After 1986 we told ourselves we had built a conscience no dictator could take back. Four of them: the Church and its bells; the campus that emptied into the streets; a press that printed what the palace hid; and the people power that filled the highway. For forty years we called them independent watchdogs, answerable to no one but the truth.
The numbers are argued in the Senate, but the shape is plain. Hundreds of billions of pesos went into flood-control projects. Projects stamped finished while the baha still climbs to the rooftops. Whole neighborhoods scoop out floodwater by the bucket so a few families can get rich.
The Church said almost nothing. I am not talking about God, or the faith, or the millions who kneel every Sunday. I am talking about the men in the collar: the bishops, priests and pastors who once led marches, who found their voice when one official displeased them and lost it when half a trillion went missing. A church that roared at a dictator cannot say a word against a thief.
The campus went quiet too. Universities that once filled with placards and emptied into the streets now keep their students indoors. Professors paid to teach the young how to think now tell them what to think, and whom to think it against. A school that once produced questioners now produces members.
The press chose its stories. When a rival slips, it becomes the headline; the stolen billions get a few lines near the back. The newsrooms that once helped topple presidents wait to be told which side to take. That is not reporting. That is taking a side.
The people power named after a road found its old energy, not for the drowning towns but for one man. Church and campus, newsroom and activist, the balimbing left and the opposition — all moving as one.
Notice what they agree on. Not the theft; that they can live with. There is one person they cannot buy or push out — the one who could still make them answer for the money, and end every career their silence has bought. So that person, more than anyone, has to go. Beneath the slogans, that is the alliance.
The one who could still make them answer for the money — the one they most need removed forever.
They have even appointed themselves watchdogs — a small circle calling itself independent, drawn from the camp that wanted one official gone, working to make that removal look like the public’s own cry. The cameras treat the handful as a crowd. Not one of them can say where the billions went.
Four institutions built to be independent do not, by accident, go quiet on one scandal and loud on one target. They are no longer four watchdogs. They are one party.
That is what EDSA has become: something you belong to now, with members, donors, and enemies. The dues are simple — stay tahimik about the theft, loud about the one they want gone. Pay both and keep your seat, fed.
Let me talk to the people I marched with. I trusted you. I stood with you at EDSA, brave when speaking up could cost everything. I marched against laws that punished the poor, fights you once swore mattered. Today your silence is louder than any speech you ever gave. You did not change what you believe. You changed your price. The hardest part is who you stand beside now: the people you once called thieves.
None of this is new. In 2001 they filled EDSA again to throw out a president for stealing; the next set took the same offices. We never had an opposition, only people waiting their turn.
EDSA did not die in a coup. It died in a silence so well organized everyone who mattered agreed to it. The young are watching us teach them that silence comes with a seat, a salary, and a side.
The public was alive once, hungry for the truth. But it is pagod na, worn down by scandal after scandal. The powerful know a tired people does not fight back. They waited, and the silence came.
Stop asking who stole the money; that fight is lost. Ask why the truth, when it surfaces, dies alone. That is the horse in the old saying — ano ang halaga ng damo kung patay na ang kabayo? The grass is the truth, come too late. The horse is us. We are told it dropped on its own. It did not. Tanungin ang pumatay — ask the ones who let it die.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and are intended to encourage public discussion on governance and national issues. They do not represent any official position of the institutions the author may be affiliated with.
(Paul Chua, PhD, holds doctoral degrees in Fiscal Management and Peace and Security, and a master’s degree in National Security Administration. He has completed Executive Education program on “Strategic Management of Regulatory and Enforcement Agencies” at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Facebook: Doc Paul)
Originally published by The Manila Times on June 25, 2026.
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