Discourses in disjointed streams: Dissecting SOGIE Equality Bill's legislative stalemate

Abstract

The Philippine SOGIE Equality Bill is the longest-running series of Senate and House proposals filed in the Philippines. Despite academic efforts to analyze its intricacies, little is known about the discursive dimension of its agenda-setting and the mechanisms behind its persistent deadlock, which exemplifies the phenomenon of policy stagnation. Through critical discourse analysis (CDA) and textual analysis, this study examines the statements of the legislative opposition. In doing so, it reifies Winkel–Leipold's approach to agenda-setting, which reconceptualizes Kingdon's streams as discursive patterns. The study argues that the stalemate of the Bill is due to the disjunction in the political, policy, and problem streams that take reference from an entrenched socio-culturally Abrahamic-oriented landscape of the country, which actively shapes legislative outcomes of unconventional and progressive policies. Proponents may initially try to minimize potential conflicts by utilizing the normative power of such hegemonizing discourse to attain desired policy outcomes amidst existing discourse conditions. Analyzing the Bill's underlying discourses suggests that legal and socio-cultural transformative change requires addressing overt and covert resistance in policy debates.