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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
The second generation of constitutional elites who adopted the fundamental law of the Philippine Republic had hoped that through legislative discretion local governments would develop into strong and effective agents of the national government. This hope was dashed by the unwillingness of the legislative branch to make the local units less dependent on the central government and the meticulous way in which the President of the nation tried to control local officials instead of merely supervising them as the constitution provided. Against this background, the third generation of constitutional elites in the seventies felt that the constitutional compromise in the thirties between the historical view of localism and the legal theory of centralism in the form os presidential supervision over local governments was counter-productive. Accordingly, they considered a number of choices by which local autonomy could be clothed with constitutional protection. And so they wrote in the new Philippine constitution a mandate to the legislative branch to institutionalize the concept of local autonomy not only in form but in substance as well. They also modified Dillon's Rule, which used to govern national—local relations, by subjecting the legislative power to create or abolish local units to popular approval by placing a shotgun behind the door—the referendum. Elite decision to opt for this type of mandatory autonomy was not in response to mass demands, since the masses were uninformed about the local autonomy issue. Rather, it was due to elite perception of what they considered to be the public good which motivated them to take this bold and forward step towards local political development during the nation's crucial period of its existence.
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