Philippines: From Centralism to Localism

The Philippines is remarkable within South-East Asia for initiating a programme of radical decentralization. Other centralized regimes in the region have indicated their desire to decentralize, but their actions have fallen far short of the scope of recent Philippine reforms. The impetus for the Philippine experiment is derived from the ‘people power’ experience, which contributed to the ousting of President Marcos, and a deep-seated commitment to democratic politics. It can even be portrayed as a rediscovery of a decentralized past interrupted by more than three centuries of colonial centralization, a belief in whose efficacy was initially absorbed into the psyche of the independent republic. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.