CARTOON BY: AARON PAUL C. CARIL
EDITORIAL
Justice beyond the script
The filing of the plunder case and the issuance of the warrant of arrest against former House Speaker Martin Romualdez, former Ako Bicol party-list representative Zaldy Co, and their co-accused in connection with the flood control projects have given the nation a dramatic spectacle of accountability. The Ombudsman filed the case at the Sandiganbayan which promptly issued a warrant of arrest, the public has been told that even the mighty can be reached by the long arm of the law. On paper, this is what justice should look like. In a country where public office is too often treated as private entitlement, the sight of powerful names being haled before the courts should be reassuring.
But the Filipino people have been trained by bitter experience to be suspicious of sudden righteousness. When prosecutions come after political alliances fracture, when investigations move swiftly against some but crawl against others, and when the machinery of government appears to awaken only when the political winds have shifted, the public cannot be blamed for asking whether this is justice or merely another scene in a script. That suspicion is part of politics, yes. It may be fueled by rivalry, factional interest, and the familiar instinct to read every official act through the lens of power. Yet it is also born from a painful history: too many scandals exposed, too few convictions secured, too much public money vanished, and too many promises buried under floodwater and mud.
The real issue, therefore, is not whether the arrest of a powerful politician is politically useful to someone. In this country, almost everything of consequence is touched by politics. The more important question is whether the process will be strong enough to survive politics. A warrant of arrest is not a conviction. A plunder information is not yet proof beyond reasonable doubt. The accused remain entitled to due process, to counsel, to confront the evidence, and to be judged by an impartial court. These safeguards are not gifts to the powerful; they are protections for every citizen. But due process must not become a velvet curtain behind which influence, wealth, illness, delay, and legal maneuvering can quietly defeat accountability.
If the case is real, let it be tried with evidence, not press releases. Let the prosecution present documents, bank trails, budget records, contractor testimonies, project reports, delivery receipts, and the full anatomy of the alleged kickback scheme. Let the defense answer in court, not only in carefully worded statements. Let the public know how projects meant to protect communities from floods allegedly became channels for commissions, shares, percentages, commitments, or whatever polite vocabulary corruption now uses to disguise theft. Above all, let the case go wherever the evidence leads, not merely as far as political convenience permits.
For the Filipino who wades through waist-deep water every rainy season, justice is not the spectacle of a mugshot. It is not the headline announcing the fall of one political giant. It is not even the satisfaction of seeing a familiar surname finally made to answer. Real justice is the recovery of stolen public funds. Real justice is the blacklisting and prosecution of contractors who built ghosts, canals to nowhere, and flood control structures that fail at the first serious rain. Real justice is the punishment of engineers, budget officials, auditors, legislators, fixers, and local collaborators who turned public safety into a revenue stream. Real justice is when a mother no longer has to lift her child above filthy floodwater on the way to school, when farmers no longer watch their fields disappear under preventable floods, and when taxpayers can see concrete protection instead of concrete corruption.
The tragedy of the flood control scandal is that it is not merely financial. It is human. Every peso stolen from drainage, dredging, river walls, pumping stations, and flood mitigation is a peso taken from the safety of families. It is a peso taken from the dignity of communities forced to normalize disaster. It is a peso taken from the future of children who grow up believing that floods are acts of nature alone, when in truth many are worsened by acts of greed.
This is why the public’s suspicion must not be dismissed as cynicism. It is a demand for consistency. If this prosecution is not part of a script, then the State must prove it by acting without selectivity. It must pursue not only the visible names but the entire network that made the alleged plunder possible. It must protect witnesses without manufacturing testimony. It must respect the rights of the accused without granting them special treatment. It must move the case with reasonable speed without sacrificing fairness. It must show that accountability is a principle, not a weapon reserved for political enemies or discarded allies.
The Filipino people do not need theater. They need institutions that work even when no cameras are present. They need courts that are firm, prosecutors who are prepared, investigators who are independent, auditors who are fearless, and public officials who understand that infrastructure is not loot. The flood control projects were supposed to hold back water. If the allegations are true, they instead opened the floodgates of plunder. The task now is to ensure that justice is not itself washed away by politics.
Let the courts decide guilt. Let the evidence speak. Let the public remain vigilant. And let no one forget that the ultimate complainant in this case is not any political faction but the Filipino people themselves—the citizens who pay taxes, endure floods, and wait, year after year, for government projects that should have protected them but may have been converted into instruments of betrayal.