Every June, the rains come, the streets flood, and everyone acts surprised. Billions of pesos were supposedly spent on flood control. Where did the water go, and where did the money go?
These are fair questions. But here is a question nobody likes to ask: why do the same voices stay silent when whistleblowers end up detained, and only find their voice to gang up on the one person they’ve all conspired to bring down?
The destruction repeats every year. Roofs disappear under brown water. Refrigerators and family photographs float out of houses that took decades to build and a night to lose. Someone drowns, someone is electrocuted, a name reduced to a footnote.
Flood control is just the easiest example, because water does not lie.
The same happens in contracts, appointments, secret funds, even how authorities decide who to investigate. Attention has less to do with how bad the crime is and more with whether the person is currently in favor.
Steal as a public official or a favored ally, and something strange happens to the institutions supposed to notice. The church looks away. Activists who once marched for public money go quiet. Academe finds other topics to study. The press finds other angles to chase.
Nobody has to be told to stay silent. They simply do.
The scale of it should embarrass everyone into silence, not buy it. Trillions go missing from the public till, and what trickles back looks like generosity: a school built, a chapel repaired, a scholarship named after someone who belongs in prison.
A few billion in donations is treated as redemption for trillions taken.
The Filipino stood inside that church and watched: a priest raising his hand over the bowed head of a man tied to billions in missing public funds, blessing him before the congregation, while everyone clapped.
This is not speculation. It was seen firsthand.
This is not a demand for a trial or a conviction. It is a demand for something smaller: an inquiry into what was seen and heard.
Testimonies exist from both sides, the Filipino as witness and the accused. There is video and audio. Millions have already been returned by the officials involved, which is not the behavior of someone with nothing to answer for.
Still, no subpoena, no inquiry, nothing. Even with testimony corroborating testimony, the silence holds.
That is not oversight failing to notice. That is oversight choosing to play stupid.
Watch how politicians behave; the pattern is instant.
Out of power, they cannot stop talking about honesty and accountability. The moment they win, that outrage disappears, replaced by calls to “let the process work.”
The legislature does the same. A case involving the wrong political group runs for weeks, cameras everywhere. A case involving a friend or ally quietly disappears from the schedule.
It answers to the Constitution on paper. In real life, it answers to whoever is winning.
Universities and churches are supposed to be the exception, speaking up no matter who is in charge, because their purpose is to stand for truth above politics.
When a church condemns wrongdoing from officials it dislikes but stays quiet about the same wrongdoing from officials it favors, that is not morality. That is picking a team.
It is not only the adults; ordinary people do this too. We get angry at corruption when we dislike the person, and excuse the same behavior in someone we support.
That is loyalty pretending to be principle.
This is not about one party, either. Every government in recent memory has been protected by someone’s convenient silence, and every group that criticized that silence went quiet once their side held power.
Everyone knows what is happening. Too many have decided quiet is easier than consistency.
The next flood will come, the next audit will say what it always says, and people will act surprised again, because pretending is easier than admitting how tired everyone has become.
The Filipino is tired, tired of investigations that go nowhere and apologies that cost nothing. Many who play stupid are not indifferent, only exhausted, and exhaustion is easy to mistake for peace.
The corrupt understand this well: a tired nation stops asking questions and forgives too quickly.
This is written because the Filipino was there and refuses to add one more tired shrug to the pile.
Unless citizens, churches, schools, media, and government stop waiting for someone else to go first, the country has little hope of climbing out of its own silence.
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.
About the Author: Paul Y. Chua, PhD, holds doctoral degrees in Fiscal Management and Peace and Security, and a master’s degree in National Security Administration. He writes on Philippine governance, national security, transportation, and public policy. Full profile at pychua.com.
Originally published by The Daily Chronicle.