Author’s note: I am reminded, usually by the comments to these opinion pieces I write, that the reason CleanTechnica is what it is, and why I joined it, is because when the founders set it up 18 years ago, clean energy was a revolution. Today it is a hard default. Hard because 60 to 70% of the world depends on coal and 80% of the vehicles that transport us still use fossil fuel. CleanTechnica’s mission is to “catalyze the cleantech revolution through industry coverage with journalistic integrity.” The vision is a to create “a radical mindset shift, and seeing the corrupt, old, clunky, and dirty economy fade away as the new one rises.” That radical mindset shift really does include writing about politics amid the world we are living in now, disrupted by AI and shaken by man-made disasters, usually of the narcissistic kind. Tell me what you think. Email me: tribs.tribdino@gmail.com. When I wrote “Happy Birthday, America! Hope You Find Your Way Back,” I expected disagreement. I did not expect the responses themselves to tickle my thinking. I stand pat by what I wrote there, but it needs a sequel, in the scale of Thor: Ragnarok (2017) or fossil-fuel wars Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). A senior from Washington State sent me an email to tell me he had never witnessed such division in his country and thanked me for expressing what he believed many Americans felt. A Filipino-American admitted he had voted for Donald Trump and now regretted her decision. Another friend, whose opinion I greatly value, gently reminded me that perhaps I had wandered into a place where I had no business commenting. Another friend said that “you have the gall, but not the right or the power to say what you said,” dismissing every paragraph except one. Even my cat Bourbon jumped up to my table, walked across the keyboard (effectively deleting the 4 or 5 hours work), and miraculously saved the document too. The online responses were equally diverse. Some were thoughtful and encouraging. Others were angry. A few descended into conspiracy theories. As I read through them over several days, I realized that everyone had read a different article. That is what democracy looks like In my original article, I described standing before the Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., and seeing a distorted America. It was a metaphor for a country that seemed to have drifted away from the ideals it once shared with the world. I had been looking at the acronyms … DJT, MAGA, DOGE … when I should have been looking at the institutions surrounding it. Presidents are the most visible symbols of a nation, but they are not the nation itself. Democracies are ultimately measured not by the personalities they elect but by the institutions capable of restraining those personalities when power begins to exceed its limits. That realization became clearer as I followed events in the United States after publishing my article. Federal judges continued reviewing executive actions. State governments challenged federal policies in court. Universities filed lawsuits. Congress questioned executive decisions. Journalists continued investigating official claims. The legal disputes surrounding federal spending, immigration policies, and cultural institutions such as the John F. Kennedy Center reminded me that constitutional government is designed to create friction. Presidents propose. Courts interpret. Legislatures oversee. Citizens sue. The resulting conflict may appear chaotic, but it is often the sound of democracy functioning as intended. The actions of the chief executive It is tempting to judge America solely through the actions of the current White House resident, just as many Filipinos judged the United States through Joe Biden or Barack Obama before him. Yet the presidency is only one office in a much larger constitutional architecture. What impressed me most was not that the administration won every legal battle or lost every one. It was that every significant exercise of executive power encountered institutions willing to examine whether that power had been exercised lawfully. Watching those events from the Philippines inevitably made me think about our own republic. We often describe ourselves as a democracy, yet our public conversations revolve almost entirely around presidents. Elections become contests between personalities instead of competing visions for strengthening institutions. Every administration promises reform, while every opposition promises accountability. Far less attention is paid to the quieter work of maintaining independent courts, professional civil servants, credible watchdog agencies, and a press capable of scrutinizing those who govern. Our recent history illustrates why those institutions matter. Parallel experiences? Former Senator Leila de Lima spent seven years trapped in her Senate office while insisting the charges against her were politically motivated. Whether one supported her or opposed her politically, the courts eventually dismantled the cases after key witnesses recanted and prosecutors failed to sustain the allegations. The process was painfully slow, but it demonstrated that legal institutions can still correct themselves. The previous former president Rodrigo Duterte was very much involved in making sure her incarceration happened. He was the prime spreader of malice against de Lima, even showing a fabricated sex tape. He used every deplorable word against her (and almost all of his opponents, including Pope Francis, Jesus Christ, and God). Duterte now faces proceedings before the International Criminal Court (ICC) over allegations arising from his anti-drug campaign. Many Filipinos reject the ICC’s jurisdiction, while others believe international accountability is necessary. Regardless of one’s position, the broader principle remains the same. Democracies cannot depend solely on the goodwill of leaders. They require institutions capable of examining whether power has been exercised within the bounds of law. The same principle applies to the continuing questions surrounding billions of pesos allocated for flood-control projects. Every rainy season, flooded communities ask why supposedly completed infrastructure failed to protect them. The issue is no longer simply about engineering or procurement. It is about whether oversight institutions possess the independence to follow public money wherever the evidence leads, regardless of whose administration approved the projects. Any parallelisms to the construction booms in Washington? Shutting down institutions The shutdown of what was the biggest media outlet in the country, ABS-CBN offered another lesson. The network lost its legislative franchise after years of conflict with the Duterte administration, prompting intense debate over press freedom, congressional authority and the vulnerability of media organizations operating under a franchise system. Whatever one’s legal interpretation of that episode, it exposed structural questions about the relationship between political power and an independent press. Institutions are tested not only when they protect speech we agree with, but also when they protect voices that challenge those in power. Even religion reveals an interesting parallel between our countries. The United States has wrestled with the growing political influence of Christian nationalist movements. The Philippines has long experienced the electoral influence of organized religious groups. These movements differ in history, theology, and political context, yet they illustrate a common democratic challenge: ensuring that deeply held religious convictions enrich public life without allowing political authority to become inseparable from religious allegiance. Different but the same The comparison extends to political movements themselves. America has MAGA. The Philippines has the DDS. They are not identical movements, nor should they be treated as such. Yet both demonstrate how easily modern democracies can become centered on personalities rather than institutions. Supporters often interpret criticism of a leader as criticism of the nation itself. Courts, journalists, universities, and prosecutors are viewed less as independent constitutional actors than as allies or enemies depending on whom they investigate. That is precisely why institutions exist Their duty is not to defend presidents, opposition leaders, or political movements. Their duty is to defend constitutional principles even when doing so disappoints the public or angers those in power. A judge should not ask whether a ruling benefits the administration or the opposition. A journalist should not decide whether a story is worth publishing based on who might be embarrassed. Public institutions lose their legitimacy the moment they become instruments of personalities instead of guardians of principles. The responses to my first article ultimately reinforced that conclusion. The veteran who wrote to me, the Filipino-American who reconsidered her vote, the friend who questioned my right to comment, and even the harshest critics all exercised freedoms protected by institutions larger than any president. No one sought permission to disagree. No government office instructed them what to think. No religion told them what to believe in. They argued openly, sometimes passionately, and occasionally unfairly. And let’s not forget where the power truly comes from: the citizens. Citizens, which, by the way, include immigrants, which in turn reminds every citizen now that they were once, in the 250 years of America, immigrants too. The true reflection The Reflecting Pool does not merely mirror the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. It reflects the people who gather around it. Some see greatness. Others see disappointment. Many see both at the same time. The reflection changes constantly because the nation itself is never finished. When I wrote that America had lost its way, I focused too much on the occupant of the White House. I should have paid closer attention to the institutions that continued doing their work, often quietly and without headlines. They are imperfect, occasionally frustrating, and sometimes painfully slow. Yet they continue to remind presidents that power has limits. That may be America’s greatest gift to the world. America did not invent democracy. It did not perfect it. But it has created a process that certainly assures its existence. Elections alone do not sustain republics, nor do inspiring constitutions or eloquent speeches. America’s enduring contribution has been the idea that liberty survives only when institutions remain independent enough to tell the most powerful people in government that they have gone too far. The Philippines inherited many of those same institutions. Our challenge is not simply to preserve them but to strengthen them, especially when they rule against the leaders we admire. Democracies have always been noisy places. Democracies are not judged by the presidents they elect. Democracies elect both admirable leaders and deeply flawed ones. They are judged by whether their institutions remain strong enough to survive them all.
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