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To commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Philippine Assembly, the Philippine Political Science Association (PPSA) and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung invited respected scholars and experts to a conference on “Rethinking Representation in the Philippines”. The 2-day conference was attended by 200 participants who discussed the issues of electoral reforms, party reforms, local democracy, minority representation and how the obstacles of Philippine democracy can be addressed best. KAS Country Representative Klaus Preschle highlighted the role of the civil society and the academe during the opening session. PPSA President Ronald Holmes expressed his expectations that the conference contributes to a broader understanding and will identify the crucial areas where extended and creative research will be needed to guide the reform debate in the Philippines.

In his keynote speech, Professor Felipe B. Miranda – the eminent political scientist and Full Professor of the Department of Political Science at the University of the Philippines in Diliman – emphasized on representation being one of two concepts that has been given much attention in the discipline. Addressing the chief question whether political representation in the Philippines has been a boon or a bane for the ordinary Filipino, Professor Miranda opined, after citing prior scholarly work and longitudinal opinion polls that the story of political representation in the country has been one of bane.

With the heating up of the campaign for synchronized local and national elections on the 14th of May as its contextual backdrop, the 2007 PPSA Conference provided a constructive venue for a substantive assessment of the problems, identification of the prospects, and surfacing of the possible interventions to improve the system of political representation in the Philippines.