First of two parts
CONGRESS has managed to convince itself that the nation’s most urgent business is the political fate of Vice President Sara Duterte, in the service of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s overarching agenda since he came to power: Stop Sara from leading the nation by 2028.
Yet if one looks at the legislative agenda that Congress and Marcos themselves have officially agreed upon, the contrast is almost embarrassing. There is a long queue of laws affecting electricity bills, food prices, classrooms, corruption, political dynasties, land use, water, bank secrecy, government budgeting and the structure of our elections. Many have been waiting not for months but for decades.
I am not arguing that Congress may simply ignore an impeachment case properly presented before it. The Constitution assigns to the House the power to impeach and the Senate the duty to try a valid impeachment. But constitutional duty does not require the political class to behave as though an impeachment trial was the country’s central national project. The real cost is not merely the number of hours senators sit as judges. It is the enormous political bandwidth, media attention and legislative energy consumed by a proceeding whose most obvious consequence is to determine who may or may not be a presidential candidate in 2028.
The irony is that Malacañang and Congress have already written the alternative agenda themselves. As of Aug. 6, the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (Ledac) listed 33 priority measures for passage, plus another large group of bills listed as Common Legislative Agenda. These include an anti-political dynasty law, freedom of information, bank secrecy legislation reform, a new Philippine Budgeting Code, Epira (Electric Power Industry Reform Act) amendments, system-loss abolition, stronger electricity regulation, classroom construction, nutrition, rice policy, MSME (micro, small and medium enterprise) reform and amendments to the National Building Code. The list reads almost like an indictment of what Congress has failed to do while political warfare occupies center stage.
Consider the most scandalous example: the anti-political dynasty law. The 1987 Constitution ordered the state to prohibit political dynasties “as may be defined by law.” Congress has refused to enact that law for nearly four decades. Only this year did the House finally approve House Bill 8389 and transmit it to the Senate. House leaders themselves have called it a constitutional mandate “40 years in the making.”
There is something almost comical in senators and representatives solemnly invoking constitutional principles in impeachment while Congress has ignored for 39 years one of the Constitution’s clearest political-reform commands. If legislators want to demonstrate devotion to constitutional democracy, passing a genuine anti-dynasty law would be a far more convincing act than another season of televised speeches.
Then there is freedom of information. The Constitution has recognized the people’s right to information on matters of public concern since 1987. Congress came tantalizingly close to passing a Freedom of Information (FOI) law in 2010, which however died on the final session day for lack of a House quorum. Sixteen years later, the House has again passed an FOI measure and sent it to the Senate.
Corruption
If legislators really want to expose corruption, why not give every Filipino a stronger legal right to obtain government records instead of depending on whichever congressional committee happens to be investigating a political enemy?
The National Land Use Act is another monument to legislative paralysis. The Philippine Institute for Development Studies has described the effort to enact such a law as “almost three decades old.” Congress has repeatedly passed various versions, only to watch them die before final enactment. The current House has again approved a National Land Use bill and sent it to the Senate.
This is not an abstract planning exercise. Every year, the country quarrels over whether land should be used for agriculture, housing, factories, mining, tourism, forests or infrastructure. Flooding worsens because development ignores watersheds and natural drainage. Upper-class residential projects have displaced farmland, as has happened at such a dizzying pace in Santa Rosa, Laguna. Local zoning conflicts with national priorities. For nearly 30 years, Congress has known that the country needs a coherent land-use framework. Yet here we are again.
Political-party reform is even older than many young voters. The proposed Political Party Development Act was first drafted in 2002 and endorsed by the major political parties. Its purpose was to attack personality-based politics, patronage and opaque campaign finance by building real parties around programs and ideology. Twenty-four years later, our “parties” still behave largely as temporary vehicles for politicians. Representatives switch alliances after elections with barely a blush, and presidential coalitions disintegrate as soon as succession becomes contentious.
A Whistleblower Protection Act has likewise been knocking around Congress since at least 2004, when the late senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago filed a bill establishing a whistleblower bill of rights. Twenty-two years later, Filipinos who expose large-scale corruption still cannot rely on the kind of comprehensive protection found in better-governed systems. Congress loves whistleblowers when their testimony hurts an adversary; it has been much less enthusiastic about creating a durable system protecting whistleblowers, whoever happens to be in power.
Electricity
Electricity should be another congressional obsession. Epira is now 25 years old. The country was promised competition and lower prices. Instead, the Philippines continues to struggle with expensive power. Ledac itself now lists Epira amendments, abolition of system loss charges, strengthening of the Energy Regulatory Commission and a Sariling Kuryente Act among the legislative priorities. These are measures that can affect every household and every factory every month. A Senate that wants to demonstrate relevance could spend weeks asking why Filipinos still pay so much for electricity rather than months deciding which dynasty gains advantage in 2028. Have we as a nation decided that a monopoly controlled by an Indonesian magnate should continue amassing billions of pesos in profits?
Water is just as basic. A bill seeking to create a Department of Water Resources has repeatedly surfaced because responsibility for water is scattered among numerous agencies. Floods devastate cities during the rainy season while parts of the country face water shortages during dry months. Metro Manila periodically fears another supply crisis. Agriculture suffers from inadequate irrigation. Yet an integrated water-governance law remains unfinished business.
There are more. Party-list reform is needed because a mechanism supposedly designed to broaden representation has been captured in many cases by established political interests. Campaign-finance reform is overdue in a country where candidates spend amounts that bear little relation to legal salaries. The Local Government Code needs serious updating after more than three decades of decentralization. The Fisheries Code needs reform while food security and fisherfolk poverty remain chronic problems. The Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund needs strengthening so that assets accumulated in farmers’ names actually transform coconut agriculture.
These measures are on the official Ledac Common Legislative Agenda agreed upon by the executive and the congressional leadership themselves. Malacañang says they are important. The Senate says they are important. The House says they are important. Yet Congress has bowed to Marcos, saying that these should be put on hold until Sara Duterte is stopped from becoming president in 2028. If Sara, as Marcos believes, is an existential threat to him and his clan, he doesn’t have the right to involve the Congress in his fight.
Combat
Congress was not created for political combat, despite Marcos’ obsession to take out Sara.
The opportunity cost of impeachment therefore deserves to be stated plainly. Every week that the political system obsesses over whether Sara Duterte can remain vice president is another week in which laws affecting 115 million Filipinos receive less attention.
The comparison becomes devastating when measured in years. Anti-dynasty: nearly 40 years. National land use: nearly 30. Political-party development: 24. Whistleblower protection: 22. Freedom of Information: at least 16 years since it almost became law. Epira reform: a quarter-century after the electricity experiment began.
These are not obscure legislative housekeeping items. They concern why our politics is dominated by families, why corruption is hard to uncover, why land development is chaotic, why parties have no principles, why whistleblowers are vulnerable, why power is expensive and why trillions in public money can move through a system the ordinary taxpayer barely understands.
Congress does not have unlimited legislative capacity. A three-year Congress produces only around 100 genuinely national laws, while dozens of major reforms compete for its limited session days. An impeachment trial consuming weeks or months of Senate attention therefore has a measurable legislative cost.
If senators want a historic legacy, they already have the legislation waiting for them. Congress should not spend its time destroying a political career for the sake of the Marcos camp, which cannot accept Sara’s ascending to power in 2028.
On Friday: Sheer arithmetic reveals how useless the trial is.
Facebook: Rigoberto Tiglao
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Website: www.rigobertotiglao.com
