The biggest case of corruption in our history, but silence on Marcos

THE hypocrisy is deafening. Floodwaters have been drowning towns from Pampanga to Leyte, whistleblowers have named names, billions have vanished into “ghost” flood control projects — and yet the media, the so-called street protesters and the Yellow opposition are all pointing their fingers everywhere else except where it truly belongs: Malacañang.

This is not some legacy of the past. This is not a ghost of martial law rising again. This scam was a cancer that grew and rapidly metastasized during President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s own watch, starting in July 2022, when he handpicked Manuel Bonoan to head the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

From there, a flood of corruption gushed through the system, drowning public funds long before the monsoon drowned our people.

And yet — nothing. The noise from the media is muted. The protesters who once filled EDSA over pork barrel funds are suddenly whisper-quiet about Marcos Jr.’s complicity. In the Yellows’ so-called Ten Trillion Peso March, not a single placard — out of tens of thousands — demanded “Marcos Resign.” The Yellow stalwarts, who swear by the mantra of “Never Again,” look the other way. Why?

Let’s start with the facts. From July 2022 to May 2025, the DPWH allocated over P545 billion for flood control projects. Out of this, 15 companies cornered P100 billion, according to Marcos himself in his August 2025 press conference. He even launched a slick slide show and a “Sumbong sa Pangulo” website, pretending to be the whistleblower rather than the president who let this mess grow into the biggest case of corruption in Philippine history.

Budgets

Who appointed the officials who awarded those projects? Who signed off on the budgets, especially an additional P420 billion of unprogrammed funds that was the source of ghost flood and other dubious projects. Revealed only yesterday by DPWH Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo, this was the source of alleged kickbacks of Sen. Francis Escudero, former senators Bong Revilla and Nancy Binay, as well as the “ES.” (As of this column’s submission, Bernardo had not explained what the “ES” means, although this usually refers to the executive secretary, currently Lucas Bersamin).

The timeline is clear: the scam is not a relic. It is the creation of Marcos Jr.’s government, running in plain sight, with his public works secretary and his congressional allies, most notably Speaker Martin Romualdez and former appropriations committee chairman Zaldy Co. If there is a “Leyte template” for siphoning off funds, it was perfected under the noses of the ruling family.

Two trails stand out. First: DPWH district officials and the Discaya contractors fingered 20 congressmen, as well as DPWH Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo and Bicol Ako Party-list Rep. Zaldy Co, a political nobody until presidential cousin Martin Romualdez made him his minion. Co is also the biggest contractor for the mammoth P11-billion dike in his home province of Leyte. Co directly to Romualdez, no one else.

Yet neither the Senate, the House of Representatives, nor the so-called Independent Commission on Infrastructure (ICI) dare utter Romualdez’s name. Will they sit on their hands and not issue a freeze on his bank and property assets? Will they wait until Romualdez sails away on one of his yachts to evade Interpol?

There is not even space between Marcos and Romualdez. They are joined at the hip. Romualdez even often stays in a mansion just across Malacañan Palace — once his father Benjamin Romualdez’s de facto office as foreign affairs secretary during Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s regime — so he can remain close at all times. He gets politicians and even businessmen to have meals there, so the message is clear: he is Marcos’ partner.

Bonoan

The second trail is even clearer: Marcos appointed the public works secretary, Manuel Bonoan, as well as Undersecretary Bernardo. Either he knew about the DPWH’s massive corruption — and may have even received a cut of the graft money — or he was so clueless and was kept in the dark. Either case is a ground for impeachment: the first under graft and corruption, the second as betrayal of public trust through sheer incompetence. Was Marcos so often in a coke stupor that he ignored the reports of corruption in the DPWH?

This case of corruption in our history is not under Marcos Sr. in 1972, dubbed by the Western press as one of the biggest kleptocrats in modern history. Kleptocracy must be hereditary, or does that clan have a different set of morality?

And yet, where are the headlines screaming “Marcos Flood Scandal”? Where are the protesters massing at Mendiola? Where are the Yellow senators lambasting the Palace?

In past scandals, media outlets were merciless. Joseph “Erap” Estrada was pilloried over jueteng. Benigno Aquino III was crucified for Mamasapano. Rodrigo Duterte was lambasted for the drug war.

Billions

But now, confronted with billions lost in flood control ghost projects, the dominant media tone is curiously restrained. Reports focus on contractors, unnamed congressmen and DPWH functionaries. Marcos himself is painted as the reformer, unveiling the slide show, promising investigations, reallocating budgets. Since Marcos came to power in 2022, Philippine Star, Inquirer and Bulletin’s coverage has shown that Marcos controls 2/3 of the media.

Columnists singing hosannas to Marcos now shriek that Congress is a den of thieves — conveniently omitting that it is headed by his cousin. The framing is all wrong. Marcos isn’t the anti-graft crusader; he allowed corruption to run riot. He isn’t cleansing the garden of weeds; he planted them. These projects sprouted under his administration. These contractors flourished under his DPWH secretary. These congressional channels widened under his cousin’s speakership.

Now that nature itself has unearthed the corruption through massive floods, Marcos thinks we are fools who will believe he is fighting graft, that he has exposed the ghost projects. The ICI chairman Vince Perez is even praising Marcos to high heavens as having unearthed this corruption and has been fond of calling these contractors “animals.” I wonder what he would call Marcos, who allowed those animals to roam the country.

Marcos’ response is itself an admission of failure. On Sept. 8, 2025, he announced there would be no new flood control allocations for 2026, redirecting P225 billion to education and health. This is not a policy triumph — it is an admission that the flood control program has been corrupted beyond repair.

It is like a doctor abandoning treatment because his negligence has poisoned the medicine. It is like a builder halting construction because his own blueprint collapses. And yet, the narrative spun is that Marcos is the reformer, now bravely cutting off funds to corrupt contractors. This is political alchemy: turning lead into gold, guilt into virtue and plunder into reform.

Fog

Let’s cut through the fog. The flood control scandal is Marcos Jr.’s scandal. He appointed the DPWH leadership. He boasted of the projects. He allowed his congressional allies to feast on the budgets. He ignored the red flags from the Commission on Audit in 2024. He acted only when whistleblowers went public and floods made the lies undeniable.

Filipinos should be asking: Why is Malacañang not the epicenter of this scandal? Why are the headlines not screaming “Marcos Flood Plunder”? Why are the protesters not marching to the Palace gates? Why are the Yellows not raising the cry of “Never Again” against the son of the dictator whose cronies once looted the nation?

Until those questions are asked — and until the answers lead back to Marcos Jr. — the scandal will remain half-told, the outrage half-spent, the accountability half-delivered.

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The biggest case of corruption in our history, but silence on Marcos
Source: Breaking News PH