Supreme Court Justices Are Not Gods: Why Questioning the Court Is an Act of Democracy

*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:

Dr. Rodolfo “John” Ortiz Teope is a distinguished Filipino academic, public intellectual, and advocate for civic education and public safety, whose work spans local academies and international security circles. With a career rooted in teaching, research, policy, and public engagement, he bridges theory and practice by making meaningful contributions to academic discourse, civic education, and public policy. Dr. Teope is widely respected for his critical scholarship in education, management, economics, doctrine development, and public safety; his grassroots involvement in government and non-government organizations; his influential media presence promoting democratic values and civic consciousness; and his ethical leadership grounded in Filipino nationalism and public service. As a true public intellectual, he exemplifies how research, advocacy, governance, and education can work together in pursuit of the nation’s moral and civic mission.

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Filibustering: A Deterrent to National Development

*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.

  ____________

 *About the author:

Dr. Rodolfo “John” Ortiz Teope is a distinguished Filipino academic, public intellectual, and advocate for civic education and public safety, whose work spans local academies and international security circles. With a career rooted in teaching, research, policy, and public engagement, he bridges theory and practice by making meaningful contributions to academic discourse, civic education, and public policy. Dr. Teope is widely respected for his critical scholarship in education, management, economics, doctrine development, and public safety; his grassroots involvement in government and non-government organizations; his influential media presence promoting democratic values and civic consciousness; and his ethical leadership grounded in Filipino nationalism and public service. As a true public intellectual, he exemplifies how research, advocacy, governance, and education can work together in pursuit of the nation’s moral and civic mission.

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