Ang dalawang mukha ng Kongreso

Ping, I like you. I always have.

You’ve been consistent with your advocacies — anti-corruption, anti–pork barrel — ever since you stepped up as a senator way back in the early 2000s. You were among the first to call out the evils of PDAF, you lived without pork, you saved billions by refusing allocations. That’s history no one can erase.

But here we are again, decades later, staring at yet another multi-billion flood control scandal. And once again, the words are familiar: anomalies, ghost projects, dummies, cartels. It’s frustrating because for years, we’ve been hearing the same refrain: there’s corruption in the budget, there are lawmakers in on it, there are contractors acting as dummies.

I’ll admit, I’m young. Maybe too young to fully grasp how the machinery of politics really works. Senators, congressmen, contractors, DPWH — it all gets muddled in committees and hearings.

But isn’t the bottom line simple? Public money is being stolen. People are dying in floods that could have been prevented if those billions went to real infrastructure, not to the pockets of a few.

So I ask: what’s stopping you, Ping? What’s stopping us? Is it threats? Lack of evidence? The slow grind of due process? Or are we just waiting for the “perfect” moment that never comes?

You’ve been through four Senate terms. That’s a lot of trust from different generations of Filipinos. And with trust comes expectation. We expect more than hints and careful phrasing. We expect names.

If contractors can be dragged to hearings, why can’t the lawmakers who inserted the projects be named too?

Maybe you’re building up a case. Maybe you’re protecting witnesses. If that’s true, then we’ll wait. But patience is running out. Time is running out.

Ping, you’ve always said you want to live without pork. That’s why many of us still look to you. But at some point, the truth must stop being whispered and start being shouted. Because the tipping point will come. And when it does, it won’t just be destruction — it will be death.

You declined rewards from tycoons for saving their kin. You told your men to live with a simple “thank you.” You waged war against jueteng even if it meant crossing a sitting president. That courage made you stand out.

Your privilege speech, “Ang Dalawang Mukha ng Sining,” reminds us of this very ethos. You spoke of the two faces behind the political theater, of loyalty to a higher cause over personal gain, and of the courage it takes to confront entrenched power, even at personal cost. You recounted standing against illegal gambling and other abuses during the Estrada presidency, defending principle over position, and refusing millions in payola.

That same voice, that same principle, is why many of us still look to you now.

But this show must end. The circus of greed, the endless cycle of investigations that lead to nowhere, the selective outrage that punishes small fry while the real crooks laugh in the shadows — Filipinos are tired of it. We are sick of public servants who serve only themselves, fattening their wallets.

Since time immemorial, corruption has been the greatest enemy of any government. Here, it is so normalized, so accepted, so woven into the DNA of our politics. The insatiable lust for power, the addiction to wealth, the shameless insensitivity to human suffering — it is obscene.

Ping, we need the reckoning to begin. We need trials. We need names. We need the guilty dragged out of their air-conditioned mansions and made to answer for every collapsed bridge, every fake project, every flood that swept away homes and lives.

You’ve always wanted to be remembered as the man who lived without pork. Then live up to it now — by making sure that those who gorged on pork finally choke on it.