Part 3 of a Series of 3
If the first two columns established anything, it is this: the four reform bills of the Marcos administration, the Anti-Dynasty Bill, the Independent People’s Commission Act, the Party-list System Reform Act, and the CADENA transparency bill will never pass on the goodwill of Congress. These measures strike at the core of political privilege. They demand that the ruling class amputate its own limbs. And the ruling class does not self-mutilate. Not voluntarily. Not even under public outrage.
Which means the fate of these reforms now shifts outside the legislature. The question is no longer “Will Congress pass these bills?” The question is “Can the country corner Congress into passing them?” In Philippine politics, reform happens only when the system becomes too ashamed not to act. Shaming, pressure, and collective leverage: these are the only currencies that move a political elite determined to protect itself.
Civil society must go beyond statements, ribbons, and hashtags. The last forty years have shown that polite advocacy results in polite burial. If the country wants dynasty regulation, a credible anti-corruption body, transparency in budget spending, and a party-list system that serves citizens rather than syndicates, then NGOs, clergy, unions, student networks, digital activists, and professional associations must rediscover the power of organized confrontation. Sustained, week-after-week pressure campaigns, not one-day rallies, signal that reform is not symbolic but urgent. Civil society needs to behave the way political clans behave: coordinated, relentless, and strategic.
Business, too, must stop pretending neutrality is wisdom. Stability dies when corruption becomes systemic, and every CEO in this country knows that the cost of governance failure eventually becomes a cost to capital. The private sector has long practiced “quiet diplomacy” with government, which is another way of saying it has tolerated incompetence so long as profits kept flowing. That era is over. The flood-control scandal has exposed the price of silence. The Marcos administration’s reform package offers business a rare chance to rehabilitate the economic environment. If these bills die, investor confidence follows. Business groups should say so—loudly, repeatedly, and without fear of offending the political families that benefit from the status quo. No modern economy thrives when legislators operate like proprietors of private fiefdoms.
And what of the public? Filipinos underestimate their leverage. Politicians do not fear moral arguments, civic ideals, or constitutional reminders. They fear only two things: withdrawal of public affection and withdrawal of votes. If the public treats these reform bills as election issues, if they demand candidates to declare positions, promise sponsorships, or sign public covenants, Congress suddenly loses room to hide. Dynasties survive by convincing voters that nothing can change. But public opinion, once mobilized, can destabilize that lie. The defeat of political giants in 2016, 2019, and 2022 proves that the Filipino voter can punish the untouchable. The question is whether they can do it consistently enough to force policy change.
None of this works if civil society, business, and the public move independently. Pressure must converge. A fragmented push collapses. A synchronized offensive becomes impossible to ignore. That means common messaging, shared demands, and a national coalition that publicly counts the legislators who block reform. Naming and shaming is not spite. It is strategy. When the political class is forced to explain why they refuse anti-dynasty provisions or why they fear an independent anti-corruption commission, the battle is already half-won.
If the Marcos administration is serious about reform and not merely cosplaying reform, then it must welcome this pressure. A President who truly wants these bills passed needs allies outside Congress. He needs a public that refuses to allow legislative sabotage to happen in the dark. Reform in the Philippines has never succeeded top-down. It has always required an uprising of expectations from below.
The political elite will not commit self-destruction on its own. It will sabotage quietly, dilute language, bury the bills in committee, or wait for public distraction. Which is why civil society, business, and the public must ensure distraction never comes. These four bills are more than legislative proposals; they are instruments to break a political system rotting from dynasty rule, opaque funding, and impunity. Without societal pressure, they die. With it, they transform from improbable to inevitable.
The country stands at the edge of a rare opportunity. If civil society organizes, if business speaks, and if the public demands, not requests. these reforms, Congress will have no choice but to act. But if silence prevails, if cynicism wins, then the ruling class keeps its throne. And the Philippines gets the government it tolerates, not the one it deserves.
