Senate probe all theater, all noise

Which lawmakers endorsed the contractors who won flood control projects? Who sat on the Bids and Awards Committees that handed out these deals, and what links do they have to politicians and businesses?

These questions remain unasked in the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee investigation into government contracts.

So far, the hearings have produced fireworks and soundbites — little else.

For Dr. Raymund E. Narag, a Filipino criminologist and public policy expert, the entire exercise looks less like a real investigation and more like “performative justice” — all theater, all noise, with no accountability in sight.

“Senators pounding tables, raising voices, feigning tears — asking questions so bombastic you could almost see the cameras zoom in for effect,” Narag wrote in a Facebook post.

“But the performance is hollow. The questions are shallow. The outrage scripted. What we witnessed was not investigation but spectacle — an attempt to ride the public fury and repackage themselves as tribunes of the people,” he said.

Narag, who teaches at Southern Illinois University, has long studied corruption and justice systems. He said the flood control probe was another case of the same old game.

Beyond the drama

Narag said the hearings dodged the real issues: patronage politics, collusion with contractors, and systemic corruption.

The senators, he said, skipped over contractors with long histories of political ties, some of whom consistently cornered big-ticket projects. They didn’t dig into bids and awards committees, the bodies tasked with vetting contracts and which often come under pressure from politicians.

Questions about campaign donations — often thinly disguised as pay-to-play — were never raised. Neither was the messy world of subcontracting, where ghost firms and cronies hide behind legitimate companies.

Even Commission on Audit (CoA) reports pointing to irregularities were largely ignored, along with ghost projects, botched infrastructure, shady inspections, and recurring awards to the same suspect firms.

“Questions that would map the anatomy of this rot and put names to the faceless. But those were the very questions avoided — because they would have implicated their friends, their financiers, and sometimes themselves,” Narag said.

Why it matters

The Philippines has passed procurement reforms, most notably the Government Procurement Reform Act of 2003, but enforcement has always been weak.

“Contractors win bids not by merit but by padrino (sponsor). Procurement reforms are paper shields. The Commission on Audit points to anomalies but lacks teeth to enforce. And so the circus repeats: senators acting shocked, the media covering the noise, the people still none the wiser,” Narag said.

A way forward

Narag said the probe should have exposed the machinery of corruption — how politicians, bureaucrats, and contractors collude with each other.

“Instead, we got a clown show: questions asked without preparation, meant to corner enemies but ricocheting back at the clowns themselves. Most telling of all, the ‘friendly’ contractors, the ones tied to their own kaibigans (friends), were spared. No grilling. No exposure. A clean pass.”

He urged the creation of an independent citizen-led commission with subpoena powers, insulated from partisan politics, to follow the money trail and break the cycle.

“We owe it to our children, if not to ourselves, to fix this once and for all,” Narag said. “Not another palabas (show). Not another season of outrage without consequence.”