Local government in the Philippine islands,

284 LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN THE PHILIPPINES

people a greater participation in government by enabling
a sufficient number of the electorate to cause a legislative
measure to be brought to a popular vote. With the use of
the Referendum, no municipal measure can be enforced
until the opinion of the voters can be expressed upon its
wisdom or expediency. The use of the Initiative and Referendum has been devised because of the declining faith
in the integrity and good judgment of elective law-makers
and the increasing interest of the voters in public questions.
If either the city-manager plan or the commission
form of local government is to be given a fair test, it
should go hand in hand with the use of the Initiative and
Referendum. With the concentration of powers and responsibility in the hands of the few under the proposed
form of local government, the interest of the public is likely to be imperilled. But the use of these means of popular
control should be resorted to only in a limited extent.
Direct legislation is most likely to give good results
in a small country, with a homogeneous population, intelligent and unemotional, not dominated by party organizations or stirred by party bickerings. The best proof of
the citizens' competence is the successful discharge of this
function.421
The most incontestable merit proclaimed for direct
legislation is its educative value-unequalled as an instrument of practical instruction in politics. Here is an opportunity, a plan, which thrusts on the voter the responsibility
of declaring a definite opinion on a specific proposition by
forcing him to ask himself: "Is it sound in principle?
Will it work? Shall I vote for it or against it?"
Bearing in mind the political consensus of the people
of these Islands, their training in democratic government,
not to speak of the repeated charge of the apathy towards
governmental questions and problems in general, an un421 So far, Switzerland alone has given that proof.