CHAPTER IV

THE STATE AND GOVERNMENT

Despite the inclusion of subjects such as history, law, social studies and political science in the curricula
of our educational system in the Philippines, many Filipinos continue to have a vague understanding of
the state. For some people, the term “state” is oftentimes considered synonymous with the term
“government”. For others, especially the lawyers, the state is considered a juridical entity, a “community
of persons” with the four elements of territory, people, sovereignty and government. The true meaning
of the term “state” continues to elude many Filipinos as they consider this entity as distant “other”,
unrelated to their social networks of family, relatives and friends. Sociological studies on the Filipino
sense of community and social capital (e.g. Abad 2006, Zialcita 1997) reveal that Filipinos can only relate
to their network of relatives and friends or to their primary group of family, peer group, the
neighborhood or small organizations as their “community” and not the “state” which consists of distant
and unrelated others that comprise its citizens.

UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY

To appreciate the nature of the state as a society, it is necessary to understand the various types of
societies around the world. Not all societies in the world are state societies. Some are primitive, others
are more complex and advanced in development like the state. Political sociologists and anthropologists
recognize the evolution of societies from a simple to a more complex society.

TWO APPROACHES IN DEFINING THE STATE

There are two perspectives or disciplines vying to explain the meaning and nature of the state: the
normative approach of law or political science and the descriptive or empirical approach of sociology or
anthropology. The normative approach judges reality “as it should be”, that is, it usually judges a social
reality or phenomenon using a set of fixed norms or ideal standards, thus it judges a certain society
whether it is a state or not using some form of fixed norms. For lawyers, trained in law and political
science, for instance, a state must have the basic elements of people, territory, government and
sovereignty, otherwise it can only classify as a non-state society or nation. There is nothing wrong with
looking at the state in this normative sense, the only difficulty in adopting this view is that a state is a
complex society, and various states around the world, whether ancient or modern, manifest different
characteristics which cannot be simplified by these four elements. The Vatican, which is considered the
smallest state in the world, for instance, can be considered a state in this normative sense but can
hardly qualify as one under the theories and empirical methodologies of the social sciences. The
normative definition of the state, as we shall see below is also identified with the juridical definition and
understanding of the state.

The sociological-anthropological or the descriptive definition and understanding of the state is research-
based and relates to the various theories or methodologies in the social sciences. The descriptive
approach often classifies societies into state and non-state societies based on some indicators
established by ethnographic research studies.
One important empirical definition of the state is the definition offered by the German sociologist Max
Weber. For him, a state is “a compulsory association with territorial basis having the monopoly of the
legitimate use of force” (Weber in Ferkis 1974).

The Normative Approach

Among lawyers, law students and students of political science, the state is commonly defined as:

[A] community of persons more or less, permanently occupying a definite portion of territory, having a
government of their own to which the great body of inhabitants render obedience, and enjoying
freedom from external control (De Leon 1997: 5).

The word “persons” in the juridical or legal parlance has specific meaning commonly known by lawyers.
As defined by Philippine law, a “person” can either be natural (individuals with human rights) or artificial
or juridical (such as corporations and companies). An artificial person is a legal entity through which the
law allows a group of natural persons to act as if it were a single individual for certain purposes such as
filing lawsuits (to sue and be sued), property ownership, and entering contracts.

Thus, under this definition, a state is composed of both natural and artificial persons “more or less”
numerous, residing is a fixed territory with government and sovereignty.

Four Elements

Based on this definition, the state has four essential elements:

People

This refers to the population of people whether young or old, male or female, or “natural or artificial”
residing within the state. In the normative sense, there seems to be no requirement as to the number of
people that should compose a state. But is should be neither too small nor too large: small enough to be
well governed and large enough to be self-sufficing.

In the descriptive or sociological definition a society cannot qualify as a state unless the population is
large enough to form social classes of people such as upper, middle or lower class. A group, tribe or
secondary group cannot form a state under this approach.

Territory

The territory of the state includes the land, inland waters such as rivers, lakes, brooks, area of the sea
(and its underwater marine life and sea bed) which abuts upon its coasts and air space above it.
Normally the territory of the state is classified into four (4) important domains or areas: the terrestrial
(all land within the state), aerial (all air space above the land and sea), fluvial (all inland waters or bodies
of water within the terrestrial domain) and maritime (the territorial sea and marine life and sea bed).

The Philippines is an archipelagic state. It consists of clusters of islands and islets totaling to 7, 107. It is
found in Southeast Asia in the Western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan.
West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam. The Sulu Sea to the southwest lies between the country
and the island of Borneo, and to the south the Celebes Sea separates it from the other islands of
Indonesia. It is bounded on the east by the Philippine Sea. The Philippines has a total land area of about
115, 707 square miles or 299,681 square kilometers (De Leon 1997: 6).

In actual social practice, the question may be asked, How important is the territory to the people
residing in the state? Aside from asserting identity as one independent nation-state in the international
community, a fixed territory delineates the parameters or jurisdiction of Philippines laws, especially
public laws like criminal or penal laws. One essential characteristic of penal laws is territoriality. All
citizens or aliens who reside or visit the Philippine territory are subject to criminal laws under the
Revised Penal Code and Special Penal Laws. If they commit a crime within the Philippine territory,
whether terrestrial, aerial, fluvial or maritime domain, they can be charged, prosecuted and imprisoned
in the country, unless they are exempted by an international treaty that says otherwise. For instance,
under the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Philippines and United States, an American
soldier who commits a crime in the Philippines can be charged in Philippine courts, but the custody of
the accused while waiting for final judgment by the Philippine Supreme Court remains under the
Americans and thus can be detained in the American Embassy as in the case of Lance Corporal Daniel
Smith who was detained in the US embassy after conviction in a Makati Regional Trail Court while his
case was on appeal. Unfortunately, the case was dismissed when the Court of Appeals ruled in Smith’s
favor after the rape victim withdrew from the case and entered an amicable settlement with the US.

Government

Sociologically speaking, every type of society has some kind of leadership or authority structure which
provides direction to a nomadic group, tribe, chiefdom or state. But not all societies have a centralized
authority, bureaucracy or machinery of officials which run complex societies like the modern state.
Some governments are less complex in structure compared to others, depending on the level of
population, technology advancement and subsistence system of the society. The most primitive form of
society like hunting and gathering tribe for instance, has no fixed government. Since there is no private
ownership and social class, everything is held in common. Leadership in the group, especially for a
hunting expedition is assigned on a daily basis by the nomadic group.

When we talk of government as an element of the state, we are referring not to pre-modern or non-
state forms of government, but the government of a modern nation-state with a centralized authority
structure consisting of bureaucratic officials who assist the sovereign or chief ruler in running the state.
Thus, a government can be defined as:

The totality of authorities which rule a society by prescribing and carrying out fundamental rules which
regulate the freedom of its members. It is a whole class of officeholders upon whom devolve the
executive, legislative, judicial and administrative functions of the State (Dannug & Campanilla 2004: 136-
137).

Sovereignty

Sovereignty is an abstract concept which is basically connected to state power. A state cannot exist if it
cannot exercise social control over its citizens which can result in anarchy, chaos and the proliferation of
private armies. Thus, sovereignty is defined as “the supreme, absolute, uncontrollable power by which
an independent state is governed” (Suarez 1999: 56). Sovereignty is the paramount control of the
constitution and frame of government and its administration (Dannug & Campanilla 2004).

The source of this sovereign power of the state is the people themselves. That is why sovereignty is said
to reside in the people. Under a republican or indirect form of government and social contract theory, it
is the people or citizens who agreed to form the state as expressed in the constitution. Thus sovereign
power emanates from the citizen.

Two Types of Sovereignty

Type Description

 
Internal This refers to the power of the state
to rule itself. It is the power to
control and direct the internal affairs
of a country such as the authority to
enact, execute and interpret the
laws.

 
External This refers to freedom of the state to
run its own affairs with the
interference of other states. It is
often called as the independence of
the state from other states. This
sovereignty is lost during an invasion
or colonization by a powerful state
over a weak state. Iraq, for instance,
has lost its external sovereignty
when the United States invaded it to
depose Saddam Hussein.
 

An independent nation-state must both possess internal and external sovereignty. It cannot administer
its own affairs and when often interfered with other states, it loses its own independence and is reduced
to a mere colony or part of another superior power or state.