Philippine democracy is looking surprisingly good
Analysis and Opinion
By Joe America
The seismic shift of leadership in the Philippine Senate this week was stunning. The pro-China, pro-Duterte cabal was identified as destructive and yanked from power. Their abuses were offensive to the old-timers who prefer respect and tradition. The old timers gathered together those offended by Senate President Escudero and Blue Ribbon Chairman Marcoleta and crafted a new majority of old timers, liberals, capitalists, and whatever the Tulfos are. Fifteen to nine, China was sat down. Fifteen to nine, the Dutertes were tossed from power.
Democracy is elegant in its patient ways. Idiocy seems to persist only until the next cycle roots it out.
Philippine democracy is American democracy injected with Catholic values and a tolerance for entitlement, impunity, corruption, and self-dealing incompetence. Three branches and several independent commissions and agencies. An elaborate and slow-moving court system. A court dealing with government crooks. A one-term president. A block on foreign ownership. A preference for peace.
Philippine democracy has its peculiarities.
Its dysfunctions come from a non-merit-based system of running things that promotes bad investments and corruption. The dynastic foundation of the political system infuses the well-structured democratic framework with self-dealing. There are small political parties that are held together by personalities, not principles. Allegiances shift easily. The abundance of self-interest promotes poor use of taxes.
“IT’S ALIVE! IT’S ALIVE!”
Philippine democracy is a living, throbbing, half-asleep organism, lol. It has a lot of pride and patriotism but not a lot of functional intelligence. The dearth of functional intelligence is evident in the lack of wealth and abundance of traffic jams. The nation is not very good at getting things done.
A dictatorship could be more efficient as an upside, but, having been there and done that, most Filipinos would prefer their chugging, sputtering democracy. They do have a voice in it even if they are poorly informed and poorly treated by vote buying.
The Duterte years were a threat to democratic norms but democratic institutions were held in place by ta daaaaaa! self interest flowing up through the people, media, social media, and legislators. And subsequent to the last election, by a President who decided to run a traditional presidency rather than a weird one.
I look at Philippine democracy in light of the American mess and see stability. And order. And process.
I’m inclined to be grateful to the old traditionalists and President Marcos, who I suppose is now one of them. Senator Sotto. Senator Lacson. The rest of the majority who are for the Philippines, Filipinos, and themselves, not for China, the Dutertes, and themselves.
Thank you.
The system only works if the occupants respect it.
From my vantage point, Philippine democracy is looking surprisingly good.
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Cover photo from the Business Mirror article “Chiz out, Sotto returns as Senate President“.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
Copy pasting from last blog article
@Joe
Talked to a neighbor earlier and she was very happy to see you again on Facebook.If she reads the blog and not just the title in your FB posts and succeeeding coments, she would have seen my comments and articles .Our conversation started with Tito Sotto as SP and then your name came up.
sidebar lang po ito: ex pres duterte in the hague is reportedly not fit to stand start of trial this month of september 2025. methink, he is probly having panic attack that mimic heart attack, you know, rapid heart palpitations, maybe with low sat oxygen level, shaking or tremor, headache, unable to concentrate, lethargy, difficulty breathing, etc. just for the record, it’s been reported that those who over prepared for their trial and put so much into it are mostly in the same boat. they overreach and inadvertently overly burdened themselves, making themselves sick in the process, they are their own worst enemy!
they can be sedated to calm them down a bit and not go into a screaming fit!
The ICC is legalistically impeccable I think. They’d rather he stay in jail as they make sure there will be no legal mess-ups like trying a sick murderer who cannot speak up in court.
the dice seems to be falling for the dutertes. I remember reading somewhere that duterte’s ICC lawyers forbade sara duterte from blabbing more to the media about her father’s state of affairs. kasi, it was reported that sara was scouting for a 3r party country to sponsor digong’s interim release despite the fact ICC said duterte is not due for release, is well and coping and has no immediate health problems aside from affects of aging at age 82. though it was the dutertes including his common law wife that said duterte is reportedly sick.
so fast forward to now, september 2025, when the pretrial is looming fast, duterte is suddenly declared not fit to stand trial for health reason! and trial is postpone. sara’s preempted interim release quickly came to my mind! she summat planned all along.
old man duterte got the jitters! he is not the 1st old person to stand trial jitters included. all he has to do is be present at the trial, sit and keep quite, listening to all the arguments volley after volley. and if he so desire, the can close his eyes and go to sleep, while the families of those he allegedly killed retold their harrowing narratives.
Duterte at the public microphone swearing and strutting is very different than Duterte in jail whining and weeping. True that.
pls lang po, people should not get lulled into believing that non merit based policies abound. non merit base has limit, and those who got appointed to lucrative govt positions on such pretexts soon found out that if they dont shape up pretty quick, they got the big boot! and if they cannot meet public expectations, they got fired and replaced. they can no longer be job huggers.
true that philippines democracy is peculiar and it can be spectacularly good too!
That’s exactly right. The framework is sound but subject to abuse. And subject to surprising good deeds.
There are some who believe the parliamentary system is superior to the bicameral American system of legislature; they talk about eventually replacing the existing system with a unicameral parliament, believing laws would be quickly passed, there would be greater efficiency, and unworthy prime ministers be removed by the vote of the commons… Yet they overlook the fact that any legislature is as good as the people who occupy the seats of lawmakers.
So we witness now, the Senate as it should be functioning correctly, and in spectacular fashion. We are now living and breathing in even more interesting times.
I sure hope there is less absentism in our senate now. I was surprised that jinggoy estrada got mentioned in the flood fiasco as one of those who may have benefited from the flood scam. he was once convicted of the pork barrel scam but was release on bail yata, I am not sure which is which. now jinggoy is threatening to sue the ex dpwh engineer who mentioned his name as sangkot in the flood scam.
I think it was funny, at the inquiry, marcoleta celebrating early on jinggoy being safe from the flood anomaly, jinggoy laughing at first but then objected to marcoleta’s safe comment. coz now, jinggoy is far from safe! he is in the flood scam.
France probably wishes it did not have a parliamentary structure. Parliament canned the President yesterday. You are right, it’s the people who operate the system that make it work, or not work.
in japan, prime minister shigeru ishiba resigned after less than a year in office! his party amassed two major election losses and was fast losing clout. while in germany, 16 candidates died just when election is coming on 23 september 2025.
I think our democracy is healthy, it knows when to correct itself and re-balanced. and our constitution has survived the many threats of dismantling, it must be strong, much loved, upheld and respected by the public.
Agree. Perfection is not a function of democracy, a bit of chaos can be.
With the same old and new dynasties,how can a new system be any better.
Even the party list system have dynasties.
Pass an anti dynasty law then it will be a compromise and watered down version
cheer up! there is always infusion of new blood, old dynasties given make over. look at the marcos dynasty, it is being torn between brother and sister. the sister is old school, the brother is diverging. it must be bad enough that the sister is thinking of changing her name. may I suggest, ilocos as her new name, haha.
next dynasty to change is maybe duterte dynasty. there will come a time when the two sisters will lock horns.
Cheers!
Now you’re changing tune Joeam. I told you so, it’s not over until it’s over. There is always Hope. First, good. Now I am hoping for the better. This time, the bar is too low. I am willing to give this admin a chance to redeem itself and straighten its path. It is not too late for him. Still got two more active years to do that (3rd year is irrelevant) and s/b no room for error. hmm is that possible?
yay! everything is possible. and if you really want it possible, get involved! scrutinized and give support to those who must be supported. rather than be served. like in tennis, eala did the serving, and served big. and won.
but if you’d rather be spectator, cheer big and applaud loudest, give thumps up to those deserving, thumps down to those who dont. and wear colored glasses, the sun shines brightest in our side of the horizon.
I’ve not changed my tune. The Senate has changed its tune, mainly because of Escudero’s hard-headedness and Marcoleta’s hubris. And Sotto seemingly deciding to man up (which he did not do under Duterte). But hope is a good thing, for sure.
The very immediate nature of flooding and the obscenity of for instance Discaya wealth played a major role in pushing the Senate towards this. There is very real anger from both the masses who are nearly drowning and the middle classes whose appliances and cars are being damaged. EDSA Uno were both caused by middle class and masses getting similarly angry. The anger did NOT become long-term political awareness after 1986 except for a minority, unlike the Romanians who kept some of the spirit of 1989 (Ceausescu ousting) alive until today.
There is a good chance that NOW a long-term awareness will arise this time among Filipinos as the stuff said by Youtube influencers (some with peculiar names like Makagago Wazzup or Bungo TV) and Twitter influencers – both addressing different crowds (one reason I followed the music business was to get the pulse of who the masses listen to) – are very similar when it comes to flooding and money wasted that could have prevented what happened.
Most politicians want to keep their positions, so they will heed real public anger. Not the noise of minorities like the Far Left. The anger of people who work in BPO or similar who might have an upper floor condo but their (not yet fully paid off) car got drowned in underground parking space, or the anger of working class folks who waded to work or parents whose kids waded to school. And all these people have seen the likes of Discayas and others splurge in luxury.
WATER formed both ancient Egypt and the Netherlands and their systems of government. As the floods will return every year around this time, the pressure will stay pretty constant.
Hope this gets the national village away from its cycles of anger, rejoicing and depression to a constant hum of stuff getting done, with the moods more in the music than in the politics. All this is a good start but what will the follow through be? How this evolves will be interesting.
of course, everyone here knows the weather is cyclical specially farmers who plant by the season. we are in such a rim that bad to worse weather and all its accoutrements can be expected, and welcomed with trepidation. we have long term weather forecasters too, sometimes people want to loop off the heads of weather forecasters if they so forecast the coming bad weather.
speaking of bad politicians who so love their names that they are willing to go to courts and spend millions to ensure their names last forever, unsullied by the dastardly deeds they are supposed to have committed, are into it again! threatening to sue flood scam whistleblowers, trying to silence the voice of dissent, stifling it with libel and defamation.
inadvertently, senator risa hontiveros also has pending court case. she was sued, or being sue, for false imprisonment yata. the alleged witness she has given protection to, changed his tune, said he as falsely imprisoned!
I cannot really blamed risa for declining the chair offered to her by sotto. so sotto took up the chair and lacson the blue ribbon committee.
risa is busy yata assembling her defence team for her coming court case.
Senator Hontiveros was given Health, so Bong Go no longer has a platform to milk.
my irritational fear? philhealth fund to the tune of 464.9billions, risa might just find out that the fund exists only in paper!
I suspect she’ll be very focused on PhilHealth’s incompetence, so we’ll find out soon enough.
Excerpt from chatgpt
However, PhilHealth is facing financial challenges. As of June 2025, the agency reported having ₱464.9 billion in funds, supported by collections from premium payments and government subsidies. Despite this, its expenses for benefits are expected to reach ₱305 billion by the end of December 2025, surpassing its budget of ₱271 billion. At the current rate of expenditure, PhilHealth may exhaust its benefit budget by early November 2025, necessitating additional funding to sustain operations. The Department of Budget and Management has indicated that PhilHealth will receive ₱53.3 billion in 2026, a 23.6% increase from the 2025 budget, which includes the Department of Health, specialty hospitals, PhilHealth, and regional hospitals.
Totally agree, Irineo. It has the potential to be a game-changer.
Also interesting: the Discaya hearing is already being taken up by the Bubble Gang who otherwise like to spoof popular music acts since about two decades. That and Vice Ganda joking about jetskis are signs that the masses are not as indifferent to national issues as they once seemed to be – at least to us in our possibly middle class and above bubble of sorts.
https://x.com/bubblegang/status/1965291694313689228
Good to know.
here’s hoping the bubble gum as well as the public have longer lasting stamina for when the flood banks well and truly burst!
escudero was picky, the senate flood probe apparently has a narrowed perimeter, truly walang sinasanto, kaya the probe ironically only covers years 2022 to 2025. the years 2016 to 2022, sa panahon ni digong, is not covered. else it would have snared duterte allies and the dutertes themselves. marahil mga sinasanto ang mga ito. except there was leadership change in senate, and those presumed untouchables can now be touched! so, pls lang po, enlarge the inquiry to include the duterte years 2016 to 2022, the discayas said they started operating circa 2016.
so kung talagang walang sinasanto at walang pi-no-protektahan, the flood probe under sotto ought to backtrack to 2016 to date, 2025.
already new dpwh chair vince dizon is speaking to sen mark villar who was ex dpwh chair under duterte. I think, it would serve sotto not be tunneled vision, and likewise suggest changes be made to the affidavits signed by the discayas, the inquiry to be made retrospective to 2016.