ABSTRACT
As chapter 4 noted, the Philippine government increasingly viewed NGOs from 1986 as potential partners in a strategic alliance that could underpin economic growth and democratic consolidation. In large part, this reflected the success of Philippine NGOs in organising and mobilising as a political force in a relatively short period of time. Yet, chapter 4 and chapter 5, left unanswered important questions about how and why NGOs, especially the politically active third generation NGOs, organise in pursuit of political goals. Organising, especially the organising of POs and PO-NGO coalitions, has become a critical role of Philippine NGOs, perhaps even their very raison d’être. ‘As the heart of NGO work, mass-based organising is the lynchpin [sic] of all other . . . activities’, Morales (1990: 124, 127) argues; ‘NGOs have increasingly engendered a heightened level of consciousness among peasants. Simultaneously, perhaps as a result, mass action has also been on the rise’. This is especially true of the third generation NGOs that have proliferated since the 1970s and the era of martial law, but it also applies to second generation development NGOs and to a large number of first generation traditional relief and welfare organisations. As a whole, the NGO community has played an important role in representing specific new constituencies and in inducting new groups into politics. Cala (1994b: 284-5), for instance, notes that:
[Since 1986] . . . NGOs . . . [have] locate[d] themselves . . . in new and lessideologically encumbered areas of progressive discourse: development, peace and empowerment. From their initial single-concern or localized days, they have grown to tackle the larger issues of development . . . . Through
these efforts, NGOs have introduced a new frontline in progressive praxis in the Philippines. The groups in this frontline confront the question of powerlessness and strive for immediate impact and gains even while the conservative overhang of the state remains and continues to be struggled against.
