Let’s ask the question no one seems to want to ask: How does a P1.4-billion government transaction get signed, sealed and nearly delivered without the knowledge of the very board tasked to approve it?

Secretary Hans Cacdac, chair of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Board of Trustees and now the sitting head of the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), says he was kept in the dark about the deal.

It’s a staggering admission. Imagine the chair of the board of a bank saying he didn’t know someone was walking out with the vault. Suspicious? Puzzling at the very least.

The deal in question involves the purchase of property near NAIA Terminal 1 intended for a halfway house or dormitory for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

It was allegedly signed by sacked OWWA Administrator Arnell Ignacio — without board approval, without transparency and clearly without a veneer of legality. That’s not just a footnote; that’s a red flag the size of a hangar.

Cacdac says a “committee within OWWA” made the deal, bypassing board approval. But let’s stop and ask: what committee, exactly, can bind a government agency to a multibillion-peso real estate deal without board authority? That isn’t delegation. That’s dereliction, from where we sit.

Here we must resist the temptation to make this a morality play of one bad actor and a cast of bystanders. This is not just about Ignacio’s signature appearing where it shouldn’t have. This is about how the entire OWWA apparatus allowed it to happen — how its own leadership framework apparently functions on autopilot, blindfolded.

The OWWA Act is not ambiguous. Section 10(c) clearly states that the board must approve programs, policies, projects and budgets. OWWA’s board is not supposed to be notified after the fact.

If Cacdac, as board chair, was truly blindsided, then the next question is: what kind of chairmanship was he exercising? What kind of governance is OWWA practicing? Were minutes of meetings read aloud to the wind? Were quarterly reports submitted into the void?

It’s not enough to say “I didn’t know.” Not when P1.4 billion is involved. Not when OFWs — who bleed for this country and bankroll its remittances — are told that accommodations were being built in their name, with money they helped fund, and yet not a single safeguard seems to have been triggered.

Now the DMW says it’s investigating. But with Cacdac at the helm of both DMW and the OWWA board at the time of the deal, how is that not a conflict of interest? How does one credibly investigate a transaction that unfolded under his own theoretical watch?

This is not a matter for internal housekeeping. This is a matter for the Ombudsman.

Let’s call it what it is. A government transaction worth more than P50 million — much less P1.4 billion — falls within the scope of possible plunder under Republic Act 7080. That is not just a technicality. That is the legal threshold for treating this not as an administrative lapse but as a potential criminal enterprise.

If the evidence supports it, then charges should be filed — not just against Ignacio, but against every signatory, every enabling officer, every silent observer who allowed this to proceed. Because silence, too, is a form of complicity.

And let’s not allow this to become another seasonal scandal that fades into the background after one firing, one press statement, or one Senate hearing. OFWs deserve more than that, the public deserves more than that.

You want trust? Start with accountability. Not press releases. Not selective memory. Not committees that appear like mushrooms after a storm and disappear just as fast. You want answers? Let the Ombudsman ask the questions.