THE pages of modern history (1980-2011) show the evolution of the world’s governments from despotic, autocratic regimes to more democratic ones.

The roots seem planted at Edsa 1986 when the Philippines ousted a 20-year running dictator named Ferdinand Marcos.  The Berlin Wall then crumbled as did Russia break into many independent states, the Velvet revolution ensued in Europe and China adopted a more liberal economy.

The ongoing turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa for more democracy is just a continuation of this  global phenomenon of democratization.

Alongside that is the birth of the so-called civil society movements all over the world, a form of social capital and a catalyst for change in many countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa. In the Philippines, people participation in carving social destiny is enshrined in the 1987 Constitution.

In more primitive democracies, only the state and business thrived and they made decisions for the nation. When they connived for their own selfish interests, society suffered.

Thus, the civil society was born to provide the “third leg” in a community, creating social organizations  and not just state structures and business/commercial institutions.

The degree of check and balance and the relationship of the three determined the character of the community. Even in old Rome, the senators saw the need for a civil society to “share in the burden of development.”

Global civil society groups are closely wired through the Internet. It had its first global victory in 1998 by preventing the approval of the “Multilateral Agreement on Investments” at the World Trade Organization which would have given rich transnationals free access to national resources with little regard for local good and sovereignty of nations.

Twenty million members of the global civil society  coalition used the Internet to stop a major worldwide policy from being railroaded. Such a coalition like the “Free Burma” worldwide hurt the human right abusers in Burma by pressuring companies like Pepsi Cola, Macy’s and British Homes to desert  that country for its failure to respect human rights.

Such should be the power of civil society. It is a force, a silver bullet designed to strengthen and not necessarily to undermine the state.

For instance, poverty worldwide is both the cause and the effect of corruption. Even our own winning President Noynoy Aquino anchored his victory on the “Walang Mahirap kung Walang Corrupt” slogan. Corruption is a major civil society issue as it permeates  all levels of the government and private sectors and harms the poor the most.

Corruption hurts the poor people in terms of poor infrastructure and lack of social services they get from government  (as a result thereof) and deprives them the opportunity to play in a level playing field because the poor is never in a position—financial or political—to bribe the powers-that-be.

We do need a more dynamic civil society to both express  its appreciation and grievance against policies and officials.

It did take some doing. Filipinos, in general, are non-confrontational and even in expressing their views, opinions and criticism, they use extremely  neutral and safe vocabulary as contrasted sharply by the highly-opinionated, high-octaned dicussions of Cebuanos (those in Cebu) including their taxi drivers, barbers and market vendors. 

In the past, except for a very few men whose language and volume of oratory were truly activist-advocates type, the rest were relatively docile. They want to let others do the proxy war for them while they go about their private lives.

Since 1987, however, the good news is that civil society in the country is considered to be one of the most vibrant and active in Asia.

This was confirmed in a study conducted between April 2009 to December 2010 called the Civil Society Index Project involving 120 CSO (civil society organizations) and interviews with government employees and the governed citizenry.

It was gathered that 50 percent of Filipinos are engaged in some kind of civic organization work though very little (25 percent) zeroed in on political advocacy.

The perception impact of CSOs was most felt in the areas of poverty reduction and environmental advocacy but not too much on the issue of corruption. Philippine CSOs also rated high among Asians in terms of having formal boards and organizations (though infrequent meetings) although there is an obvious dearth of financing.

The Practice of Values within CSOs was not rated particularly impressive and CSOs are getting a poor trust rating of 43 percent among citizen-respondents and government workers in that study.

There are pressures to clean house, perform better governance and networking and securing more and bigger sources of financing among the CSO players.

The Civil Society Movement in the country is made up of an informed alliance of NGOs, POs, marginalized groups, cooperatives, professional groups, self-help groups, cause-oriented groups, trade unions, faith-based groups, registered charities, academe and united artists. The final blend of milk and honey (or rum and gin, if one insists) will come from the unstinting support of the local media and the Catholic Church.

The media provide the platform while the Church gives moral suasion.

The Philippines is truly bound for greatness, but with that, should also come integrity, the CSOs seem to say.

Because while the State and business see to it that the country is “doing the right things,” the indefatigable  CSOs are desperately trying to see to it that they are “doing things rightly.”

The challenge is to spread the pervasive influence of civil Society in the formation of the national growth within Metro Manila and spread it more – extensively and intensively to even more rural areas where the problems facing society are nothing different to those obtaining in more urbanized areas.

The civil-society movement is here to stay.