*Dr. Rodolfo JohnOrtiz Teope, PhD, EdD
The other day, while driving along Mindanao Avenue corner Congressional Avenue, I found myself slowing down at the sight of beggars crowding both sides of the road. Children with dusty faces tapped on car windows. Mothers cradled infants in their arms, whispering words of comfort that did little to mask the hunger etched on their faces. Fathers, their eyes tired and defeated, stood quietly, holding out their hands, hoping for just a few coins. In that moment, I realized they cared nothing about the heated debates in the Senate or the flood control scam dominating the news. They only cared about one thing: survival. Will they eat tonight? That was the only question that mattered to them.
When I got home and turned on the television, the contrast hit me like a wall. What I saw was not about poverty, or hunger, or jobs. What I saw was filibustering—senators speaking endlessly, stretching debates with technicalities, drowning each other with words. I listened for solutions but heard only delay. I watched for progress but saw only obstruction. And it struck me: while those beggars wait for food, while families wait for jobs and classrooms, our leaders waste precious hours protecting themselves and their allies through endless speeches that go nowhere.
Filibustering, I realized, is not just about wasting time. It is about wasting lives. Every hour spent in grandstanding is an hour stolen from the poor. Every day consumed by legal gymnastics is a day when no law is passed to put rice on tables or roofs over heads. Those who stand at the rostrum may think their voices are powerful, but to the Filipino people outside, those voices are a wall—a barrier that blocks the solutions they so desperately need.
I thought of the missing sabungeros whose families still wait for justice, of children squeezed in overcrowded classrooms, of farmers tilling the land without support, of hospitals that cannot heal because resources are scarce. These are the real stories that demand attention, yet they are drowned in the noise of filibustering. Instead of urgency, we get delay. Instead of decisions, we get distractions. And in the end, the people who suffer most are the ones who were never even part of the conversation.
And this is not theoretical. We saw it in the blue-ribbon hearings, where hours upon hours were consumed by privilege speeches that strayed from the issue, often weaponized to defend allies implicated in corruption. We saw it in debates over the national budget, where instead of hammering out solutions for education, health, and jobs, senators buried the discussions in repetitive arguments, delaying disbursement of funds critical to social services. Even during impeachment proceedings in past years, filibustering became a tactic to stall the inevitable, with speeches longer than court testimonies, not for the sake of truth but for the sake of survival. In all these instances, filibustering was not a shield for democracy—it was a sword pointed at the heart of national development.
The more I watched, the more I saw how filibustering has become a weapon. It is used not to clarify but to confuse, not to enlighten but to obscure, not to protect the people but to shield the plunderers. The Senate, meant to be a place of service, often feels like a theater where political survival is the main performance. The poor remain outside the gates, unheard and unseen, while debates inside circle endlessly, producing nothing but frustration.
And yet, I cannot help but think of the greater tragedy behind it all. Every time filibustering takes the stage, the nation loses focus. The cameras follow the speeches, the headlines cover the drama, and the people are led to believe something meaningful is happening. But it is an illusion. The truth is that filibustering is a distraction, a way to buy time, to bury accountability, to prevent decisions from being made. And while we are distracted, hunger grows, poverty deepens, and hope withers.
This is why I return to the doctrine of Timpuyog Pilipinas: to love rather than hate, to unite rather than divide, and to build rather than destroy. I think of it often when I watch our leaders. Filibustering embodies the very opposite. It divides instead of unites. It destroys time instead of building solutions. It feeds on hate and suspicion instead of compassion and service. It has become a mirror of what politics should never be.
And so I ask: how long must the Filipino people wait? How long must that child on Mindanao Avenue wait for food while senators argue endlessly? How long must the farmer wait for support while privilege speeches consume session hours? How long must teachers wait for classrooms, workers wait for jobs, mothers wait in hospitals with no doctors, while filibustering continues to block the path to development?
I cannot accept that this is the kind of democracy we must endure. I cannot accept that delay and obstruction should define the lives of millions. If senators continue to waste time in speeches that serve no one but themselves, history will not remember the words they spoke—it will remember the hunger they ignored, the poverty they prolonged, and the nation they abandoned.
Filibustering is more than a parliamentary tactic; it is a betrayal. It is the theft of time, of opportunity, of progress. It is the reason why, while the world moves forward, our nation remains stuck. The people do not ask for perfection. They ask for food, for jobs, for education, for justice. These are not luxuries; they are the very essence of governance. And every day that filibustering delays action, those promises slip further away.
For me, the choice is simple. Our leaders must abandon obstruction and embrace service. They must rise above politics and finally see the faces outside their halls—the hungry child, the weary worker, the forgotten Filipino. Because when politics distracts, the nation suffers. And when filibustering replaces leadership, the nation is betrayed.
The time for endless debate is over. The time for national
development is now.
