Government and Law

Objectives:
At the end of the activity, the
students should be able to:
1. Understand the impact of the
government and laws on their
individuality and the society.
2. Identify the forms of government
and the various political ideology.

What is the Sociology of
Politics?
• For a long time people have
regulated, controlled, and directed
their lives only informally.
• Since the 15th century some societies
have spearheaded to move to evolve
formal political systems. Others
remain uncommitted to such political
systems and adhere to traditional
patterns.

Early History
 The oldest form of government was
tribal organization. Rule by elders was
supplanted by monarchy, and a system
of Feudalism as an arrangement where a
single family dominated the political
affairs of a community.
 Monarchies have existed in one form or
another for the past 5000 years of
human history.

 The word "Politics" is derived from the
Greek word for city-state, "Polis".
 Politics is most often studied in
relation to the administration of
governments.
 Politics is precisely the theory, art, and
practice of government.
 It is also the practice of statecraft or of
governing a country.

The Social Structure of Politics
 The state is the formal structure of
government
 Is a structure that has the legal authority or
right to make rules that are binding over a
given population within a given territory
 Is a political concept, a legal fiction. It has
perpetual existence as long as its four
elements—people, territory, government
and sovereignty– are present.

 The concept of the state as distinct from
society developed gradually.
 The need for the state arose when groups
within society realized that it was for their
own welfare to centralize authority, set up
rules for settling disputes, and apply force
to maintain obedience and loyalty to the
social norms and values of society.
The State and Political Systems

State
 The state is defined by Aristotle, as “a body of
citizens sufficing for the purposes of life.”
 The state is a structure that has the legal authority
or right to make rules that are binding over a given
territory.
 It is a political concept, a legal fiction,. It has
perpetual existence as long as it has its four
elements - - people, territory, government and
sovereignty - - are present.

 Government is an essential element of the
state. It is derived from a Greek verb
meaning, “to pilot a ship”.
 In metaphorical terms, it is the
responsibility of government to steer the
“ship of the state”.

 From the Family
 the state has taken over the provision of
protection for home,
 the formal education of the youth
 the maintenance of public welfare
programs for the sick, crippled,
feebleminded and insane, the
unemployed and underemployed, the
widowed and orphaned, the aged,
abused, and others.

 From the Economy
 the economy has taken over the resolution of
labor-capital disputes,
 the limitations or regulation of production,
distribution and consumption of economic
resources, goods, and services
 the control of wages prices, taxes, and
savings
 the operation of research, the allowance for
fringe benefits, and others.

 From the Church
 the state has taken over the regulation
of the conditions for contracting and
dissolving marriages, family planning,
the moral of spiritual training of the
youth,
 the provision of relief for the poor, the
disposal of the dead, and others.

Government
1. What is government?
2. What does a government do?
3. Why do people need
government?
4. What types of government are
there?

The Necessity of Government
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that
all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Happiness--That to secure these Rights,
Governments are instituted among Men...”
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of
Independence

What is Government?
Government is an
organization people set up to
protect the community and
make rules.

 A government is the body that has
the power to make and enforce laws within
an organization or group.
 In its broadest sense, "to govern" means to
administer or supervise, whether over an
area of land, a set group of people, or a
collection of assets.
 The word government is derived the Greek
(kubernites), which means "steersman",
"governor", "pilot" or "rudder".

Government is an institution by which a
community organizes itself in order to attain
the members’ individual and collective
welfare.
It is the agency or the instrumentality by
which the sovereign will of a people is
expressed and executed in the effort to attain
their vision of a peaceful and prosperous
society (Lawson, 1987)
A group that exercises sovereign authority
over a nation, state, society or other body of
people.

What does a government do?
Protects the community
 Makes laws
 Keeps order

Why do people need government?
 For protection of people
and property
 Making rules
 Enforcing laws

Purposes of the Government:
1. To promote the common good, conserve and develop
our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our
posterity the blessings of independence and
democracy.
2. Governments are generally responsible for making
and enforcing laws, managing currency, and
protecting the populace from external threats, and
may have other duties or privileges.
3. Governments also typically set tax rates, and
may regulate investment practices as well.

Functions of the State
 The state is the formal structure of
government. It is the institutions whose
functions are carried out by the government.
 Government is the working arm of the state
which provides social control through its
political processes, the laws it establishes
and implements, and the work of its
agencies.

The main manifest functions of the
state are:
1. The maintenance of peace and order (through
the national and local police and the military).
2. The regulation and control of the lives of the
people (legislative enactment of laws and rules as
code of conduct).
3. The administration of justice (through the
courts).
4. The protection and defence of the state from
outside invasion (through the Armed Forces of
the State).

5. The administration of public and social
services (through the national and local
executives).
6. Conducting foreign affairs (through the
diplomatic corps.)
7. Maintenance of strong economic ties to
the world of commerce.

The Law
 The role of government is to protect individual
rights. It must ensure that nobody violates the
rights of another.
 In this capacity, it must specify what kinds of
actions are forbidden. These rules, punishable by
retaliatory force, are called laws.
 Laws are predefined rules. They are written to
make them explicit and verify that they are
predefined.

Laws serve multiple purposes:
 The first is a method of informing the populace of
what actions will bring about retaliatory force.
This facilitates the job of protecting rights by
enabling citizens to have knowledge beforehand
whether a particular act is forbidden. The people
are then able to act appropriately, removing the
need for retaliatory force, and increasing the
ability of people to avoid violating others rights.

 The second job of a law is to make the rules of the
land explicit. This serves to avoid confusion in
exactly what is legal or not. Such confusion can
occur since the government is an organization of
individuals. Individuals that can err or have
differences of opinions. It also limits the power of
the government officials by requiring them to act
according to predefined methods. This has the
advantage of safeguarding the people from their
own representatives.

 A third job of the law is to clarify ambiguous
situations between men that may be difficult to
decide if rights have been violated, or by who. Even
among rational men, disagreement can occur,
especially in areas as complicated as contracts. The
law provides them a means of settling disputes
peacefully by subjecting their claims to an
objective, predefined reference. In this respect, the
law stands as an impartial arbiter to conflicts.

Laws have many other positive
benefits:
 such as providing a reaffirmation that
coercive acts will be punished, and justice
will be served.
 to be secure in life and property, man must
be able to know what to expect from other
people. The law is the primary facilitator for
this.

The Government Powers to Enact,
Execute and Interpret the Laws
 Laws are formalized norms, which are
enacted by people who are vested with
governmental power and enforced by
political and legal authorities designated by
the government.
 Laws are promulgated to preserve and
maintain order in the society and to regulate
and control the relationships of the citizen.

Notable Laws
The following table lists of Philippine laws
which have been mentioned in Wikipedia, or
which are otherwise notable.

 Designation
 Act 1696 - Known as the Flag Law, this
law proscribed display of "any flag, banner, emblem, or
device used during the late insurrection in the
Philippine Islands to designate or identify those in
armed rebellion against the United States, or any flag,
banner, emblem, or device used or adopted at any time
by the public enemies of the United States in the
Philippine Islands for the purposes of public disorder or
of rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the
United States in the Philippine Islands, or any flag,
banner, emblem, or device of the Katipunan Society or
which is commonly known as such." This law was
repealed in 1919.

 Act 2871 - Repealed the Flag Law and
legalised the use of the National Flag and
the National Anthem. Passed on October
24, 1919
 RA 1425 - The Rizal Law, which mandates
the inclusion of courses on José Rizal in the
curricula of all educational institutions in
the Philippines.
 RA 8049 - Anti-Hazing Law
 RA 10175- The Cybercrime Prevention Act of
2012

The Philippines is a democratic and
republican state. As a republican state,
sovereignty resides in the People and
all government authority emanates
from them (Constitution, Art. III, Sec.
1).

 “A Republican form of government rests on
the conviction that sovereignty should
reside in the people and that all government
authority must emanate from them.
 It abhors the concentration of power on one
or a few, cognizant that power, when
absolute, can lead to abuse, but it also shuns
a direct and unbridled rule by the people, a
veritable kindling to the passionate fires of
anarchy.

 Our people have accepted this notion and
decided to delegate the basic state authority
to principally three branches of government
— the Executive, the Legislative, and the
Judiciary, each branch being supreme in its
own sphere but with constitutional limits
and a firm tripod of checks and balances .”

The Government has 3
Interdependent Branches:
Executive Branch
Legislative Branch
Judicial Branch

• Executive branch is
composed of the
President and the Vice
President who are
elected by direct
popular vote and serve
a term of six years.
The Constitution grants the President authority to
appoint his Cabinet. These departments form a large
portion of the country’s bureaucracy.

 The executive branch is headed by the
President, who is elected by a direct vote of the
people.
 The term of office of the President, as well as the
Vice-President, is six (6) years.
 As head of the Executive Department, the
President is the Chief Executive. He represents
the government as a whole and sees to it that all
laws are enforced by the officials and employees
of his department. He has control over the
executive department, bureaus and offices.

 This means that he has the authority to
assume directly the functions of the
executive department, bureau and office or
interfere with the discretion of its officials.
 Corollary to the power of control, the
President also has the duty of supervising
the enforcement of laws for the
maintenance of general peace and public
order. Thus, he is granted administrative
power over bureaus and offices under his
control to enable him to discharge his duties
effectively.

 The President exercises general supervision
over all local government units and is also
the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed
Forces of the Philippines.
 The President is elected by popular vote.
The principal workplace of the President is
the Malacañang Palace in San Miguel,
Manila.
 The executive branch is currently headed by
President Rodrigo Duterte.

 Under the existing Presidential form of
government, the executive and legislative
branches are entirely separate, subject only
to the mechanisms of checks and balances.
 There were attempts to amend the
Constitution in order to shift to a
parliamentary system, but these moves were
struck down by the Supreme Court. The
most recent petition that reached the
Supreme Court is Lambino vs. COMELEC.

 The second highest official is elected
separately from the President by popular
vote.
 The current Vice President is Leni Robredo.
The Vice President is first in line to
succession if the President resigns, is
impeached or dies.
 The Vice President is usually, though not
always, a member of the president's cabinet.

If there is a vacancy in the position of
vice-president, the President will
appoint any member of Congress
(usually a party member) as the new
Vice President.
The appointment must then be
validated by a three-fourths vote of the
Congress.

• This institution is divided into the Senate and
the House of Representatives.
• The Legislative
branch is authorized
to make laws, alter,
and repeal them
through the power
vested in the
Philippine Congress.

 Legislative power is vested in the two-
chamber Congress of the Philippines—
(1) the Senate is the Upper Chamber
(2) the House Of Representatives is the
Lower Chamber.
The powers of the branches are vested by
the Constitution of the Philippines in the following:

 The legislative branch, which has the authority to
make, alter or repeal laws is the Congress.
“Congress is vested with the tremendous power of
the purse, traditionally recognized in the
constitutional provision that ‘no money shall be
paid out of the Treasury except in pursuance of an
appropriation made by law.’
 It comprehends both the power to generate money
by taxation (the power to tax) and the power to
spend it (the power to appropriate).
Legislative Branch

 The upper house is located in Pasay City, while the
lower house is located in Quezon City.
 Both are in Metro Manila.
 Under a bicameral system, the Congress is
composed of the Senate and the House of
Representatives.
 The Senate is composed of twenty-four (24)
Senators, who are elected at large by the qualified
voters of the Philippines. The term of office of the
Senators is six (6) years.

 The House of Representatives, on the other
hand, is composed of not more than two
hundred and fifty (250) members, unless
otherwise fixed by law, who are elected from
legislative districts apportioned among the
provinces, cities and the Metropolitan
Manila area, and those who are elected
through a party-list system of registered
national, regional and sectoral parties or
organizations.

 The district and sectoral representatives are
elected for a term of three years. They can be
re-elected but they may not run for a fourth
consecutive term.
 Senators are elected to a term of six years.
They can be re-elected but may not run for a
third consecutive term.

 The current President of the Senate is Sen.
Aquilino Pimentel III
 While the current Speaker of the House of
Representatives is Pantaleon Alvarez.

• This branch determines whether or not there has been
a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess
of jurisdiction on the part and instrumentality of the
government.
• It is made up of a Supreme Court and Lower Courts
•Judicial Branch holds
the power to settle
controversies involving
rights that are legally
demandable and
enforceable.

 Judicial power is vested in the Supreme
Court and in such lower courts as may be
established by law.
 The judiciary has the moderating power to
determine the proper allocation of powers
between the branches of government.

 In the words of Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno: The
Judiciary may not have the power of the sword,
may not have the power of the purse, but it has the
power to interpret the Constitution, and the
unerring lessons of history tell us that rightly
wielded, that power can make a difference for
good.
 While Congress has the power to define, prescribe
and apportion the jurisdiction of the various
courts, Congress cannot deprive the Supreme
Court of its jurisdiction provided in the
Constitution.

 No law shall also be passed reorganizing the
judiciary when it undermines the security of
tenure of its members.
 The Supreme Court also has administrative
supervision over all courts and the
personnel thereof, having the power to
discipline or dismiss judges of lower courts.

 The Supreme Court is composed of a Chief Justice
and fourteen Associate Justices.
 A member of the Supreme Court must be a
natural-born citizen of the Philippines, at least
forty (40) years of age and must have been for
fifteen (15) years or more a judge of a lower court or
engaged in the practice of law in the Philippines.
 Justices hold office during good behavior until
they reach the age of seventy (70) years or become
incapacitated to discharge the duties of their
office.

 The Judicial power is vested in the Supreme Court
of the Philippines and lower courts established by
law.
 The Supreme Court, which has a Chief Justice as
its head and 14 Associate Justices, occupies the
highest tier of the judiciary.
 The justices serve until the age of 70. The justices
are appointed by the president on the
recommendation of the Judicial and Bar Council of
the Philippines.
Judicial Branch

 The sitting Chief Justice is Maria Lourdes
Sereno, the 24th to serve in that position.
 The Constitution expressly grants the
Supreme Court the power of Judicial Review
as the power to declare a treaty,
international or executive agreement, law,
presidential decree, proclamation, order,
instruction, ordinance or regulation
unconstitutional.

 Other court types of courts, of varying jurisdiction
around the archipelago:
Muslim Courts
 Sharia District
Court
 Sharia Circuit
Court
Lower Collegiate Courts:
Court of Appeals
Court of Tax Appeals
Sandiganbayan
Regular Courts:
Court of Appeals
Regional
Municipal Circuit Trial Courts

Constitutional Commissions
 Article 9 of the Constitution of the
Philippines establishes three constitutional
commissions:
 Civil Service Commission
 Commission on Elections
 Commission on Audit

Office of the Ombudsman
 The government and all three of its branches are
independently monitored by the office of the
Ombudsman (Filipino: Tanodbayan).
 The Ombudsman is given the mandate to
investigate and prosecute any government official
allegedly guilty of crimes,
especially Graft and Corruption.

The Ombudsman is assisted by 6
deputies:
 Overall Deputy
 Deputy for Luzon
 Deputy for Visayas
 Deputy for Mindanao
 Deputy for the Armed Forces
 Special Prosecutor.

 Local government hierarchy.
 The dashed lines emanating from the
president means that the President only
exercises general supervision on local
government.

The Philippines has 4 main classes of
elected administrative divisions:
 They are, from the highest to the lowest
division:
 Autonomous regions
 Provinces (lalawigan, probinsiya,
kapuoran) and
independent cities (lungsod,
siyudad/ciudad, dakbayan, dakbanwa,
lakanbalen)

 Municipalities (bayan, balen, bungto,
banwa) and component cities (lungsod,
siyudad/ciudad, dakbayan, dakbanwa,
lakanbalen)
 Barangays (also known as barrio)

 Beyond these, the national government
groups provinces and independent cities into
regions, e.g. Metro Manila or Region VI.
 The President has the prerogative to create,
abolish and determine the composition of regions,
which is done so most often in consultation with
the local government units affected, with the
exception of autonomous regions, where the
residents of the local government units have to
ratify in a plebiscite their inclusion in such a setup.

Ideology
oThe underlying fabric of authority is
ideology.
oAn ideology is a system of values, ideas,
beliefs and attitudes that a society or
groups within it share and accept as fact;
it contains a set of attitudes toward the
various institutions and processes of
society.

 An ideology is a set of interrelated
beliefs that provide a picture of the
world as a whole, that furnish the
believer with an image of the world both
as it is and as it should it be.
 According to Lawson 1989, ideology is a
comprehensive set of beliefs and
attitudes about social, economic,
political, cultural, and educational
institutions and processes.

 Four Major Ideologies are:
1. Conservatism
2. Liberalism
3. Socialism
4. Fascism

Conservatives
• Conservatives believe in conserving what
exists and the preservation of the status quo.
• Conservatives maintain, “the accumulated
wisdom and experience of the countless
generations gone is more likely to be right
than the passing fashion of the moment.

 They believe in the preservation of traditional
moral standards and values, in the responsibility
of the more advanced nations to bring the
blessings of civilization to those less fortunate, and
in the necessity of maintaining good relations with
allies as a means of protecting one’s own system
against external enemies.
Example:
British Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher

Liberals
 Believe that all human beings are capable of
reason and rational action and should be
helped by their government to fulfil their
potential.
 Liberals commonly believe in some form of
social contract – that is, in the idea that human
beings consent to be ruled by others, but only
on condition that individual rights and liberties
are maintained.

Socialist
 Believe that human beings are naturally
sociable and cooperative, and that only the
establishment of non-socialist governments
and exploitive work arrangements has
interfered with these natural instincts.
 They believe that the solution is to limit or
abolish outright the institution of private
property – which, they say, should be owned
by a state that is, in turn, controlled by the
workers.

 Since Aristotle’s time, the forms of government
envisioned by different political ideologies have
been the following:
A. Autocracy
B. Oligarchy
C. Democracy
D. Socialism

Autocracy
 It is a government in the hand of a single absolute
ruler.
 It is derived from the Greek “autokrateia” - -
“autos” which means “self” and “krateia” which
means “rule”.
 An absolute ruler is a despot – someone who
insists on his way and will not defer to others.
 He makes the law, execute and interprets the law.
 An autocratic government is ruled by a king, a
monarch, a despot or a dictator

 The present-day autocracy is known as
Totalitarian – a government or a state in which
the life and actions of every individual as well as
those of every enterprise, are controlled by a
dictator.
 Autocracy can also take the form of temporary
emergency rule such as the rule of a military junta
and a dictatorial caucus.
 Examples is the dictatorial regime of the late
President Ferdinand E. Marcos under the guise
of “constitutional authoritarianism”.

Oligarchy
 It is a form of government in which power is in the
hands of a few.
 It is derived from the Greek “oligarchein” - -
“oligos” which means “few” and “archein” which
means “rule”.
 The rulers are known as oligarchs and aristocrats
who govern for their own interests.

Democracy
 It comes from the Greek word “demokrateia” - -
“demos” which means “people”, and “krateia”,
which means “rule”.
 Power is vested in the masses who, in turn,
delegate this power to those whom they elect to
represent them in the government; such power is
exercised primarily for the peoples’ welfare.
 Those elected maybe removed or retained on the
basis of their performance through periodic
elections by the masses.

Socialism
 It is emerged as the most pervasive political
ideology of the 20th century.
 It was presented as an alternative system against
the repression and exploitation of capitalism and
the changes brought about by the Industrial
Revolution.
 It arose as a result of the collective efforts of the
working class, the proletariat, the laborers, the
industrial workers, and the peasants, the artisans,
and the other working classes of people who
dream of a more humane and just society.

 Power is exercised at both the interpersonal level
and the societal level (Marger, 1981)
 Political power is a basic force in the political
processes and in structuring society.
 It involves effort to control the acts of others.
 Weber (1957), defined power as the “probability
that one actor within social relationship will be in
a position to carry out his own will despite
resistance.

Political Power
 Samuel Gompers’ maxim, "Reward your friends
and punish your enemies," hints at two of the five
types of power recognized by social psychologists:
o incentive power (the power to reward)
o coercive power (the power to punish).

Arguably the other three grow out of
these two:
 Legitimate Power
 Illegitimate Power

Legitimate Power
 Legitimate power is power that is exercised with
the social approval of most individuals in a group
or a society.
 Legitimate power, the power of the policeman or
the referee, is the power given to an individual by
a recognized authority to enforce standards of
behavior.
 Legitimate power is similar to coercive power in
that unacceptable behavior is punished by fine or
penalty.

 Max Weber termed “legitimate power” as
“authority” - - power to which people
willingly submits.
 Thus, if power is the “ability” to control
other people’s behaviour, authority is the
“right” to do so.

 Illegitimate power is exercised without
social approval.
An example of this is giving one’s wallet
to a mugger at the point of a gun.
Illegitimate Power

The Struggle for Power
 Authority and Legitimacy
 When the power is held by an individual or
group not accepted to members of society, the
power is illegal and illegitimate.
 When a government has legitimacy, its laws are
followed and its officials respected by a majority
of people in the society, regardless for their
feelings toward both the laws and the enforcers.

 Authority is the legitimate possession of power.
Power becomes legitimate authority when
members of society accept its use as right and
proper.
 The struggle for power includes the acquisition,
exercise, and maintenance of power.
 The political elite are the persons or groups who
supply the political leadership in society at a
certain time.

 People Power
 People Power is defined as a large gathering of an
armed people united by a set of political calls. It is
amorphous and follows no definite time-table, no
formal organization or leadership and no direction.
 Corruption
 Corruption is a malady afflicting both developing
and developed countries.
Power Beyond the Law :

 Terrorism
 Terrorism may be defined as acts of violence or
the threat of violence employed by an
individual or group as a political strategy.
o April 1995- first brought home to the U.S
the deadly nature of terrorism.
o September 11, 2001- 4 passenger jets were
hijacked.

 Max Weber identified three sources of legitimacy
and authority, he proposed three reasons why
people followed the orders of those who gave
them:
1. Traditional
2. Charismatic
3. Legal-Rational
3 Sources Of Legitimacy And Authority

Traditional
• Traditional authorities receive loyalty because they
continue and support the preservation of existing
values, the status quo. Traditional authority has
the longest history.
• Patriarchal (and more rarely Matriarchal) societies
gave rise to hereditary monarchies where authority
was given to descendants of previous leaders.
 Examples of traditional authoritarians
include kings and queens.

Charismatic authority grows out of the personal
charm or the strength of an individual personality.
Charismatic regimes are often short lived, seldom
outliving the charismatic figure that leads them.
Examples include Hitler, Napoleon, and Mao.
Charismatic authority is also frequently seen as the
catalyzing force of social movements, such as in
Jesus Christ, Mohandas Gandhi, or Martin Luther
King, Jr.
Charismatic

 The charisma of the leader would be
rationalized and placed into a bureaucratic
or rule-oriented power authority structure
(i.e. legal-rational authority).

Legal-Rational
• Legal-Rational authorities receive their ability to
compel behaviour by virtue of the office that they
hold.
• It is the authority that demands obedience to the
office rather than the office holder. Modern
democracies are examples of legal-rational
regimes.

Limitations to the exercise of power
 A political pundit goes, “Absolute power corrupts.”
Power can be used as an end in itself, or as a means
to achieve desired ends.
 Being subject to abuse and misuse, power should
be limited through the following ways:
 Principle of checks and balances
 Political pluralism
 Popular sovereignty
 Human factors

Principle of checks and balances
Constitutional provisions authorized a
considerable amount of encroachment or checking
by one department in the affairs of the others.
For example, the president may veto or disapprove
bills enacted by Congress or through pardoning
power; he may set aside the judgment of the courts.
On the other hand, Congress may override the veto
of the President or reject certain appointments of
the president.

Political Pluralism
 This refers to the maintenance of the two-party or
multi-party systems, the use of the countervailing
force of different power blocs, vested interest and
pressure groups.
 The political parties in the Philippines include:
Nacionalist People’s Coalition, People’s Reform
Party, Partido Lakas ng Tao, Liberal Party, etc..
 Sectoral party systems include: Anakbayan,
Anakpawis, Gabriela, Bayan, ABE, Sanlakas, etc.

Popular Sovereignty
 This includes the exercise of suffrage,
referenda, rights of assembly, petitions,
rallies, demonstrations, people
empowerment, and other civil rights.

Human Factors
 Psychological, social, and cultural patterns
prevalent in a society at a given time.
Examples: emergence of a charismatic
leader, massive social movements and
collective behaviour.

Laws
 The role of government is to protect individual
rights. It must ensure that nobody violates the
rights of another. In this capacity, it must specify
what kinds of actions are forbidden.
 These rules, punishable by retaliatory force, are
called laws. Laws are predefined rules. They are
written to make them explicit and verify that they
are predefined.

3. A third job of the law is to clarify ambiguous
situations between men that may be difficult to
decide if rights have been violated, or by who. Even
among rational men, disagreement can occur,
especially in areas as complicated as contracts.
The law provides them a means of settling
disputes peacefully by subjecting their claims to an
objective, predefined reference. In this respect, the law
stands as an impartial arbiter to conflicts.

1. The first is a method of informing the
populace of what actions will bring about
retaliatory force. This facilitates the job of
protecting rights by enabling citizens to have
knowledge beforehand whether a particular act
is forbidden.
The people are then able to act
appropriately, removing the need for retaliatory
force, and increasing the ability of people to avoid
violating others rights.

2. The second job of a law is to make the rules of the
land explicit. This serves to avoid confusion in
exactly what is legal or not.
Such confusion can occur since the
government is an organization of individuals.
Individuals that can err or have differences of
opinions. It also limits the power of the government
officials by requiring them to act according to
predefined methods.
This has the advantage of safeguarding the
people from their own representatives.

 Philippines political institutions have undergone
experiences of tribalism, conquest, colonization,
unification, centralization, revolution,
decentralization, war, liberation, independence,
and nationalization.
 They have been Hispanized, Americanized,
Japanized, and recently Filipinized.
 Leadership has at one time or another been
traditional, charismatic, and legal-rational
(Panopio, 1981).

Theories
 There are a wide range of theories about the
reasons for establishing governments.
 The four major ones are briefly described
below.
 Greed And Oppression
 Order And Tradition
 Natural Rights
 Social Contract

Greed and Oppression
 Many political philosophies that are opposed to
the existence of a government (such as Anarchism,
and to a lesser extent Marxism), as well as others,
emphasize the historical roots of governments -
the fact that governments, along with private
property.

 Originated from the authority of warlords and
petty despots who took, by force, certain patches
of land as their own (and began exercising
authority over the people living on that land).
 Thus, it is argued that governments exist to
enforce the will of the strong and oppress the
weak.

Order and Tradition
 The various forms of conservatism, by contrast,
generally see the government as a positive force
that brings order out of chaos, establishes laws to
end the "war of all against all", encourages
moral virtue while punishing vice, and
respects tradition.
 Sometimes, in this view, the government is seen as
something ordained by a higher power, as in
the divine right of kings, which human beings have
a duty to obey.

Natural Rights
 Natural rights are the basis for the theory of
government shared by most branches of liberalism
(including libertarianism).
 In this view, human beings are born with
certain natural rights, and governments are
established strictly for the purpose of protecting
those rights.

 What the natural rights actually are is a
matter of dispute among liberals; indeed,
each branch of liberalism has its own set of
rights that it considers to be natural, and
these rights are sometimes mutually
exclusive with the rights supported by other
liberals.

Social Contract
 One of the most influential theories of
government in the past two hundred years has
been the social contract, on which
modern democracy and most forms
of socialism are founded.
 The social contract theory holds that governments
are created by the people in order to provide for
collective needs (such as safety from crime) that
cannot be properly satisfied using purely
individual means.

 Governments thus exist for the purpose of
serving the needs and wishes of the people,
and their relationship with the people is
clearly stipulated in a "social contract"
(a constitution and a set of laws) which both
the government and the people must abide
by.

Philippine Politics and its Contemporary
Problem and Issues
 The Filipino love politics so much that every
political gathering, especially if done during
elections, becomes a festive occasion, a carnival of
sort.
 Studies have shown that popularity among the
masses is a very influential factor, if not the most
determining force in getting elected to an office.
 The use of guns. Goods, and gold has become a
common aphorism, especially among the rich and
powerful politicians.

Some issues and problems that confront
contemporary Philippine politics include the
following:
1. Bureaucracy, nepotism, massive graft and
corruption in the government.
2. Excessive and lavish spending during elections.
3. Black propaganda, mud-slinging and other dirty
tactics to discredit political opponents.
4. Graft and corruption practices before, during,
and after elections. For instance, vote-buying and
“dagdag-bawas” practices in the counting of
votes.

5. Government reliance on foreign investors, MNC’s
TNC’s foreign debts and foreign aid.
6. Entering into business ventures with foreign
capitalists as well as the exploitation and
exploration of our natural resources.
7. A politics focused on personalities and not on
genuine platforms of government.
8. Lack of strong enabling to curb political dynasty,
nepotism, political opportunism, croyism and
the like.

Governmental Solutions to the Political
Problems of the Philippines:
1. Proposed Charter Change through congress
sitting as a Constituent Assembly.
2. Proposed change of the present republican form
of government to a parliamentary system.
3. Computerization of Election.
4. COMELEC rules and regulations limiting
election expenditures and regulating other
election campaign activities.

5. Local autonomy to local governments.
6. Fiscal autonomy among government-owned or
controlled corporations.
7. Privatization and commercialization of
government-owned or controlled corporations.
8. Import liberalization, globalization, and
deregulation policies.
9. Lifting of tarrifs on imported goods; lifting of
protectionist policies.

___________was supplanted
by monarchy, and a system
of Feudalism as an arrangement
where a single family dominated
the political affairs of a community.

The _____ is defined by
Aristotle, as “a body of
citizens sufficing for the
purposes of life.”

________ is precisely the
theory, art, and practice of
government.

__________ is an organization
people set up to protect the
community and make rules.

These rules, punishable by
retaliatory force, are
called________.

______________ is composed of the
President and the Vice President
who are elected by direct popular
vote and serve a term of six years.

The ____________ is authorized to make
laws, alter, and repeal them through
the power vested in the Philippine
Congress.

__________ holds the power to
settle controversies involving
rights that are legally demandable
and enforceable.

Government and Law

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