The political theater that has gripped Congress in recent months has, it seems, extended even to matters as basic as the people’s electricity bills, an arena some lawmakers appear eager to exploit for political capital rather than resolve through substantive work.
Akbayan Partylist Representative Chel Diokno recently issued a statement expressing disappointment over the exclusion of certain energy measures from the agenda of the special session called by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The statement, like several before it, raises a question worth asking: What, exactly, is Diokno trying to accomplish?
Since being named an Akbayan nominee in the House, Diokno has built a public profile heavy on commentary and light on legislative output.
He has spoken often and pointedly, particularly on issues with strong emotional resonance, electricity prices chief among them.
But talking about a problem and solving one are poles apart, and the pattern emerging resembles a familiar political playbook: Identify a grievance the public already feels, attach one’s name to it loudly and let the resulting attention substitute for results.
Filipinos do deserve relief from high electricity rates and frustration with the power sector is legitimate.
The ease with which Diokno gravitates toward the press statement, the resolution, the media briefing, without comparable visibility on the harder, slower work of actually engaging the sector, suggests a leaning towards public sympathy as more politically valuable than public policy.
That calculation, if it is one, misreads both the problem and the moment. The power sector is among the most technically complex industries in the country. Electricity prices are shaped by global fuel markets, supply-demand dynamics, transmission constraints, currency fluctuations, taxation and layered regulatory frameworks.
Sadly, there is no single lever a legislator can pull, no resolution that rewrites the economics of the grid. Reducing that complexity to a soundbite is not just unhelpful — it may actively mislead the public about what reform actually requires.
If Diokno’s pronouncements are driven by genuine concern, the test of that sincerity lies in whether he is willing to trade the easier currency of public sentiment for the harder, less photogenic work of policymaking.
Energy issues are not new but have simmered for years, and a legislator with real intent to address them does not need to manufacture urgency or stoke public anger to be heard — the public is already listening, already frustrated. What it needs is not another voice amplifying that frustration, but one channeling it into something durable.
That means pushing for investments in generation capacity, stronger transmission infrastructure, fuel diversification, renewable energy development and regulatory stability — the unglamorous architecture of an actual fix.
It means sitting across the table from industry stakeholders, however imperfect they may be, and from technical experts who understand why the grid behaves as it does. It means accepting that workable solutions are often less quotable than the problems they solve.
Criticism is a legitimate and necessary function of democratic opposition, but leadership asks more of a legislator than merely identifying problems the public can already see for itself.
It asks for the willingness to do the unglamorous, collaborative work of fixing them, work that rarely generates a headline but is the only kind that actually lowers a bill.
The country has had enough of political theater dressed up as advocacy.
