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A philosopher once said: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”
The past weeks have been quite significant:

Responding to public outrage, Congress discarded the controversial confidential funds for the Department of Education and other agencies.
After a former president publicly made death threats against a member, Congress said it will defend the legislature’s dignity and security.
Congress and Malacañang said cooperation with the International Criminal Court is being studied.

Congress said the SMNI network would be investigated for possible franchise violations.  

The President announced an amnesty for rebels.

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines and the government announced the signing of an Oslo Joint Statement, signaling new peace negotiations.

The cynics would quite expectedly say all these are just politicking and jockeying for the next elections. They may be right. Besides, a broken clock is still correct twice a day.

But for the non-cynics, pragmatists, realists, and agents of hope, these developments are absolutely welcome.

By ridding the budget of a lot of confidential funds, more funds could go to productive and more accountable expenditures, especially those needed by people at this time. There are many considering the economic crunch: emergency aid, wage subsidies, public transportation, education and health services. We urge Congress to actually rechannel the discarded confidential funds to these desperately-needed concerns.

We have been so used to seeing Congress, especially the House, to being a rubber-stamp of the president since 1987, that many have forgotten its capacity to do actually do some governing on its own, alongside if not opposite the President.  It can do so by pushing its own legislative agenda and wielding the “power of the purse.” While it is apparent that the ongoing independent streak may be compelled by presidential ambitions, we have to give credit to Speaker Martin Romualdez for reminding Congress of its power and showing its potential to the nation.

I don't know about you but the moves in Congress to cooperate with the ICC, and from the presidential palace to study the return to the ICC is something that is wonderful and beautiful to behold. It gives hope to families of victims of summary executions and extrajudicial killings. It sends a message to the world that the country complies with obligations under international law.

The President and Congress have the solid legal backing of the Supreme Court if it cooperates with the ICC investigation into the previous president’s drug war. In its landmark Pangilinan vs. Cayetano ruling, the court said Duterte’s lamentable withdrawal from the ICC “does not undermine or diminish the ICC’s jurisdiction and power to continue a probe that it has commenced while a state was a party to the Rome Statute.”

Finally, who would have expected the Marcos administration and the NDFP to even consider talking peace? Surely, not the cynics, peace spoilers, rabid anti-communists, backers of war, arms dealers, and others who profit from war and counter-insurgency military operations who come from all parties, be it pro-administration or opposition.

But in a surprise so pleasant, both parties have agreed to talk. This is good because it may give us an opportunity to not only to put an end to the killings of activists and the arrest of peace negotiators and peace consultant. More importantly, we could press both the NDFP and the government to focus on solving the root causes of the armed conflict: the many social and economic problems, and political and constitutional defects, that weigh heavily on us every day.  

Some may want to the talks to merely seek surrender, pacification or cooptation of one party, but if we support the talks’ substantive agenda, we could see beneficial agreements, and even a grand political settlement. Surely it may not be easy, but talking peace is a thousand times better than doing nothing. And it is a lot less expensive than counter-insurgency programs.

In another part of the globe, a temporary truce set the stage for the release of hostages and prisoners between Hamas and Israel, gave Gaza a much-needed reprieve from bombings, and finally allowed humanitarian aid to come in.

The past years have given the adage “everything is possible” a negative connotation, making it akin to “brace yourselves.”

But the developments in the past weeks partly restore our faith that amid the ever-shifting political landscape and in what seems to be a dark time, positive change is possible. We need more. We need to do more.