IN my Nov. 26 column, I described the Trillion Peso March as a valiant attempt at national unity by “getting everyone equally furious at the same crooks at the same time.” Indeed, it succeeded, if success is measured by the volume of our shared rage. But a protest fueled by communal fury still falters when its anger is divided. Our wrath splinters across multiple villains: corrupt political leadership; a bureaucracy that confuses public service with personal enrichment; and private contractors whose construction empires are built on sand, kickbacks, and asphalt priced like gold bullion.

Ambivalence kills momentum. Outrage diluted by caveats — “Sara is not as crooked as BBM” (referring to Vice President Sara Duterte and President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.) — turns a precise target into a foggy abstraction. In that ambiguity, the guilty find room to breathe.

The “accountability and transparency” slogan, while noble, lacks the primal ring of “Marcos resign!” — a chant turbo-charged by the surviving die-hard acolytes of former president Rodrigo Duterte, who have only swapped posters, not philosophies. Their decibel-level enthusiasm masks a dangerous truth: mass mobilization without unity becomes a political demolition derby — Marcos vs. Sara vs. Yellows vs. the Left — and the nation is the vehicle totaled in the crash.

Unless these marches transcend partisanship, they become merely a Texas hold ‘em poker all-in bet with a nothing hand — a bluff in a game where the house always collects the country’s future as its winnings.

History is rarely kind to those who dismiss the seemingly futile. Revolutions begin as murmurs. Crises stalk until they pounce. The question now isn’t if our national frustration erupts into something larger, but how and when it blows.

I see three decisive forces that will shape the immediate future: the masses, the military and the international arena. Together, they will decide whether we cross the “final tipping point,” and together they will lay before us what we Filipinos love most: A smorgasbord of choices that we will pile on our plates and leave uneaten.

The street: Where change begins — or stops?

The Trillion Peso March was a warning shot, a flare fired from a ship taking on water. But a single march is theater; sustained demonstrations are pressure. They must endure long enough to alter the calculations of the one group that truly makes governments tremble: business. While activists talk about principles, capital speaks the only language politicians listen to: profit. When protests make investors sweat and malls empty, when imports stall and dividends shrink, the business sector drops its neutrality faster than a stock market during a coup rumor.

Remember EDSA I and II. It was not merely the priests, students, or cause-oriented groups that tipped the scales. It was people from the middle class marching with car keys in their pockets and mortgages on the line. When that sector shifts allegiance from stability to upheaval, it signals that the cost of the status quo has become intolerable. Street action must, therefore, sustain enough discomfort to reach that crucial threshold. When the middle class moves, regimes fall. This is always the first domino.

Men with guns: The real ‘checks and balances’

Let us not rewrite our fairy tales: EDSA I and II were not purely civilian love letters to democracy. They were military-backed, Western-trained transitions, with Fidel Ramos from West Point and Angelo Reyes from Harvard (“Alternative scenarios: Lessons from Harvard,” Dec. 3, 2025). The Armed Forces, whether we like it or not, remain the arbiters of order when civilian leadership loses legitimacy. But in this current crisis, the officers face a stark questionnaire: Is the civilian government still legitimate? Is the state machinery still functioning? Is public fury still tolerable?

If “yes” remains true, the military stays reluctantly in their barracks, nervous but restrained, cautious but compliant. But when the answers tip to “no,” the Philippines risks replaying the old tragedies of South America, Africa, and the Middle East: coups executed with surgical precision and patriotic cover stories. Western schooling may have once softened the uniforms, but without a steady civilian helm, even Harvard epaulettes cannot guarantee constitutional loyalty.

We must, therefore, shape the narrative, so that the perception of both the masses and the military become one. Once soldiers decide that democracy has collapsed, even temporarily, they will reshuffle the poker deck, so to speak, with cards no one else can hold. Once unleashed, the genie never returns to the bottle. Toothpaste does not reenter the tube. And power, once seized, rarely walks itself back to its cage.

International calculations: When elephants fight, the grass becomes collateral

Filipino transitions have never occurred in a strategic vacuum. EDSA I only concluded when the United States, our ever-ambivalent patron, told the dictator to “cut and cut cleanly.” And he did cut cleanly, and got a free, first-class plane seat not to Paoay, but to Hawaii.

Today, however, the geopolitical terrain is treacherously altered. The United States is helmed by a cognitively impaired president who weaponizes ignorance with pride, and who has — with breathtaking incompetence — surrendered his country’s economic primacy to a quietly encircling China. Donald Trump’s Indo-Pacific grand strategy has mutated into meme diplomacy: tweets as treaties, tantrums as foreign policy.

China watches like a patient creditor awaiting default. It warmly remembers a Philippines once led by a man now facing judgment at The Hague — and his successor-in-waiting, a heartbeat from power, whose inclination toward China defies fiscal logic or national interest. In our domestic turmoil, China sees an opening: influence invited or imposed.

The US will resist any transition that weakens its Indo-Pacific foothold. China will seize any shift that expands its reach. And our military — US-trained at the top, but its edges courted by China — must choose not only between powers, but also between futures. In geopolitics, there are no spectators. Only players — and prizes.

The day after order collapses

The masses may roar. Politicians may wobble. Markets may panic. But the day after any upheaval, peaceful or otherwise, does not belong to the crowds. It belongs to those who can govern, not merely topple. That future hinges on one defining question: will the Philippines march toward reform, or stumble into disorder? The road forks sharply ahead: a negotiated accountability process, painful but peaceful; a constitutional succession, predictable but uninspiring; a military-backed reset, risky but decisive; a geopolitical tug-of-war, where we lose more than sovereignty. For now, the trains still run, though delayed, overpriced, and occasionally underwater. But soon, the question may no longer be who runs them, but whether they run at all. Meantime, we must persist with other Trillion Peso Marches — in Davao, Cebu, the Bangsamoro region — and then again and again — until the preconditions in my Nov. 26 column have come to pass — the incarcerations of six or seven senators; the 15 to 30 House representatives; the Discayas; the Gardiolas and their cartels; and the BGC Boys of the Department of Public Works and Highways — and yes, Martin Romualdez and Zaldy Co for good measure.

And then? History reloads.

Abangan ang kasunod!

IN the late 1980s, at the Harvard Kennedy School, quite a few of our colleagues were veterans of political turbulence from South America, Africa and the Middle East, where governments fall with the regularity of our typhoons — they offered a curriculum far more vivid than anything in our syllabus. Over brown-bag lunches, they conducted blow-by-blow tutorials on how revolutions, coups d’état, putsches and every imaginable extra-constitutional maneuver are actually managed.

And yes, these convulsions do topple regimes. They do install new ones. But beneath the romance and rhetoric lies a brutal constant: the ordinary citizen — Muhammad, Jamil, Ofedie — is almost always the casualty. Revolutions crown victors but bury the nameless. The slogans are noble; the body counts are not.

Rewards for survivors – Harvard’s curious role

Those who survive the upheavals, from either side, rarely go home empty-handed. They collect ambassadorships, appointed to cabinet posts they are barely trained for, receive mansions with Ferraris in the garage as if they were medals of valor. And then, of course, there are those curious cases where former revolutionaries are “sent” to Harvard.

Not as a prize, far from it. But because history has shown a quiet logic: victorious rebels must undergo metamorphosis. A guerrilla commander who once managed platoons in the mountains must now manage ministries, budgets and the machinery of the modern state. That is where Harvard enters — not as an ivory tower, but as a diplomatic laundromat. Harvard teaches the grammar of statecraft: public finance, diplomacy, negotiation, governance, and pairing the correct wine with the right food, etc.

It is also part of the post-conflict ritual favored by Western and multilateral agencies. They prefer their new partners housebroken, credentialed, and able to pronounce “macroeconomic restructuring” without blinking — and eat at McDonalds without the rice. A year at the Kennedy School transforms insurgents into policymakers with global rolodexes and stylish double-breasted blue blazers. Harvard gets prestige; the revolutionaries get legitimacy. Everyone gets a photo-op.

Why we landed in Cambridge

But in my case and Alex “Babes” Flores’ — I have long suspected a more local logic. Sending us to Harvard was less about polishing our skills and more about temporarily exiling potential political rivals. After all, my last government assignment before grad-school was that of Minister Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr.’s deputy minister replacing Marcos holdovers with hastily appointed OICs, some of whom were more enthusiastic than competent.

What better way to neutralize a politically inconvenient reformer than to ship him off to Cambridge, Massachusetts, a fellowship, a year’s stipend, the seductive illusion of meritocracy and bragging rights! And Babes may have stepped into the toes of several generals. A bemedaled colonel and a loyal participant in the winning side of EDSA I, we absorbed our lunchtime revolution seminars with missionary zeal. Alex would often declare — without irony — that if destiny required, he now knew exactly how to apply the arcana of regime change. Yet even in these spirited discussions, one haunting question etched itself into our collective consciousness: If you overthrow a regime and succeed - who runs the trains the morning after? That question separated dreamy revolutionaries from actual nation-builders. And should we fail this time, there’s always Primo Arambulo — our bow-tied, cigar-puffing Fil-Am contemporary, equal parts martinet and polymath, offering exile bed-spaces in his Maryland manor like a benevolent landlord of lost patriots.

When power meets the real world: cautionary tales

Our Cambridge experiences were not academic abstractions. They were foreshadowings. One fellow student — a charismatic politician from Ecuador — returned home, ascended to the presidency, then was promptly incarcerated for anomalies. Last we heard, he was exiled back to America, his presidency reduced to a cautionary footnote.

Another peer, an Islamic governor from Kaduna state in Nigeria, lived his Harvard years in polygamous splendor, each of his wives equipped with a BMW in the Peabody Terrace parking lot. On weekends he would jet off to London to play polo with Prince (now King) Charles.

These classmates were strictly nonrevolutionaries, yet their trajectories eerily mirror the beneficiaries of our present-day flood control corruption — men who have not yet endured a revolution but already behaving like survivors of one. Comfortable in their villas in Portugal, Paris and Forbes Park, they lounge as if the country’s suffering were events between chukkers or a Superbowl intermission.

Precondition to a PH upheaval

Which brings us to this week’s “trillion-peso march” and the question capturing our national imagination: Quo vadis, Filipinas? At the very least, such a mobilization should spark the swift jailing of senators, congressmen, bureaucrats, and the contractors who masterminded this grand heist — as a crucial build-up towards the tipping point.

In a country where the legal path to a China-style remedy — swift execution — or the North Korean custom of jailing relatives to the second degree of consanguinity is unavailable, the next best option is full restitution. Every peso stolen, every kilometer of asphalt overpriced, every Birkin and Gucci bag bought with public funds, every Rolex and Patek Philippe flaunted as trophies of impunity, the Gulfstream 350 and yes — because symbols matter — the Paraiba Tourmaline ring. All must be returned to the plundered nation.

These prescriptions are not academic indulgences. They arise from lived experience — from the hard lessons Babes, Primo and I absorbed at Harvard, listening to men and women who watched their countries implode and claw their way back. From them we learned a simple truth: Toppling a regime is easy; governing a nation is the real revolution. And regardless of how loud the streets become, the trains must still run the morning after.

The alternatives

The pathways ahead — constitutional, extra-constitutional, violent, nonviolent, reformist, dystopian, or merely farcical — will be dissected in my coming columns. Yet whatever form transition takes, any credible national program must contain one nonnegotiable proviso: systemic reforms. Not the cosmetic tinkering Congress peddles, but real structural correction — the very demands citizens have raised long before legislators perverted the process to protect themselves.

Foremost among these is the passage of a genuine anti-political dynasty law, not the pantomime version that conveniently exempts its authors. Equally vital is revising the 1987 Constitution, trading our dysfunctional unitary-presidential system for a parliamentary-federal model where accountability is unambiguous, incompetence rejected, and authority acquired by merit, not heredity — with dynasts firmly prohibited from steering the overhaul itself.

Only after the plebiscite’s ratification can Marcos and Sara depart — toward imprisonment or exile, at the people’s pleasure — carrying a sliver of dignity for having midwifed, by design or sheer accident, a more coherent constitutional order. And not before then! Nations do not rise because they shout the loudest, but because they choose the hard path when cowardice is easier. The trillion-peso march may ignite a reckoning, but reckoning alone does not shape destiny. Destiny is forged when a people, betrayed too often, finally decide that this time the thieves will not write the ending.

In the end, the question is no longer who falls, but who dares run the trains after the wreckage and who has the courage to rebuild a nation worthy of their arrival.

ON Nov. 30, another wave of indignation is set to sweep across the archipelago. This is no ordinary protest, but a multisectoral convergence grandly baptized as the “Trillion Peso March,” named after the staggering fund transfer of people’s money to the pockets of thieves. The figure may be hyperbolic, but so is the scale of the corruption.

The organizers, an unlikely constellation of civil-society groups, clergy, leftist blocs, student alliances and the ghostly remnants of post-Marcos 1 crusaders, are attempting what passes as national unity: getting everyone equally furious at the same crooks at the same time.

This show of collective disgust comes on the heels of the now-infamous aborted INC three-day rally fiasco of Nov. 16 to 18. What was supposed to be a pristine, apolitical prayer gathering mutated into a partisan circus once overeager allies injected calls for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to resign — punctuated by Sen. Imee Marcos’ tell-all on her brother’s propensity to get high on coke — calling “Ading Bonget” an addict. Nice show of filial devotion. “Ka Eddie Boy” and the INC leadership, usually masters at crowd choreography, found themselves outmaneuvered. The Duterte-aligned troops — forever on the lookout for a vacancy at the top — seized the moment, beating their drums for Vice President Sara Duterte to swoop in as the savior-in-waiting. Unity, as always, died on arrival.

Reclaiming the narrative

This coming mobilization attempts a hard reset. Its mission: to drag the corruption scandals back to center stage, strip the euphemisms, and name the culprits with the clarity of a medical autopsy. Gone are the polite calls for “reform” and “transparency.” In their place demands to hold specific individuals accountable, to shame an Ombudsman widely caricatured as a Marcos loyalist, and to pressure the criminal justice system into actually moving — preferably forward. This is not activism for the faint-hearted; it is a civic intervention for a government that appears to have overdosed on its own impunity.

The shameless perpetrators

By now, even the mildly attentive can recite the cast of characters in this sprawling corruption saga. The two chambers of Congress — ever united when the loot is large enough — have conspired with favored contractors (the Discaya network being only the best-known specimen) and key bureaucrats inside the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). Secretaries, undersecretaries, district engineers — an entire assembly line of rent-seekers — perfected the formula: inflate the budget by dubious “insertions,” skim from the contracts, parading their “kabits” with the spoils on Facebook.

And as every whistleblower reminds us, this is just the tip of the iceberg, which implies the unseen remainder is large enough to sink a country, not just a ship.

The recent resignations of Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin — the “Little President” — and Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, guardian of the national purse, have only deepened suspicions. Their exit raises the question no one wants to ask aloud: Was the president merely negligent, or was he complicit? Detractors insist he lacks the cognitive wattage to mastermind a racket of this scale; skeptics counter that stupidity has never been a reliable defense in organized crime.

Which leads us to former House speaker Martin Romualdez, his congressional lieutenants like Zaldy Co, and a cabal whose members scuttle around inside the bicam like gnomes guarding the national ATM.

The great unraveling

As in every mafiosi drama, the syndicate is now eating itself alive. Legislators, contractors and bureaucrats are elbowing one another for a slot in the witness protection program, eager to secure the coveted status of “least guilty.” Some hope for lighter sentences; others dream of keeping part of their loot, because in the Philippines, even repentance comes with a negotiation.

The Trillion Peso March is thus not just a protest — it is a reckoning. A reminder that even in a country desensitized by scandal, there comes a point when the public finally says: Enough. Return what you stole — or the streets will collect it for you.

Where do we go from here

I remain skeptical that the Trillion Peso March — grand in name, righteous in intention — will deliver what our wounded nation now demands: genuine accountability and transparency, the resignation and removal of top officials implicated in wholesale corruption, and the swift, nonselective prosecution of bureaucrats, cabinet secretaries, senators and congressmen who helped engineer our national decay. At its heart, this movement seeks nothing less than a reform of governance itself. Yet the skepticism is warranted. We have marched before. We have demanded before. And the system, hydra-like, grows back with new heads and the same putrid smell.

Our political polarization complicates the picture further. One bloc cries, “BBM resign!” — an appeal drowned out by the specter of constitutional succession: the ascent of Vice President Duterte. This sector recoils at the idea, wary of inheriting the political DNA of a father whose Pharmally scandal remains one of the darkest emblems of pandemic plunder. The vice president herself has yet to fully answer for the alleged misuse of her confidential funds during her stint as education secretary. When the guardians of the public purse cannot account for the coins in their own pockets, one wonders what kind of succession we are really talking about.

A quandary

The uncomfortable truth is that a Ferdinand Marcos Jr. resignation and a Sara Duterte assumption would not heal the Republic’s long-festering wounds. The rot is systemic — embedded in the architecture of our politics, nourished by political dynasties, shielded by impunity, and enabled by a bureaucracy that has learned to survive not by serving the public, but by serving the powerful. Replacing the figure at the top is cosmetic; it is a haircut for a patient who needs organ transplant. How do we deal with the senators, congressmen and career bureaucrats who constitute the machinery of decay? Histrionic top billing changes will not purge a culture entrenched across generations.

The ghosts of our revolution

As the organizers of the Trillion Peso March attempt to mobilize a fractured populace, a parallel conversation simmers quietly in the streets. It is whispered more in longing than in strategy: the possibility — however remote — of a military component emerging, as happened twice in our modern history. EDSA 1 swept away a corrupt dictatorship but replaced it with a flawed democracy that enshrined political dynasties and partnered with oligarchs protected by the 1987 Constitution. EDSA 2 toppled another corrupt regime only to install a successor later jailed for plunder and ultimately freed. Both uprisings promised deliverance; both reproduced the traditional politics that continue to maim our institutions.

Today, many Filipinos — exhausted, disgusted, politically homeless — find themselves hoping, perhaps naively, for a deus ex machina: an intervention outside the narrow binary of the president and vice president, the two figures perched atop our totem pole of corruption. It is a yearning born of desperation rather than ideology, an appeal to forces unseen because the forces seen have failed us so completely.

Where we go from here remains unclear. Yet one truth stands firm: protests, resignations and successions are hollow unless the architecture of impunity — every beam, bolt, and shadow — is dismantled, redesigned and rebuilt. Without that, we merely pace our own cage. We need alternatives — real ones.

Third of a series

MY column last week drew varied reactions, but what was truly “nakakataba ng puso” was the overwhelming agreement from fellow Davaoeños with the article as satire. I told them, half in jest, that my prose sharpens when I am sufficiently enraged and when the stench of katiwalian becomes impossible to ignore. Rage these days is a form of clarity.

I will keep these Davaoeños en pectore — except one: my wife, Sylvia. “Great article, Dad, perfectly written!!! But I hope Bong Go won’t get back at us. I’m scared...” she said. Sylvia is no shrinking violet; her fear is diagnosis, not drama.

And perhaps that is the tragedy: fear has emerged as our collective inheritance. In a nation where corruptors hold power with impunity, even the courageous speak in lowered tones, waiting for the day safety is restored to the governed.

If part two (last week) traced Bong Go’s metamorphosis from the Deegong’s aide to his avatar and eventual Svengali, this is the sequel: the anatomy of his defense against the accusations of his own Torquemada, former senator Antonio Trillanes IV, that relentless inquisitor of conscience. Here, denial is not merely an alibi but an art form performed with devotional precision — the most profitable skill in Philippine politics.

But let us not mistake Sonny Trillanes for a hero. He is an opportunist who has mastered the art of harvesting tragedy from the missteps of Duterte and his minions. Yet, paradoxes abound in Philippine politics, and gratitude sometimes springs from unlikely places. For all his motives — pure or poisoned — we thank him for the dogged investigations, the meticulous gathering of documents, and the evidentiary trail now resting before the Ombudsman. One man’s revenge can, at times, become another man’s justice.

For simplicity, I expound on Bong Go’s defense — in his most inarticulate language, his pedigree can allow him — not in the solemn language of law but in the idiom of our national pastime, the teleserye where emotion trumps evidence and judgment is rendered by sentiment.

Act 1: The forensic fairy tale

Duterte’s ICC defense team challenges appointment of expert over 'credibility' concerns
Every scandal begins with a story, and Bong Go’s begins with lineage. “Our family’s construction business existed before I was born,” he declares, as if ancestry could absolve scrutiny. It’s a deft maneuver: convert an accusation into a legacy. But corruption is never hereditary; it is opportunistic, and CLTG’s rise parallels his path to Malacañang.

From modest beginnings, the firm blossomed into a miracle of public works contracts, multiplying with proximity to power, and assets swelling in rhythm with Go’s political elevation. Coincidence? Yet fortune reliably blesses those closest to the throne.

To devotees, it is diligence rewarded; to realists, déjà vu in the gospel of crony capitalism. Go’s true artistry resides not in deception but in narration, spinning fairy tales as liturgy, trusting that the public continues to yearn for redemption rather than responsibility.

Act 2: The deflection doctrine

Villar-Bonoan DPWH years a curse on education
When confronted with documents, Go often turns to expressions of loyalty rather than direct answers. Criticism is framed as persecution, turning oversight into sacrilege, critics into heretics. Evidence becomes an insult to truth. This approach has deep roots in our political history. Marcos’ père conceived it, Estrada polished it, and Duterte systematized it.

When the argument is indefensible, the strategy shifts toward appealing to emotion rather than addressing the facts. In a public sphere long shaped by rhetoric, volume can overshadow documentation, and sentiment can eclipse substance. In such moments, serious allegations risk being reduced to personalities and theatrics, weakening the institutional rigor that a democracy requires.

Act 3: The performance of property

Every public figure eventually offers a statement meant to convey integrity, and Go did so when he declared, “If my family is involved, I will be the first to recommend charges.” It projected a commitment to accountability though its impact lay more in the gesture than in any concrete action.

Meanwhile, investigations languish in a bureaucratic quagmire; evidence gathers dust. Delay becomes the disinfectant of scandal. By the time inquiries conclude, memory has decayed, and Go’s performance remains embalmed as proof of purity untouched by consequence.

Act 4: The ‘public servant, not a businessman’ plea

Then comes the sanctified denial. “I have not gained anything. My only investment is propriety.” Framed as a simple appeal to sincerity — our national currency — it reduces billions in contracts and oversight to a matter of personal integrity.

In a society that often associates humility with honesty, such statements can carry significant weight, even when official records raise unresolved concerns. Go’s plea resonates partly because the public is weary after controversies from Pharmally to flood-control anomalies; many citizens seek reassurance more than confrontation. His message offers that relief: trust the individual, set aside the troubling details.

Act 5: The politics of perception

By this point, the dynamics are clear. Go stands half-martyr, half-mirror, illustrating a political environment where truth often competes with perception for credibility. The Senate, once envisioned as a chamber of statesmen, now resembles a reality show for the self-righteous.

In this theater, Go excels. The bowed head, the trembling voice, the moist eyes of patriotic fatigue, each gesture calibrated for broadcast. The camera loves his humility; the masses forgive his opacity. Behind the curtains, the machinery hums efficiently, awarding contracts, recycling cronies, and laundering loyalty into legitimacy.

The tragedy is collective. Each time we applaud the performance of innocence, we deceive ourselves. Accountability becomes entertainment; sincerity becomes a commodity.

Act 6: The moral epilogue

As theater, Bong Go’s defense is almost impressive, disciplined, rhythmic, and drenched in poignancy. But remove the spotlight, and it becomes a cautionary tale: how virtue, repeated, becomes camouflage; how loyalty, mistaken for leadership, deteriorates into a liability.

He is the archetype of the Filipino functionary who ascends through devotion and survives through denial. His mantra, “Gusto ko lamang makatulong” transforms incompetence into compassion and mediocrity into mercy. Yet governance is not charity; help without understanding is harm with a halo. The republic deserves better than well-meaning aides promoted beyond their depth.

Postscript: The reckoning of shadows

Ombudsman Remulla may soon resurrect the Pharmally scandal and trace its architecture back to Go — not as an aide but as “capo di tutti capi.” His “soldatis” — Christopher Lao, former health secretary Duque, and Michael Yang’s network — could again face scrutiny if they have not already fled the country. Beyond Pharmally stand over 200 anomalous flood-control projects: CLTG, Alfrego and the Discayas’ concrete tributes to loyalty disguised as public service.

A reckoning, however delayed, appears unavoidable. The arena where Go once operated as Duterte’s trusted shadow may yet become his political graveyard. Unless he slips away or is likewise sequestered by the ICC as the purported paymaster of “crimes against humanity.” Herein lies an almost insurmountable quandary: remain and be indicted, or flee and be condemned for fleeing, or languish in The Hague with his avatar. Whichever way, history will collect its dues from those who mistake impunity for invincibility.

And my wife will be scared no more!

Second of a series

SPOILER alert! I am a proud Davaoeño. So is Sen. Christopher “Bong” Go who I was acquainted with as Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s aide. I am neither a contractor nor a recipient of any favors from either. Many in Davao hold him in esteem, yet these reflections — parts two and three of this series — speak from my own vantage: that of a political technocrat, observer and kibitzer, perhaps even a provocateur, attuned to the shifting undercurrents of our nation’s political landscape.

There are men who ascend by the gravity of meritocracy — and those who rise through the ranks by proximity. Bong Go belongs to the latter: an everyman catapulted into the stratosphere of statecraft, where the air is too rarefied for his origins. Once the unassuming errand boy in Rodrigo Duterte’s shadow, he now inhabits the marble corridors of the Senate — a chamber whose lexicon he mimics, whose gravitas he borrows, and whose rituals he mistakes for governance.

Locally, he was simply the boy who never left the mayor’s side — the photobomber who fetched folders, calmed tempers and carried the psychic burden of a volcanic patron. Duterte governed through explosive outbursts; Go governed through quiet resilience. Together they forged a culture of chaos and control that Davaoeños learned to accept. Go’s gift was utility, not vision; his strength was obedience, not insight.

When Duterte captured the presidency in 2016, Go’s loyalty adhered to him like a well-trained echo. As special assistant to the president, he turned service into devotion. His role was neither clerical nor Cabinet; it was sacerdotal. He guarded Duterte’s routines, rituals and confidences, the sole interpreter for a leader who prized unpredictability, communicating with primeval skills through text messages via an array of cell phones.

The birth of the political twin

In Malacañang, a strange alchemy occurred — a political parthenogenesis, a birth without separation. Duterte begot a son not by blood but molded by mimicry; an alter ego fashioned not merely to obey but to preserve, protect and perpetuate the original. The fusion produced a doppelganger: one man’s power reflected in another’s presence.

What Go lacked in pedigree, he made up for with proximity. In this fusion of identities, access became currency. Governance turned into choreography — standing beside power and translating its moods.

Thus emerged a new political species: the proxy sovereign, legitimized not by election or intellect, but by emotional inheritance. The Palace, once an institution, turned into a tableau of two men performing as one.

From service to syndicate

With access came opportunity. As early as 2007, while still in Davao’s City Hall, the Go family’s firms — CLTG and Alfrego Builders — began appearing in DPWH records. Their growth paralleled Duterte’s trajectory: first local, then regional and finally national after 2016. What began as small-town patronage evolved into a large-scale enterprise. The pattern of corruption took shape in the 2016 Navy frigate deal, a P16 billion test of moral elasticity. Whispers of Go’s meddling, redacted papers and hurried approvals served as a rehearsal for a grander act.

The Pharmally scandal that followed during the pandemic was not an anomaly but a sequel. The actors changed names; the script remained identical: loyalty repackaged as legitimacy, favoritism as efficiency.

Within this apparatus, Go’s genius lay not in innovation but in emulation. He replicated Duterte’s tone, his justifications and his disdain for scrutiny. His family’s companies, in turn, replicated the bureaucracy’s own appetite for rent-seeking. The personal became institutional. To examine Go’s metamorphosis is to study how the Philippine bureaucracy learns to mimic its masters — rewarding loyalty over logic, familiarity over function.

The illusion of humility

When Go finally entered the Senate in 2019, he carried with him not an agenda but an identity. His campaign slogan “Serbisyong Totoo” was less a promise than a preemptive defense: a warning that competence would never be the measure. In this chamber of rhetoric and legislation, he often appeared ill-equipped, reading prepared statements with the caution of a man afraid to mispronounce power. Yet the awkwardness worked; it reinforced the narrative of the humble servant, the man too good for guile.

Humility became his armor. The more he appeared unsophisticated, the more he seemed incorruptible. This inversion encapsulates the dichotomies in Philippine populism: ignorance masquerades as innocence, and loyalty supplants the rule of law. Each misstep on the Senate floor, each clumsy idiom, and each awkward defense of Duterte’s policies became an episode in a continuing telenovela of sincerity. What the public saw was not incompetence but authenticity, a dangerous illusion in a nation that mistakes personality for principle.

The machinery of myth

Behind the smile and selfies operated a vast machinery of myth-making. State-funded ads cast Go as the patron saint of Malasakit Centers — St. Raphael guarding the poor’s health. Distributing relief goods to fire-ravaged communities like a latter-day saint of disaster. Billboards thanked him for projects he had neither authored nor funded. TV spots blurred service with self-promotion. To the public, he was Duterte’s tender alter ego — the soft hand of an iron-fisted regime.

Yet every photo op concealed an equation: visibility equals viability. Each sack of rice, an investment; each relief operation a reminder of political debt. The spectacle of generosity became the lubricant of corruption. If power was a performance, Go had earned a Famas award.

The paradox of the proxy

The tragedy — and the satire — of Bong Go lies in this: he is simultaneously indispensable and unnecessary. Indispensable because his master required an echo; unnecessary because echoes do not create, they repeat. His career illustrates the pathology of delegated power, where loyalty mutates into liability and mediocrity becomes institutional policy.

When former senator Trillanes accused him of plunder and conflict of interest, the outrage was less about evidence than about etiquette. “How dare you accuse the loyal servant?” cried the faithful. Here, the Philippines reveals its chronic confusion between morality and emotion. The accusation threatened not just Go but the myth of the grateful subordinate — the archetype every political patron relies on to humanize his own tyranny.

It is too simple to cast Bong Go as a villain; he is also a symptom. Our politics breeds his kind: loyal errand boys turned senators, photogenic aides mistaken for statesmen. We reward obedience, not originality; service, not sense. He is not an accident but an outcome — the nation’s reflection in its own shallow mirror, proof that mediocrity, when dutiful enough, can pass for merit.

Epilogue: The shadow ascends

In the end, Bong Go’s ascent is less a triumph than a parable — a quiet testament to how power in the Philippines perpetuates itself through mimicry. The aide becomes a senator, the shadow becomes the sun, and the republic confuses recurrence with renaissance. His narrative serves as a poignant reminder that unbridled proximity to power inexorably metamorphoses into complicity with its excesses.

He remains, to this day, the perfect reflection of his master: loyal, useful, and tragically limited. And in that reflection, the nation sees its own predicament — a people content to worship the shadow because it fears the light.

Here’s a striking statement about love shared with me by an English college mentor. “Love knows no grammar. How it works can’t be measured by any parts or figures of speech. It goes beyond the literate and illiterate. The sad reality is that, even a fool who has got no philosophy is not spared of its harsh reality.” After almost three decades, I reminded him through a private message of his words. Here’s what he said. “Thank you, Jord. This statement about love is searing to the heart. And, yes, fools do fall for it too. But I thought that we as well speak of the beauty that it gives and not so much focus on the harsh realities. After all, our country has had enough of the negativities.” Thank you, dearest Sir Eugene.

In these decisive times when our nation trembles under the weight of corruption, inequality, and disillusionment, it is you―the youth, burning with idealism, courage, and an unyielding sense of right―who must stand at the forefront of CHANGE. The future of the Philippines hangs in the balance, calling not for silence or apathy, but for unity, conviction, and action. Let your dreams be the spark that ignites renewal; let your voices thunder against injustice; let your hands build the nation our forebears envisioned but never fulfilled. Now is the hour to awaken, to rise, and to lead the march toward a just and transformed Philippines.

Remember, the pages of our history resound with the triumphs of youth who dared to dream and act. From the Propagandists who wielded the pen against tyranny to the Katipuneros who took up arms for freedom, it was always the young who ignited revolutions and rebuilt nations. As Dr. Jose Rizal declared, “The youth is the hope of our motherland,” but that hope is not a gift to be passively claimed; it is a duty to be earned through courage and purpose.

Today’s generation must transform awareness into action―to confront corruption with integrity, to challenge inequality with empathy, and to counter apathy with participation. The time for mere commentary has passed. What the nation demands now is commitment, creativity, and collective resolve. When the youth stand united in conscience and conviction, no obstacle is insurmountable, no reform impossible. The power to redeem the nation’s promise lies not in the hands of the few, but in the awakened spirit of the many. Rise, therefore, as one generation with one objective―to forge a Philippines worthy of its people’s deepest hopes. And to those who were once the torchbearers of youth but have since laid down their fire―hear this call.

The nation does not forget its veterans of hope, those who once believed that change was possible but have since grown weary in the long twilight of disappointment. Thus far history grants no sanctuary to resignation. It demands of every generation the same unrelenting duty―to defend what is right, to confront what is wrong, and to labor still for what remains unfinished.

Now is the moment to rise again. Let not caution disguise itself as wisdom, nor comfort as peace. The courage that once stirred your youth still flickers within; rekindle it, and let it burn anew for the sake of those who follow. Your experience, tempered by time, must now join hands with the fervor of the young - to guide, to mentor, to strengthen.

Together, let the wisdom of the seasoned and the passion of the rising coalesce into a single, indomitable force for renewal. For the task of nation-building is not bound by age, but by conviction. The call of the motherland resounds to all who still believe that the story of the Filipino is not yet complete―and that redemption, though delayed, is still within our grasp if only we choose to act once more. And to those whose hands have long gripped the levers of power―hardened by privilege, dulled by entitlement―hear this with clarity: the era of self-preservation must yield to the dawn of selfless service.

The nation can no longer afford leaders who mistake possession for stewardship, nor governance for dominion. The time has come to relinquish the throne of complacency and make way for the custodians of vision, courage, and renewal.

To step aside is not to surrender, but to honor the sacred rhythm of nationhood―to allow new voices, new hearts, and new minds to breathe life into institutions that have grown stale from neglect. True leadership is an act of stewardship, and stewardship demands humility―to know when to lead, and when to pass the torch. Those who have ruled long enough must now become mentors, not masters; guides, not gatekeepers.

To the youth who will inherit this burden and blessing alike, the call is equally profound. Lead not with arrogance, but with awareness; not with impulse, but with integrity. Let optimism be your discipline―a conscious act of faith in the nation’s capacity to rise again. Lead with inclusivity that unites rather than divides, with courage that reforms rather than destroys, and with resilience that endures when hope seems frail.

For the measure of a new generation’s greatness lies not in its defiance alone, but in its wisdom to build where others have failed. Let your leadership become the living testament that the Philippines, once disillusioned, has learned at last to believe again―through you.

Now, the Filipino youth stand at a defining crossroad of history. The echoes of the past and the murmurs of the future converge upon this moment, and in your hands rests the fragile, however formidable promise of a nation reborn. You are the inheritors of unfinished dreams and the architects of what is yet to be. United in thought and deed, strengthened by the wisdom of history and the fire of conviction, you possess the power to shape a Philippines anchored in justice, animated by democracy, and sustained by the collective flourishing of its people.

The mantle of responsibility has passed to you. Do not falter beneath its weight; bear it with courage, for it is through your resolve that the nation will rise from the ruins of complacency. Let your unity transcend boundaries of region, class, and creed. Let your integrity redefine leadership, and your compassion restore faith in the Filipino spirit.

This is your hour. Let this narrative be not merely a call to awaken, but a solemn commitment―to the country that nurtures you, to the people who believe in you, and to the generations who will follow your example. Stand firm, for you are the heartbeat of a nation yearning to live with dignity once more. Speak right and shine!

Rise, Filipino youth, and let history remember that when your time came ―you stood unwavering, and the nation moved forward.

First of two parts

LAST week, Filipinos missed the legislative hearings and saw nothing from the opaque ICI; instead, they were regaled with hypocritical displays from Senators Joel Villanueva and Bong Go. The latter’s corruption narrative follows CLTG Builders’ rise during Mayor Duterte’s tenure. He started his career as the lowly special assistant — “gofer and alleged procurer” — rising to the exalted position of the Deegong’s surrogate son and self-proclaimed protector of his legacy

(The first part of this series examines Sen. Joel Villanueva’s defense. Bong Go’s defense will feature in the second part.)

Joel Villanueva – pulpit politics

Having studied at a seminary myself, I am familiar with glib-tongued clergy, pastors and pretend prophets bewitching the audience with “fire and brimstone” oratory. Villanueva’s command of Filipino and Bible quotations was impeccable. Quirino Grandstand was the dramatic backdrop, like Moses descending from the mountain. He carried a Bible, visual proof of his holiness. When he opens it with a flourish to quote a passage, you’d think ChatGPT was embedded in the scriptures.

The faithful of the Jesus Is Lord (JIL) Church filled the park in waves of devotion, banners fluttering like modern palms. The 47th anniversary of a church is no small matter in a country where religious piety cum showbiz share the same stage lighting. But that evening, one performance stood out — not for its sanctity, but for its choreography: Senator Joel, son of the founder, heir to the ministry, an occasional legislator — and an accused. 

It was as the emcee said, “a night of thanksgiving.” Yet to this columnist- satirist/political heckler, it was also the Villanuevas’ night of positioning and denial of serious accusations regarding the son allegedly receiving 30 percent of P600 million in flood control corruption in his home province of Bulacan.

The sermon as misdirection strategy

Joel commenced his oratory with humility — an epitome of public service. “Public office is a divine calling,” he proclaimed with fervor. His cadence echoed the classic revival-tent rhythm: half sermon — “paiyak-iyak pa” — appealing to the captive audience’s empathy as the aggrieved, while subtly directing veiled barbs at faceless phantoms in a conspiracy purportedly singling him out. The terms “divine design” and “calling” reverberated through the grandstand like campaign anthems reimagined by the Holy Spirit. “I legislate not for wealth, but for worship!” he asserted, eliciting rapture from the congregation. Somewhere, St. Paul may have been turning in his grave. It was part testimony and part political defense brief.

For while the faithful raised their hands in hallelujahs, others raised skeptical eyebrows — those who recalled murmurs regarding infrastructure funds, flood control irregularities, and Discaya’s ilk, who seemed to possess an uncanny faith in the miracles of multiplication and kickbacks. But undeterred, the senator cloaked himself in scripture. “The only flood I’m involved in is the flood of blessings!” A line so artfully crafted that it might soon appear on bumper stickers. (Now we have learned of a 2016 dismissal order by then Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales regarding Joel’s alleged misappropriation of his PDAF funds. This clandestine maneuvering by the discredited Ombudsman Samuel Martires will be addressed in forthcoming columns.)

Faith as firewall

Every politician requires a formidable shield and an impregnable platform that simultaneously serves as their pulpit. Joel possesses his father’s devoted congregation, and to his detractors, his closed-neck barong might as well be a clerical cassock granting him a distinctive status — the dual citizenship of the divine and the Senate. He understands that in the Philippines, piety serves as the most effective insurance policy against adverse headlines. Invoke Jesus with sufficient fervor, and even the most secular scandals begin to resemble parables.

The Quirino Grandstand was a remarkable form of political baptism: sin washed clean by the sound system. Yet, one must commend the artistry involved. To seamlessly intertwine contrition with charisma demands considerable finesse. It is the same spiritual choreography that transmutes every accusation into an altar call and every voter into a fervent believer.

Luneta grandstand, temple of optics

That night, the Luneta was less a venue than a visual metaphor. Here was the senator framed by floodlights, a choir behind him, nation before him. The air pulsed with devotion — and chicanery. For all its hymns, the event played like a dress rehearsal for an earthly rapture: politics sanctified, ambition baptized, applause disguised as “amens.”

When Villanueva said, “Before you amend a bill, amend your heart,” the crowd roared. It was a good line — moral, marketable, meme-ready — and profoundly pukable. But I doubt that any of the church members vomited. This guy possesses the language of a politico-religious charlatan. Just like our Davao version, the “Appointed Son of God.” Only that Joel is outranked — a mere son of the earthly founder of “Jesus Is Lord Church,” Bro. Eddie Villanueva. But Quiboloy and Joel may soon share a prison cell — if Remulla has his way.

The evening climaxed with a declaration shouted into the Manila night: “The Philippines may sink in floods, but our faith will rise!” A poetic flourish, though perhaps too soon for residents of Bulacan still knee-deep in actual floodwater. But in politics, irony is the national dialect.

The inherited halo

There is, of course, a semblance of dynastic destiny in all this. Joel is not merely a participant in the ministry; he is a product of it. His father established the JIL movement in the 1970s, an era when salvation and worship could simultaneously serve as forms of social protest. Decades later, the son perpetuates this legacy, albeit with the pulpit now occupying the Senate hall. Inheriting a political dynasty, much like in the realm of religion, often entails bearing a halo. Yet halos, akin to headlines, are resplendent but delicate. The senator’s formidable challenge, therefore, is to convince the nation that he is not simply a steward of legacy, but a legislator guided by principles (kuno); that his devotion is not a mere campaign tactic or misdirection, warding off the arms of the law.

Faith, politics and the Filipino

In the end, perhaps the satire transcends the mere portrayal of the senator, extending instead to us — the audience who fervently applauds both confession and charisma. We are a nation that craves the divine in our politics and the political in our devotion. We want Moses to part red tape and Jesus to audit the budget. So, when a senator preaches, we applaud; when he prays, we vote. Somewhere between scripture and strategy, between the Quirino Grandstand and the Senate floor, our democracy has become a kind of megachurch — complete with fog machines, faith declarations and Wi-Fi.

Final benediction

When the lights dimmed and the confetti settled, the faithful went home inspired, the senator went home trending, and the satirist/political heckler fashioned this column. In that sense, everyone left fulfilled. But one must leave a moral, however tongue-in-cheek: Faith may indeed move mountains — but it shouldn’t move public funds. And if someday we wake up to find our senators walking on water, let’s check first if the tide of accountability has simply gone out.

MY column last week was on Jesus Crispin Remulla declaring war on the Dutertes. It was not a figurative skirmish, but a categorical public pronouncement aimed squarely at Deegong’s administration. In no uncertain terms, Remulla announced that his immediate priority — upon the ink drying on his oath — would be the Pharmally corruption scandal, the multibillion-peso anomaly that remains the most egregious smear on the Duterte administration’s pandemic legacy.

“We’ll look into that because it seems like it has been forgotten, buried in oblivion. However, these cases should not be forgotten, as the allegations carry weight,” he said.

This, of course, is the sound of the political guillotine being sharpened. It is the very specter that haunted Imee Marcos and Paolo Duterte as they mounted a last-ditch, yet ultimately futile, effort to derail Remulla’s appointment to the position. Now, the swords are unsheathed, the battle lines drawn and the political blood is expected to flow freely.

The inevitable howls of “Unfair!” and “Politically motivated acts!” already echo through the halls of power. To which I, and many of my weary colleagues, can only offer one response: So what the hell! Go for it!

Good or bad, politically convenient or sincerely righteous, this strategic focus bodes well for the citizenry, but only if Remulla is prepared to follow through on the second, and arguably more critical, half of his initial pledge.

The imperative of the floods

While the Pharmally probe carries the heavy symbolic weight of the previous regime’s alleged sins, the public’s most acute rage is currently fixed elsewhere. Remulla has acknowledged this urgency: “The first thing I’ll attend to... is what happened at the DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways). We have to focus on that, build up the cases, and make sure that well-prepared cases are filed before the Sandiganbayan and the RTCs (regional trial courts).”

This is the investigative thread that we, the angry people, demand be pulled first. Pursue the evidence wherever it leads, culminating in the filing of cases against the perpetrators of the scandalous flood control anomalies. Remulla must now follow through where the legislative hearings — both Senate and House — collapsed under the sheer weight of their members’ own hypocrisy.

It was a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, with congressmen wanting senators’ names to surface, and senators demanding the unmasking of congressional culprits. A complete, cynical political stalemate where the devil takes the hindmost.

The dramatis personae of corruption

The Ombudsman’s path to credibility must now pass through the bureaucratic dens of the DPWH. Remulla must wield the “Juez de Cuchillo” proverbially cutting the heads of the public servants alleged to be part of this deeply entrenched web of corruption.

The list of names is long, constituting a rogue’s gallery of alleged bureaucratic malfeasance: the DPWH-BGC (Bulacan Group of Contractors) Boys (Henry Alcantara, Brice Hernandez, Jaypee Mendoza), former Public Works secretary Manuel Bonoan and the cadre of undersecretaries — Bobby Bernardo, Cathy Cabral and Emil Sadain.

But the probe cannot stop at the mid-level. It must ascend to the seeming “untouchables” in the highest echelons of government: Senators Jinggoy Estrada, Francis Escudero and Joel Villanueva, and their counterparts in the lower house (at least 17 names were mentioned) headed by Rep. Zaldy Co, and most pointedly, the name specifically mentioned by Escudero — former House speaker Martin Romualdez.

These officials fall squarely within the Ombudsman’s mandate. Under the 1987 Constitution (Art. XI, Sec. 13) and Republic Act 6770, or the Ombudsman Act of 1989, this office is empowered to investigate any act or omission of a public official that appears “unjust, improper or inefficient.”

Equally critical is the investigation of private entities — the contractors — who demonstrably conspire with public officials in graft, bribery or fraudulent transactions involving state funds. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in his State of the Nation Address, brought into the national conversation the Discayas and the other dozen or so contractors.

And let us dispense with the fantasy of a “witness protection program” for these contractors. The Rodante Marcoleta obsession with leniency is misplaced. If ever they are to receive consideration, it must be preceded by the surrender of their stolen loot — all of it, down to the umbrella stashed in the Rolls-Royce. Ex-senator Bong Revilla, now safely ensconced as a private individual in Cavite, should not escape the purview of this expanded investigation into past corruption networks.

Pharmally and the unfinished business

Only when the flood control cases are filed, with the genuine threat of incarceration looming over powerful shoulders, should the Ombudsman pivot fully to the Pharmally and the Duterte Covid-19 web of anomalies. Former senator Dick Gordon went through political hell and endured the Deegong’s wrath to expose this syndicate. True, the smaller fish were caught, but the leviathans slipped away.

Gordon’s monthslong Blue Ribbon Committee investigation ended with a mere nine signatories — two shy of the 11 needed to elevate the report to the plenary, effectively preventing the case’s momentum and protecting the suspected masterminds.

We must refresh our collective memory of those who declined to sign the findings, shielding in the process the former president’s associates, particularly his notorious political consultant, Michael Yang. Several complicit senators are still sitting: Pia Cayetano, Sherwin Gatchalian, Lito Lapid, Imee Marcos, Juan Miguel Zubiri (who reportedly sought the omission of PRRD’s name) and the Deegong’s surrogate son, Bong Go. The headlines at the time screamed, “Filipinos lose as the Pharmally report fails to get the Senate’s nod.”

The preceding Ombudsman’s tenure only reached so far, charging seven key Procurement Service-Department of Budget and Management officials (the “Davao Boys,” including ex-undersecretary Lloyd Lao and director Warren Liong), one former Cabinet secretary (Duque) and seven Pharmally executives. This narrow focus ensured the masterminds remained untouched while trials commenced for the P4.16-billion supply contracts. This time around, Remulla must champion the people’s side and go beyond the “small fish.”

The people’s reckoning

The cynical view — that Remulla’s Pharmally initiative is merely a political stratagem, a redirection of public fury from the current administration’s flood control mess toward the Dutertes — may indeed possess a kernel of truth. The strategy would be to reframe the current political squabble as a dynasty konfrontasi ahead of 2028.

But this political calculus is profoundly shortsighted and dangerously underestimates the current zeitgeist. The people’s rage has surpassed the petty framing of partisan wars. It is at a boiling point over the very principle of impunity. The collective fury is so pervasive and organized that there may not even be a 2028 to speak of.

This is no longer a vicarious thrill derived from reading my columns or watching events go by — the trillion street marches, the “moro-moro” teleserye Senate/House hearings on TV and YouTube. It is a reckoning. The anger is real, and it is organized. We will not be lulled into silence by token gestures or hollow reforms. We are watching. We are mobilizing. And when the moment demands it, we will storm the ramparts — not in chaos, but with clarity, conviction and the unyielding belief that justice must be claimed, not begged for. The time for passive hope has passed. The people are ready. The people will act. And history will remember that they did.

SINCE the 1986 restoration of democracy, upon the adoption of the 1987 Constitution, the Office of the Ombudsman was created to be the Philippines’ chief institution against graft and abuse of power. From Conrado Vasquez (appointed by Cory, 1988-1995), the first ombudsman who built its foundations, to Aniano Desierto (Ramos, 1995-2002) accused of “selective justice,” to Simeon Marcelo (Arroyo, 2002-2005) whose relentless prosecution secured Estrada’s plunder conviction, the ombudsman’s role has often reflected the political climate. Merceditas Gutierrez (Arroyo, 2005-2011) resigned amid impeachment threats for inaction on scandals, while Conchita Carpio-Morales (Aquino III, 2011-2018) reinvigorated the office with aggressive corruption prosecutions, notably the PDAF scam. Samuel Martires (Duterte, 2018-2025) drew criticism for restricting access to officials’ SALNs, curbing transparency, effectively neutering one of the sharpest weapons of public scrutiny.

Ombudsman – pillar of the rule of law

Remulla’s appointment was not a surprise. It was, in fact, anticipated. His adversaries tried twice to derail him: first, through a complaint of kidnapping former president Duterte, a complaint with Sen. Imee Marcos’s handprints all over; then, through another harassment maneuver in Congress by Pulong Duterte, Duterte’s son. Both fizzled out.

The Dutertes, ever the realists in political combat, read the terrain correctly: Remulla at the helm of the Ombudsman meant that the vault doors of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) could be pried open. And once opened, the paper trail of joint family bank accounts — Sara, Paolo, Baste, surrogate son Bong Go, and former President Duterte himself — would be exposed to the unforgiving light of SALN verification.

Thus, the efforts to block Boying were less about principle than about fear. Fear that the money trail can no longer be concealed. Fear that the ombudsman, armed with AMLC records, could finally turn the narrative of accountability back on those who once wielded it as a weapon.

The power few understand

The scale of the ombudsman’s power is tremendous. Unlike most appointees, he enjoys a fixed seven-year term and can only be removed by impeachment — an institutional lock matched only by the presidency itself. He is not subject to presidential control, enjoys fiscal autonomy, and commands disciplinary authority over nearly the entire bureaucracy. He can suspend or dismiss officials, investigate on his own initiative (motu proprio), act on complaints, even anonymous ones, and file criminal cases before the Sandiganbayan with his own army of prosecutors. In short, he is the ultimate “verdugo!”

Former justice Antonio Carpio described it as “the most powerful office after the presidency.” The ombudsman’s reach is vast, its independence constitutionally enshrined, and its potential, if wielded with courage, revolutionary.

Marcos and Duterte – the politics of selectivity

The key question is who are Remulla’s targets. Cynics already whisper that the ombudsman will become the instrument by which the Dutertes are to be sidelined. The calculus is simple: the Duterte name is still potent, Vice President Sara is a rival for 2028, and her family’s finances are fertile ground for investigation. If AMLC records reveal discrepancies against the SALNs, then the ombudsman can do what impeachment complaints alone cannot: build a prosecutable case for removal or, at the very least, disqualify Sara from 2028. Shades of the Corona playbook.

Here lies the trap. If Remulla limits his crusade to the Dutertes and spares the Marcos allies, he will fall into the pitfall of selective prosecution. Credibility will evaporate. Worse, the institution he now embodies will again be weaponized as a partisan cudgel rather than a neutral arbiter of justice.

Will Remulla dare to extend his reach beyond expediency? Will he investigate the Marcos loyalists who quietly and illegally inserted pork into the budget? The entrenched dynasties fattened by flood control contracts? His Upsilon fraternity acolyte, Martin Romualdez? Boying was once “Tatang – the Bossman” in 1985. Only by pursuing all camps — even his own — can he restore faith in the office.

Senate’s collapse and ICI’s dilemma

All this unfolds against the backdrop of the Senate’s embarrassing implosion over the flood control scandal. Sen. Panfilo Lacson, armed with documents on billions in dubious insertions, was forced to resign as Blue Ribbon Committee chairman lest his investigation trigger a coup. One by one, senators refused to touch the Blue Ribbon Committee leadership. The Senate, caught investigating itself, collapsed into paralysis; as the Lower House had done earlier. “Corrupti corruptos investigare non possunt!”

This vacuum birthed the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), a body meant to channel public outrage into investigation. Yet the ICI too has disappointed: secretive, opaque, reluctant to bare its work, as revealed by Mayor Benjie Magalong, erstwhile consultant/investigator. In theory, the ICI is recommendatory, its findings feeding into the Office of the Ombudsman. In practice, it has become another layer of bureaucracy, vulnerable to suspicion. I expect resignations soon.

Here lies an irony. If Remulla proves effective, the ICI may become redundant. If he falters, the ICI’s secrecy ensures it will not fill the gap. Either way, only the ombudsman has the legal teeth to file cases. The rest is political theater.

Citizens at the ramparts

What, then, is to be done? The ombudsman’s independence, while real, cannot be left to the conscience of one man. Civil society must keep watch. As Carpio insists, “trust but verify.” But beyond vigilance lies action.

A broad coalition is now mobilizing to push for people’s initiative (PI) measures: an anti-political dynasty law, a freedom of information act (FOI), and civil society participation in infrastructure bidding. These reforms target the bloodstream of corruption itself. Dynasties perpetuate their power through pork barrel insertions; ghost projects thrive when bidding is opaque; secrecy breeds impunity. By institutionalizing transparency and limiting dynasties, citizens can cut off the oxygen that fuels corruption.

PI will not be easy. Twelve percent of voters nationwide, with three percent in each district must sign on. The work is colossal. But it is precisely in these civic exercises that the antidote to elite impunity is found. Youth and students are being mobilized, echoing the spirit of EDSA yet adapted to the digital age.

The moment of truth

Today, under Boying Remulla the office again stands at a crossroads — its independence and credibility shaped as much by law as by the politics of the moment. His conundrum: he wields the powers of righteousness, the expectations of a weary public, and the suspicion of those who see only political vendetta. His choices will shape not only the fate of the Dutertes, the credibility of the Marcos presidency itself, but more importantly the fate of the country in the years to come. If he prosecutes across factions, he can reestablish the ombudsman as the republic’s sentinel of integrity. And he will be a shoo-in for any position in 2028!

Meantime, the people must do their part. As we speak, the Marangal and Pilipino Movement, co-led by women and along with multitudes in the civil society have invoked the people’s right to anger at the impunity; use the streets as the venue for vigilance and protests — nonviolent, but always with the threat thereof.

For in the end, institutions only live when citizens defend them. The ombudsman’s moment of truth is not his alone — it is ours.