*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
I have sat in classrooms where students wrestle with the idea of authority and in council halls where decisions affect real communities with real consequences. In both spaces, one lesson keeps returning: power is healthiest when it is questioned. The moment authority becomes untouchable, it stops serving the people and starts serving itself. Democracy does not die in chaos; it dies in quiet acceptance.
There are moments in a republic when silence becomes more dangerous than dissent. This is one of those moments.
Senate President Tito Sotto is right to sound the alarm. Impeachment is not a favor granted to Congress. It is a constitutional power explicitly and exclusively lodged in the legislative branch. It is political by design—not because it is partisan, but because it is meant to be exercised by elected representatives who answer directly to the people. When the judiciary intrudes into this clearly political process, the issue is no longer about judicial review. It becomes judicial overreach—and that is precisely how constitutional crises begin.
Let us be clear: questioning the Supreme Court is not an attack on democracy. It is democracy in action. No branch of government is immune from scrutiny. Not the Executive. Not Congress. And certainly not the judiciary. Accountability applies to everyone. Justices are not gods; they are public officials with defined powers, bound by the same Constitution they are sworn to uphold.
What Senator Sotto has done is neither reckless nor inflammatory. It is an assertion of constitutional duty. He is defending the separation of powers—the invisible architecture that keeps our democratic house from collapsing. To remain silent when that balance is disturbed is not prudence; it is abdication. Leadership is not measured by comfort but by courage, especially when speaking up invites criticism.
Tama naman si TitoSen.
The law is not the private property of lawyers, nor is justice the exclusive province of judges. Courts and law books are tools of governance, not objects of worship. In the final analysis, justice does not live only in rulings and footnotes; it lives in a collective commitment to liberty, fairness, and mutual respect among institutions and citizens alike. When ordinary people feel that justice has become inaccessible, overly technical, or detached from common sense, trust erodes—and trust is the lifeblood of any legal system.
The Supreme Court’s role is to interpret the law, not to make it. This distinction is not semantic; it is foundational. Interpretation applies existing rules to concrete disputes. Lawmaking creates new rules that bind future conduct. When the Court effectively crafts new standards governing impeachment—an area the Constitution deliberately assigns to Congress—it crosses a constitutional line. That line matters. Because once interpretation quietly morphs into legislation, the balance collapses. The referee becomes a player, and the game ceases to be fair.
Many citizens sense this unease even if they cannot articulate it in legal jargon. They feel that something fundamental has shifted—that a political accountability mechanism has been judicialized beyond recognition. They see doctrines invoked to stop processes before they can even mature. And they remember—rightly or wrongly—that the Court’s credibility has, in past periods, been bruised by perceptions of partisan alignment. In constitutional governance, perception matters almost as much as doctrine. Legitimacy is not sustained by authority alone, but by public confidence that power is exercised with restraint.
This is not a call to weaken the judiciary. On the contrary, it is a call to protect it—by insisting that it remain within its proper sphere. Courts are strongest when they are restrained, principled, and faithful to their constitutional limits. When they appear to substitute their judgment for that of elected institutions on political questions, they invite backlash and undermine their own moral authority.
A healthy democracy demands friction among co-equal branches. Congress must guard its mandate. The Executive must respect legal boundaries. The Judiciary must exercise humility. This tension is not a flaw; it is a feature. When one branch expands at the expense of the others, governance does not become more efficient—it becomes brittle. And brittle systems break under pressure.
History teaches us that constitutional crises do not begin with dramatic declarations. They begin quietly—with blurred lines, rationalized exceptions, and overreach left unchallenged because questioning authority was deemed impolite or dangerous. Democracies are not preserved by reverence alone, but by vigilance.
That is why questioning the Court, when warranted, is not sedition. It is a civic responsibility.
By speaking out, SP Tito Sotto is not undermining democracy. He is reminding us how it survives: through courage, debate, and an unwavering insistence that no one—no matter how robed or learned—is above the Constitution.
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*About the author:
