CORRUPTION IS A criminal issue, not a political one.
The testimonies piling up on how politicians, bureaucrats, and businessmen conspire to raid the coffers tell us this is not mere incompetence or mismanagement. It is organized crime. It is theft in broad daylight, sanctioned not by law but by collusion.
Politicians earmark the loot, bureaucrats arrange the grand heist, businessmen lend their names and fake receipts, banks clear the release, auditors pocket their cuts, and revenue officials collect their shares. Everybody gets a slice. Like the Mafia, it has its rules, its roles, its code. Who should be given. Who should be spared. Who should shut up.
And like all criminals, they eventually become careless. They get drunk on their impunity. They flaunt their mansions, their cars, their jewelry, their outlandish lifestyles. They no longer bother with delicadeza. They do not care that people drown in floods because of substandard projects, or that families bury their dead because of corruption in infrastructure. For them, the only measure is the next deal, the next cut, the next chance to make more money. It is not governance. It is banditry.
And yet, partisans keep pretending it is political. Duterte’s loyalists harp on the corruption of the Marcos Jr. government. Marcos loyalists harp on the corruption of Duterte’s people. The spectacle plays out in Senate hearings, where questions are asked not to unearth truth but to corner enemies and shield allies. Corruption is made to look like it existed only under the other camp.
That is stupid.
‘And like all criminals, they eventually become careless. They get drunk on their impunity. They flaunt their mansions, their cars, their jewelry, their outlandish lifestyles. They no longer bother with delicadeza.’
NOT PRO-FILIPINO
Corruption is not partisan. It is not red versus green, DDS versus BBM. It is not about left, right, or center. It has only one color: the color of corruption. And it bleeds the Filipino people dry.
All corrupt officials, bureaucrats, and businessmen must be unmasked, investigated, prosecuted, convicted, and jailed. No one spared—whether they wear the cloak of Marcos or Duterte or anyone else. They are not pro-Filipino. They are anti-Filipino. They are thieves.
So stop politicizing it. The more we divide it into camps, the more the corrupt win. The more we turn it into spectacle, the less chance we have of cleaning the Augean stables. The fight against corruption cannot be selective. It must be total.
RUN LIKE A CARTEL
Let us begin with the Department of Public Works and Highways, where flood control projects have long been nothing but flood-causing corruption. But do not stop there. There are entire agencies that run like cartels, each with its own padrino, each with its own racket. Expose them all.
If we fail to do this, corruption will not just remain our politics. It will remain our culture, our curse, and our crime.