all scams,” involved the Pub-
lic Estates Authority (PEA) selling off government land for lucrative real estate development
below the market price to Amari Coastal Bay Resources and other favored beneficiaries instead
of awarding it to the highest bidder. See Coronel and Tordesillas 1998.
40. Opinion polls rate Macapagal-Arroyo as the country’s least loved president with high rates of
growth during her administration judged by her critics to have occurred despite massive cor-
ruption.
41. Skowronek 1997 and 2008.
42. Skowronek 2008, 28–29.
regime. Thus, according to this approach, presidential leadership is defined
more by one’s relationship to the prevailing regime than by personal style or
character.
This relational approach does not, however, rule out agency. By locating a
president’s sequencing within an existing regime, this perspective allows for a
fairer judgment of their choices because it takes into account the constraints
they face. Thus, Skowronek’s study of presidential power faces the dilemma
that most social science analysis confronts: navigating between determinist
43
structures and the voluntarism implied by agency. Anthony Giddens’s
“structuration” approach puts agency within the enabling and constraining
character of structures. In this way, due attention can be given to both perspec-
44
tives, agential and structural. To paraphrase Marx, presidents act, but not in
any way they choose.
Skowronek argues that the current political regime of small government in
the United States began during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, which repudi-
ated the liberal New Deal–style regime started in the 1930s by Franklin D.
45
Roosevelt. Similarly, in the Philippines, Cory Aquino’s new reformist, demo-
cratic regime put an end to Marcos’s failed developmentalist authoritarianism.
Reformism in this context involves a discursive commitment to democracy and
combating corruption in the name of good governance. This post-Marcos re-
formist regime provides a good context in which to analyze presidential
leadership in the administrations of five post-Marcos presidents: Corazon C.
Aquino, Fidel V. Ramos, Joseph E. Estrada, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and
Benigno S. Aquino III. The relationship a particular president has to this prevail-
ing regime influences strongly influences the perception of how successful
their presidency is.
Modifying Skowronek’s Approach

The concept of presidential regimes—developed to study the United States, the
oldest and one of the best institutionalized presidential systems in an industrial-
ized country—cannot be applied without substantial modification to a
developing country such as the Philippines, which is rife with chronic instability
46
and widespread poverty. In order to use Skowronek’s regime approach in the
Philippine context, it must be modified in three ways: (1) in terms of ideas (in
the Philippines one finds campaign narratives and regime scripts, not system-
atic ideological programs); (2) in respect to interests (in which powerful
extra-electoral strategic groups are of great importance); and (3) in regard to in-
43. Lieberman 2000, 275.

44. Giddens 1984.
45. Ibid., 19. President Jimmy Carter was the last representative of the big-government regime.
46. The comparison between the U.S. and Philippine cases is not an entirely independent one
given that the current model of the Philippine presidency was adapted during the period of
U.S. “colonial democracy” in the Philippines (Paredes 1989). But it differed considerably from
its U.S. “model” given the particularities of the Philippine interwar context (Friend 1965) and
the extraordinary influence of Manuel Quezon, who would become the first president during
the Commonwealth (McCoy 1989, 166).
stitutions (in which the “strong” Philippine presidency is institutionally
vulnerable, meaning incumbent presidents can be overthrown). Philippine
presidents are evaluated, then, based on their relationship to a reformist regime
that employs the narrative of good governance and democratization that re-
placed Marcos’s developmentalist authoritarianism in the people power revolt
in 1986.
Narratives
Skowronek’s emphasis on ideology in the construction of presidential regimes
is problematic in the Philippine context in which campaign narratives and gov-
47
erning scripts do not have a systematic, programmatic quality. In the
48
Philippines, where party ideologies are weak, candidates craft campaign narra-
tives to appeal to the hopes and values of the electorate. Thus an emotional link
is forged between voters and candidates. While not programmatic in a system-
atic sense, narratives do have an ideological quality in the sense that they
present an oversimplified and one-sided view of reality, which can be used to
disguise class or other interests. Previously applied predominantly to fields in
the humanities, the narrative methodogy of analysis is increasingly being uti-
49
lized in the social sciences and in the study of politics in particular. The
methodology of political narrative analysis is useful for reconstructing the sto-
ries political actors in the Philippines tell in order to win popular support and
50
legitimize their presidency. This points to the fact that political discourse must
be seen in its institutional context, which Vivien Schmidt dubs “discursive
51
institutionalism.” Schmidt argues that this “communicative discourse” encom-
passes political actors, including those involved in ‘the top-down mass electoral
process of public persuasion “who bring the ideas developed in a particular in-
stitutional environment [e.g., in this case the Philippine political system] to the
52
public for deliberation and legitimation.”
The Philippine reformist regime is based on a discourse of democracy and
good governance typified in the presidencies of Cory Aquino and most of her
successors. Reformism claims that reestablishing democracy, fighting corrup-
tion, and improving the efficiency of governance is the chief executive’s most
53
important mission. “I will not steal from you,” this bourgeois political narra-
tive promises. Reformism avoids questions of equality much less redistribution,
eschewing direct class-based appeals and claims to act instead in the national in-
47. Teehankee 2013.

48. Manacsa and Tan 2005; Hicken 2009.
49. Hinchman and Hinchman 1997; Patterson and Monroe 1998; Elliott 2005. As a recent addition
to the methodology of the social sciences, narrative analysis has engendered disputes (typical
of the discipline) about exactly what such an application should involve. It is beyond the scope
of this article to enter into these debates. For more on the debates, see Riessman 1993;
Hinchman and Hinchman 1997.
50. Shenhav 2006.
51. Schmidt 2010. I am grateful to Julio Teehankee for suggesting this reference.
52. Ibid., 3–4.
53. Thompson 2010.
54
terest. Reformism became the dominant political narrative during the anti-
Marcos struggle, particularly after the assassination of Ninoy Aquino in 1983.
Cory Aquino used this narrative in her presidential election campaign against
Marcos in 1986 and it remains today the most highly influential political dis-
course in the Philippines.
Strategic Groups
Interests—dominant social groups with common aims—are a second compo-
nent of Skowronek’s understanding of a presidential regime. These also need
to be analyzed differently in the Philippines than in the United States. Given the
fact that most of the population of the Philippines is poor and relatively power-
less, strategic groups in the Philippines are more powerful than C. Wright Mills’s
55
power elite in the United States. For Hans-Dieter Evers and his collaborators,
strategic groups are not reducible to a social class (e.g., the bourgeoisie) that
56
form a homogenous ruling elite. As group consciousness emerges, heteroge-
neous 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 mem-
bership, clientele, or mass base. Although distinguished by their different
power resources (the military: force/coercion; big business: capital/property;
religious leaders: a belief system), these groups may unite around a program of
57
political action based on common interests and ideological commitments.
Going beyond the general oligarchical domination perspective discussed above
in reference to patronage, a strategic group approach offers the advantage of an-
alyzing those particular elite groups whose backing is crucial for a stable
presidency, but whose withdrawal of support can lead to a president’s downfall.
As extra-electoral power brokers, strategic groups can buttress or challenge the
power of elected politicians, the president in particular.
In the Philippine context, four extra-electoral strategic groups have played
critical roles in presidential politics during and after the Marcos regime: big
58
business, the Catholic Church, civil society activists, and the military. Except
for the military, these groups are officially outside of government, although they
all have close ties to the state, with representatives of big business and civil soci-
ety groups often taking high-ranking positions in presidential cabinets. They all
54. This narrative can be traced back to Jose Rizal, a Philippine national hero who was a novelist,
eye doctor, linguist, and historian, among his other talents. His novel Noli Me Tangere, pub-
lished in 1887, sarcastically attacked “untouchable” corruption under Spanish rule. The
maternal grandfather of the current president, Juan Sumulong, was known as the “Great Dis-
senter” because he criticized abuses during Manuel Quezon’s Commonwealth presidency
(1935–44). Ramon Magsaysay was elected on a reformist platform in the 1953 presidential
campaign, defeating the incumbent Elpidio Quirino, whom he portrayed as hopelessly cor-
rupt.
55. Evers 1973; Evers, Schiel, and Korff 1988; Mills 1956.
56. This project by Evers and his collaborators is similar to Anthony Giddens’s attempt (Giddens
1973) to reformulate class theory in order to avoid a simplistic “ruling class” model, focusing
instead on different “leadership groups” that exercise and contest power within the elite.
57. Berner 1995.
58. Gloria 2003; Hedman 2006; Reid 2008; Abinales and Amoroso 2005, 230–90.
have large organizations that allow them to mobilize supporters for or against a
president, either nonviolently (such as through demonstrations) or with a show
of force (by military intervention). Each of these groups became politicized dur-
ing the Marcos dictatorship, leading them to become major advocates of
reformism. They went from being core groups in the opposition struggle
against authoritarianism to independent actors after Marcos. Sometimes united
(e.g., against Estrada) but in other cases divided (e.g., under Arroyo), strategic
groups have supported reformist presidents but often turned against those
whom they considered to have challenged or betrayed this regime narrative.
Before martial law, traditional political elites exercised power locally and
dominated elections either by supporting campaigns or running as their own
candidates. Their electoral base, largely unchallenged in those days, was nearly
destroyed by Marcos—who first suspended and then manipulated elections.
With the restoration of electoral democracy in 1986, re-empowered politicians
found themselves facing potential challenges from extra-electoral strategic
groups that became politicized in opposition to Marcos. Big business funded
demonstrations against Marcos; bishops turned from “critical collaboration” to
opposing Marcos’s dictatorship; civil society–led protests erupted; and the mili-
tary became factionalized. The loyalty of these strategic groups has been crucial
to each president’s success in post-Marcos Philippines.
Big business holds the key to successful economic development. This capital-
ist class is a crucial part of country’s “dominant bloc,” in Gramscian terms,
making its support crucial to a presidential administration’s economic suc-
59
cess. Big business emerged as a crucial backer of the post-Marcos order led ini-
tially by presidents Cory Aquino and Fidel Ramos, but was strongly opposed to
Estrada. This opposition to Estrada was evident in the anti-Estrada confetti ral-
lies held on Ayala Avenue of the business district of Makati, which closely
60
followed the pattern of such protests during the anti-Marcos struggle.
Although the Catholic Church has long possessed moral capital, it became an
important independent actor only after it became politicized during the anti-
61
Marcos struggle. Coeli Barry writes that after the Church’s
eleventh hour transformation from “critical collaboration” to simply criti-
cism of the Marcos regime, it confirmed for itself a place in the public
sphere…as a crucial force in the overthrow of authoritarianism. In the
post-authoritarian Philippines, the Catholic Church embraces its role as a
guardian of democracy…and [has] secured for itself a prominent place in
62
the Philippine political landscape.
With Cory Aquino embracing its guardianship role, the Church became a ma-
jor supporter of her conservative reformist project of elite democracy and good
59. Hedman 2006. Big business is of course not monolithic and is often apolitical, particularly the
so-called taipans such as billionaire Filipino-businessmen Henry Sy and John Gokongwei.
60. Hedman 2001, 6.
61. Youngblood 1990. The Catholic Church was formally allied with big business through the
Bishop–Businessmen’s Conference founded during the final stages of the anti-Marcos strug-
gle.
62. Barry 2005, 157.
63
governance. There is no Catholic vote in the Philippines, of course. The elec-
tions of the Protestant Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada—who both faced strong
opposition from the Catholic Church hierarchy—illustrate this point. Further-
more, the influence of the Catholic Church has recently been challenged by the
rise of evangelical and charismatic movements such as Iglesia ni Kristo, El
Shaddai, and Jesus Is Lord. But Manila’s Jaime Cardinal Sin and other Church
leaders were at the forefront of the opposition to Estrada, unsuccessfully urging
the electorate not to vote for him in 1998 and then conspiring behind the scenes
to bring him down after fewer than three years in office.
After Sin’s death in 2005, and in the wake of revelations of sexual abuses in
the Roman Catholic Church, internal divisions emerged within the Catholic hi-
erarchy. This made it more difficult for the country’s Catholic bishops to take a
unified stance against Arroyo because of her manipulation of the 2004 election
64
and other scandals, as will be discussed below. At the same time, Arroyo pam-
pered a group of church leaders who became known as the Malacanang
bishops, ensuring their loyalty during the insurrectionist onslaught of military
65
rebels and civil society following the Hello Garci scandal. During Nonoy
Aquino’s presidency, the Catholic Church hierarchy has led a high-profile cam-
paign against the reproductive health (RH) bill, which the women’s movement
66
has strongly supported. But the Church hierarchy has not challenged Noynoy
Aquino’s presidency head on due to his strong reformist credentials, as they did
in the case of Estrada’s “immoral” administration.
Civil society activists are the most volatile and easily mobilizable strategic
group in the Philippines. Their leaders often cross over to serve in presidential
cabinets, although they have sometimes found themselves double-crossed by
67
feckless presidents. Civil society has been vulnerable to co-optation by the
elites despite the fact that many NGOs are led by factions of the Philippine Left.
Although civil society groups existed before the declaration of martial law and
played a limited opposition role during the early authoritarian period, they be-
came particularly influential after the assassination of Ninoy Aquino in 1983.
Generally supportive of the presidencies of Cory Aquino and Fidel Ramos, most
civil society groups turned against Estrada after several major corruption scan-
dals. Following a brief political romance with Arroyo, they abandoned her
administration like lovers scorned when the Hello Garci electoral manipulation
affair and other major scandals discredited her administration.
Although the loudest of the four strategic groups, civil society has alone
proved incapable of breaking a president it no longer favors. The weakness of
63. Ibid., 158.

64. Abinales and Amoroso 2006, 291.
65. Rufo 2013.
66. Mendoza 2011 and 2013. After failing to block the passage of the RH bill in Congress in Decem-
ber 2012, the hierarchy shifted its interest to the Supreme Court where several Church-
friendly justices convinced the court to defer the law for over a year before finally approving it
(although judging some significant portions of the legislation unconstitutional in April 2014).
67. Reid 2008. See also Lewis 2013.
68. Docena 2006.
President Corazon C. Aquino is pictured here (circa 1987) after the coup attempt that al-
most killed her son, Benigno S. Aquino III. Standing beside her is Chief of Staff Gen. Fidel
V. Ramos, who succeeded Aquino as president in 1992. (Credit: Wikimedia)
activists having no major allies among big business, the Church hierarchy, or the
military brass became evident under Arroyo, who was able to survive until the
end of her term despite coup attempts by low-ranking officers supported by
civil society personalities in the anti-Arroyo Black and White Movement alli-
ance.68 Under the present administration of Noynoy Aquino many civil society
activists feel they have again found a president they can support, although the
current pork barrel scandal (see footnote 15) has turned some groups into crit-
ics of the president.
The final strategic group, the military, is often slowest to act, but is most deci-
sive when it does intervene extra-electorally due to its firepower and ability to
overthrow a government single-handedly. The military hierarchy supported
Marcos’s declaration of martial law, but his sultanization of the top ranks of the
69
armed forces factionalized the military. When the February 1986 elections
were manipulated, the Enrile–Ramos breakaway faction mobilized discon-
tented officers and launched an unsuccessful coup. This gave rise to civilian
people power in support of these military rebels. The Reform the Armed Forces
(RAM) rebel officer movement linked to Juan Ponce Enrile (briefly Cory
Aquino’s defense minister until he was fired for disloyalty) posed a serious chal-
lenge to Aquino’s government as did coup attempts by so-called Marcos
70
loyalists. The next president, Fidel Ramos, succeeded in putting an end to re-
bel officer efforts to overthrow the government. But a united military did not
69. Kessler 1989, chap. 4; Thompson 1995, chap 3.

70. Tiglao 1990.
71. Landé 2001.
mean the end of extra-electoral intervention by the armed forces. After some
hesitation, top generals joined the anti-Estrada coalition led by the church, busi-
ness, and civil society class activists. The military’s withdrawal of support was
crucial for overthrowing Estrada in the people power II/EDSA Dos uprising.71
When they turned against Estrada’s successor, Arroyo, some civil society activ-
72
ists allied with junior military officers in (failed) coup attempts. But Arroyo was
able to buy off the top brass, keeping them loyal to her government despite dis-
content in the military’s lower ranks.
Political Institutions
The third and final element of Skowronek’s presidential regime analysis, politi-
cal institutions, also needs to be rethought in the Philippine context. While the
United States has a constitutional arrangement that, with some modification,
spans two centuries, the Philippines is a recently democratizing country. Philip-
pine presidents (particularly given their extensive discretionary budgetary
powers) are quite strong, resembling in this sense more their Latin American
73
than U.S. counterparts. But the Philippine presidency has been unstable, as re-
peated people power movements and numerous coup attempts demonstrate.
In the Philippines, like in much of Latin America, a strong presidency is situated
in a weak state.
In modifying Skowronek’s relational approach to better fit the Philippine
presidency, I argue that plausible campaign narratives and regime scripts are
crucial to achieving political legitimacy, not elaborate ideologies. The key inter-
ests backing (or opposing) a president are strategic groups made up of
elements from big business, the Catholic Church hierarchy, civil society activ-
ists, and the military. Institutionally, the Philippine presidency is strong
primarily because of its discretionary budgetary powers, but it is vulnerable to
extra-constitutional threats, particularly when strategic groups unite against a
president.
Post-Marcos Presidencies
Once these three modifications are made to Skowronek’s theory, presidential
administrations in the post-Marcos era can be better understood. Cory Aquino
led the movement that overthrew Marcos and established a new but unstable re-
formist presidential regime as a “foundationalist” president. Fidel Ramos, an
“orthodox innovator,” consolidated this regime as the military and other strate-
gic groups lined up behind his presidency. Joseph Estrada tried to preempt
reformism with direct appeals to the poor but this populist challenge to the pre-
vailing regime angered key strategic groups and they forced him from power.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who succeeded to the presidency as vice president af-
72. Docena 2006; Walsh 2006.

73. Teehankee 2011.
74. The low point of the anti-Aquino protests was a massacre in January 1987 on Mendiola Street
(near the presidential palace) of militant farmers who were calling for agrarian reform.
75. Thompson 1995, chap. 9.

ter Estrada was overthrown, promised a return to good governance. But this
script was discredited when her efforts to manipulate the 2004 election were re-
vealed and a series of corruption scandals rocked her administration, making
her an apostate of reformism. Despite her unpopularity, she was able to divide
strategic groups, keeping enough of them loyal to her administration to survive
in power until the end of her term of office. Finally, President Noynoy Aquino
became another orthodox innovator by reviving reformism.
Cory Aquino’s difficulties as president were typical of a foundationalist presi-
dency. As the regime founder, she faced opposition from disillusioned allies,
Marcos loyalists, and communist insurgents who were angered by her with-
drawal of social reforms and peace offers in the face of stiff military opposition
(and several coup attempts). Emergent strategic groups had yet to consolidate
around Aquino’s reformist regime: the military was split and activist groups
(particularly those linked to the Communist Party) took to the streets against
74
her government. This unrest took place in the context of economic collapse,
75
rising criminality, and growing political anarchy. The chief accomplishment of
Cory’s administration was defeating efforts to overthrow it.
Skowronek argues that regime foundation is usually fraught with political
upheaval. He cites the examples of foundationalist presidents in the United
States, notably Andrew Jackson in the nineteenth century and Franklin D. Roo-
sevelt in the twentieth century, both of whom came to power during economic
depressions that were widely blamed on the incumbent presidents and their
parties. At the same time their allies were divided, making a new political order
difficult to establish, with proponents of the ancien régime joining in the fray in
76
order to weaken the threatening new foundationalist president. In the Philip-
pine case, the precariousness of the presidency in a weakened state made
founding the regime even more difficult. The extreme institutional vulnerabil-
ity of the Cory Aquino presidency sets it apart from foundationalist presidents
in the United States. The difficulties U.S. foundationalist presidents faced in a
stable political system underscores the doubly difficult challenges Aquino con-
fronted as she tried to govern as a regime founder in a country beset by acute
institutional instability.
Skowronek then argues that if a new regime is successfully constructed it
constricts the political opportunities available to successor presidents. A newly
consolidated regime allows only the alternative of orthodox innovation (work-
ing with the existing regime) or preemption (attempting to work outside of the
ideological assumptions and to avoid the same interest group entanglements
without challenging the regime directly). As Skowronek explains, innovators do
not change the existing order with its strong ideational and interest commit-
ments, but rather attempt to “complete the agenda, adapt the vision, and defuse
77
the potentially explosive choices among competing obligations.”
For Skowronek, the presidency of George W. Bush typifies orthodox innova-
76. Skowronek 2008, 32–44.

77. Ibid., 44–45.
78. Thompson and Macaranas 2006.
tion as Bush attempted to return to the agenda of small government (through
tax cuts for the wealthy) and a muscular foreign policy (the Afghanistan and Iraq
wars) characteristic of the regime of Ronald Reagan. In the Philippine case,
Ramos and Noynoy Aquino can be viewed as attempting to innovate on Cory
Aquino’s reformism. Ramos was portrayed as a president committed to good
and efficient government, with major financial and bureaucratic reforms taking
place during his administration.78 Noynoy Aquino, using Arroyo’s corrupt ad-
ministration as a foil, went even further, promising that if there is no corruption,
there will be no poverty: kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap. During
Nonoy Aquino’s presidency the rhetoric of good governance has reached new
heights, re-branding the Philippines abroad (with major financial rating agen-
cies providing investment upgrades) while maintaining his high opinion poll
ratings at home with his professed commitment to eradicating corruption. De-
spite such promises, however, smuggling is still endemic while major structural
problems such as jobless growth, high poverty rates, growing inequality, and
79
manufacturing decline remain unaddressed. A major pork barrel scandal in
2013 raised the question about whether Noynoy Aquino had run into a narra-
tive trap: promising reform while at the same time using patronage (which as
shown above is key to the executive’s sway over legislators) to pass reformist
80
measures. Even his great successes—such as the removal of the supposedly
corrupt Supreme Court chief justice Renato Corona—were apparently only
81
possible through a generous allocation of presidential patronage. Nonethe-
less, Aquino retains the support of key strategic groups and his narrative has not
been weakened sufficiently enough to lead to an abrupt decline in his popular-
ity, as Arroyo experienced after a series of scandals during her administration.
If Ramos and Noynoy Aquino were/are successful orthodox innovators,
where does that leave Estrada? His populist narrative proved far off script from
reformism, antagonizing key strategic groups. A movie star politician, Estrada
easily won the presidency in the 1998 polls, wooing the masa by transferring his
persona as a fighter for the poor acquired during years as an action star to the
82
political stage. His populist narrative as a friend of the friendless poor—his
nickname “Erap” is a 1960s slang inversion of pare (short for compadre, that
has come to mean bro or friend)—was the basis of his 1998 campaign slogan,
“Erap para sa mahirap” (Erap for the poor). Despite hostility from much of the
political elite, Estrada easily defeated a traditional machine politician, Jose de
Venecia Jr., with his strong pro-poor campaign narrative.
But the opposition Estrada faced from the Catholic Church hierarchy and big
business during the campaign continued even after his decisive electoral vic-
tory. Like William “Bill” Clinton, who Skowronek describes as a preemptive
president against the Reagan regime, Estrada was impeached by his reformist
79. Koeppinger 2013.

80. On the pork barrel scandal, see footnote 15. I would like to thank Julio Teehankee for suggest-
ing the term “narrative trap.”
81. Tiglao 2013.
82. Hedman 2001.
83. Abinales and Amoroso 2005, 271–78.
opponents, who claimed to be upholding the ideal of good governance. The
claim here is not that Estrada faced trumped-up charges—centered around a
jueteng (an illegal numbers game) scandal—but that strategic groups were itch-
ing for an opportunity to remove him from office. Estrada lost the support of
key Lower House allies, which seems to indicate, as discussed above, that he
was not a highly skilled dispenser of patronage. But the larger picture is that
Estrada had provoked extra-electoral elite opposition by invoking a populist
narrative that seemed to make him immune to reformist demands for good gov-
ernance. Estrada also lost the support of most civil society groups (backed by
83
strong media criticism), which were disillusioned with his corrupt presidency.
Estrada was extremely unpopular among A, B, and C groups in the electorate,
which together make up the top 10 percent of income earners in the country.
These groups were convinced that “Estrada had lost the moral ascendency to
84
govern.” Estrada relied on the appeals of his movie star millenarianism to the
poor, an attitude seemingly vindicated by his continued popularity among dis-
advantaged Filipinos even at the peak of the corruption scandal in late 2000,
85
early 2001. But like U.S. president Bill Clinton, who survived in office due to
the Senate’s unwillingness to convict him, Estrada also staved off Senate convic-
tion. Estrada, however, was later overthrown in an insurrection led by his
strategic group enemies (including top generals), a de facto coup that the Su-
preme Court then legitimized. Thus, the institutional vulnerability of the
Philippine presidency was made clear.
Arroyo’s tenure as president is the most difficult to analyze within Skow-
ronek’s modified framework because she was neither an “orthodox innovator”
nor a preemptive populist. Rather, she was a would-be reformist who lost her
good governance credentials in the effort to defeat a populist challenge, making
her an “apostate” of reformism. The closest parallel in recent U.S. presidential
history is Richard M. Nixon, whose presidency was overshadowed by the Water-
86
gate scandal. Watergate was on a grander scale than any other political affair
since the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. This parallels the Hello Garci scan-
dal at the time of the 2004 election and other scandals during Arroyo’s time in
office. Corruption by Arroyo’s close friends and family was excessive, even by
87
the relatively low standards of her predecessors. But a major corruption scan-
dal during the Ramos administration (PEA–Amari) did not cause a similar outcry
84. Banzon Bautista 2001, 13.

85. There is some controversy about Estrada’s opinion ratings during the impeachment/trial/in-
surrectionary period. Banzon Bautista 2001 reports Pulse Asia figures showing a drop in
Estrada’s popularity across class lines, although the poorest Filipinos in Manila remained loyal
to the populist president, a view reinforced by a 2004 study of an urban poor area in Manila
(Lalata and Balgos 2004). But the popularity of Fernando Poe Jr., Estrada’s close friend and fel-
low actor, among the poor in the 2004 election (which Arroyo purportedly had to steal
through electoral manipulation), as well as Estrada’s own strong second place showing in the
2010 presidential polls and election as mayor of Manila in 2013, suggests that the former presi-
dent has indeed retained a strong following among the poorest Filipinos based on his populist
narrative.
86. Kutler 1992.
87. Mangahas 2009. Mangahas presents evidence from official records that show Arroyo’s “de-
clared wealth as growing faster, and by amounts much bigger, than the combined growth in
because activists regarded his reformist credentials to be sound. In fact, viewed
more objectively, Arroyo’s administration was not the utter failure that the hos-
tility of most civil society activists (as well as a large majority of Filipinos
generally, as low public opinion polling indicate) would suggest.88 In terms of
dealing with the Muslim insurgency, avoiding potential fiscal crisis, and promot-
ing rapid economic growth even during a major worldwide recession, Arroyo’s
presidency was undoubtedly successful even if the bungling of major infrastruc-
89
ture projects relativizes such a judgment. Like Nixon in the United States,
Arroyo was an accomplished president whose image was permanently tar-
nished by scandal.
Despite her unpopularity, Arroyo survived in office because she was able to
ensure the loyalty—through means more foul than fair—of the key strategic al-
lies that an opposition revolt would have needed. The military hierarchy
remained loyal thanks in part to the generous rewards Arroyo gave to her loyal
generals and the permission she gave the military to hunt legitimate leftists (in-
90
cluding journalists). Arroyo won over wavering Catholic bishops through
generous material incentives because she took a conservative stance on repro-
ductive issues. Business interests appreciated the country’s robust economic
growth. Finally, Arroyo also enjoyed the support of many House members (who
blocked impeachment efforts against her), most governors, and other local gov-
ernment officials.
Conclusion
In this article I have argued that neither the presidential-style approach nor the
structuralist approach account of the Philippine presidency is satisfactory to ex-
plain the politics presidents make. Using political agency to judge the success or
failure of an incumbent—as the presidential-style (voluntarist) approach does
—assumes that personality characteristics are crucial. In the Philippine context,
however, I have shown this to be arbitrary. From the strongman, pangulo per-
spective, Marcos, for example, was the country’s best president, but from a
virtuous, moralizing viewpoint, he was the worst. The structuralist (patron-
age-based) approach, by contrast, reduces the presidency to its function as
the declared wealth of three presidents before her.”

88. Social Weather Stations 2009.
89. It is an interesting exercise to read Velasco and Saludo 2010 and Landingin 2011 together as a
kind of dissonant duet. Advisors to Arroyo, Velasco and Saludo have written a robust defense of
an unpopular administration, pointing to the way she stabilized the country’s shaky fiscal posi-
tion and presided over thirty-six quarters of consecutive high economic growth. Landingin
and his colleagues, on the other hand, are concerned with showing how the corruption and in-
competence of the administration led to the failure of seven major infrastructure projects (the
administration’s “seven deadly sins”). As powerful a critique as this is, one is left to wonder
whether the current Aquino administration could withstand a similarly rigorous examination
as infrastructure projects have lagged even compared to Arroyo’s supposedly poor perfor-
mance (see Asia Sentinel 2013). This again leads back to the point that as an apostate of
reformism, Arroyo is held to a higher standard than the “sincere” attempts to achieve good gov-
ernance by the current Aquino administration.
90. One report states that more than nine-hundred activists died in extrajudicial killings during
her time in power. See Agence France-Presse 2009.
91. See Tradingeconomics.com and Biznews Asia 2009, 3 and 8.
patronage dispenser. But as we have seen, those who win the presidency are not
necessarily the candidates with the best patronage machinery. Rather they have
the more compelling campaign narrative. Moreover, patronage distribution
cannot guarantee a president’s survival because extra-electoral strategic groups
can oust her/him from office through a people power coup.
I have argued that narratives, strategic groups, and institutional instability
are characteristic of presidential regimes in the Philippines. Analyzing a presi-
dent’s relationship to this regime is a better way of analyzing the Philippine
presidency provided it is modified to make it applicable to a developing world
context. That is why instead of elaborate ideologies, campaign narratives and
presidential scripts have been emphasized, with reformism the dominant story
candidates and presidents in the post-Marcos era have told. The four key ex-
tra-electoral strategic groups in the Philippines, we have seen, are big business,
the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, civil society activists, and the military. As
an institution, the Philippine presidency is strong given its discretionary bud-
getary powers, but vulnerable because weak state institutions give rise to
civilian protests that can culminate in the overthrow of a president in a people
power cum military coup.
Relational analysis helps solve some of the riddles of the post-Marcos presi-
dencies. In terms of economic performance, Arroyo was in many ways the most
successful president, as growth and other financial indicators were highest dur-
91 92
ing her presidency. Yet, as we have seen, she could not buy popularity.
Advocates of the presidential-style school will claim, of course, that Arroyo
made major errors in the political realm, which she surely did. But the percep-
tion of her presidency was negative because she disappointed popular
expectations of a reformist revival after Estrada’s fall from power. Her adminis-
tration’s economic achievements were not enough to compensate.
Conversely, viewed in any reasonably objective terms the presidential perfor-
mance of Cory Aquino was poor both in economic terms (the lowest growth of
any post-Marcos presidency) and politically (the greatest instability). There
93
were also several major scandals during her term of office. But she was the
founder of the reformist regime, with a personal reputation for honesty after
the corrupt Marcos years. Her popularity did sink during her presidency, but al-
ways remained positive, putting her overall poll ratings slightly above Ramos’s
94
and far above Arroyo’s. Both the negative case of Arroyo and the positive one of
Cory Aquino demonstrate that success is less related to presidential style than to
a presidency’s relationship to the prevailing regime.
Why was Estrada overthrown, despite his popularity with the poor, while Ar-
92. Polls show that Arroyo was the most loathed president since Marcos. See Social Weather Sta-
tions 2009.
93. These alleged political misdeeds were linked to her close relatives, including the purchase of
Philippine Airlines (PAL) stocks, the sale of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company
(PLDT), and the so-called Garchitorena Land Scam, which involved a close associate of Cory
Aquino’s brother, Jose “Peping” Cojuangco (Greenwald 1990; Dychiu 2010).
94. Social Weather Stations 2009.
95. A large (though unsuccessful) “poor people power” protest after Estrada’s arrest in April 2001
royo, the least popular post-Marcos president, survived in office? Estrada was
perceived as particularly threatening to the reformist regime because his pre-
emptive populist narrative ensured the loyalty of the poor majority regardless
of the high-level corruption for which strategic groups held his administration
responsible. A gambling scandal gave the Catholic Church, big business, and
civil society the excuse they needed to launch people-power demonstrations
against him. In the end, a handful of generals withdrew their support and
Estrada was overthrown.95 In Arroyo’s case much of the media and influential
civil society groups attacked her for corruption and voter fraud, but she had
never challenged the prevailing reformist order directly. In other words, while
she was seen as an apostate to reform (due to high levels of corruption and ma-
nipulation of the 2004 polls), she never tried to preempt the reformist order
with populist appeals to the poor. In fact, she had little support from lower-
class Filipinos. Instead, she effectively divided key elites and was able to win the
loyalty of the military hierarchy and Catholic bishops. In the end, despite being
an apostate to reformism, Arroyo retained enough support from the strategic
groups to stay in office. Poor voters are needed to win free and fair presidential
elections, but only unified elite groups have the power to overthrow a sitting
president.
Noynoy Aquino effectively used Arroyo’s administration as a foil to restore
the good governance narrative and to become an orthodox innovator of reform-
ism like Ramos had in the 1990s. Noynoy Aquino’s thus far popular presidency
(measured in opinion polling and the success of nine of twelve of his senatorial
candidates in the 2013 midterm polls) has been successful not primarily be-
cause of the economy’s performance—which initially lagged behind Arroyo’s
impressive macro-economic record and has since then failed to produce his
promised inclusive growth—but because he has used the symbolism of good
governance and demonstrations of sincerity to undertake political reform. De-
spite a major pork barrel scandal that made headlines just after the midpoint of
the Noynoy Aquino administration, reformism is still a largely unchallenged as
the dominant regime narrative in the post-Marcos Philippines.
showed, however, that he still enjoyed the backing of the poor masa.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I would like to thank the participants in a plenary session of the Phil-
ippine Political Science Association International Meeting, Batac City, Philippines, 11–12
April 2013, where this paper was first presented. I also wish to express my appreciation
to the three anonymous reviewers and to a coeditor of Critical Asian Studies for their
thoughtful comments and criticisms. I would also like to thank CAS editor Tom Fenton
for his comprehensive editorial suggestions. My research on the Philippine presidency
has been influenced by the pioneering work of Remigio Agpalo, a leading Philippine po-
litical scientist who died in 2008, and Yuko Kasuya of Keio University, even if the
approach adopted here differs from theirs. I have benefited enormously from my conver-
sations with Julio Teehankee, from his own studies of the Philippine presidency, and
from our collaboration on a book project about the Philippine presidency.

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tive is extraordinarily powerful. A recent comparative analysis, for in-

434 Critical Asian Studies 46:3 (2014)

The Structuralist Approach

14. Landé 1967.

25. Ibid., 107.

Presidential Style: Character and Performance

29. Wilson 2010.

32. Agpalo 1996 (Philippine).

36. Rebullida 2006 (Philippine), 185.

A Relational, Regime-based Approach

Modifying Skowronek’s Approach

43. Lieberman 2000, 275.

47. Teehankee 2013.

63. Ibid., 158.

69. Kessler 1989, chap. 4; Thompson 1995, chap 3.

72. Docena 2006; Walsh 2006.

450 Critical Asian Studies 46:3 (2014)

76. Skowronek 2008, 32–44.

79. Koeppinger 2013.

84. Banzon Bautista 2001, 13.

the declared wealth of three presidents before her.”

456 Critical Asian Studies 46:3 (2014)

Thompson / Philippine Presidents 457

458 Critical Asian Studies 46:3 (2014)

Thompson / Philippine Presidents 459

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