If there’s one thing worse than wading knee-deep in floodwater, it’s having to sit through the Senate’s flood control hearings. Because, honestly, what we’ve been watching doesn’t seem so much like a corruption investigation as a badly written play. Complete with hammy actors, canned outrage, and dialogue that’s equal parts cringe and an insult to our intelligence.

Take Senate President Chiz Escudero. While his colleagues put on their most solemn “we hate corruption” faces, they are silent on one small detail: the person presiding over their chamber has himself admitted receiving a thirty-million-peso “donation” from a contractor who conveniently has multiple government projects in his province — a contractor who, in a separate House inquiry, admitted he was close friends with the Senate President.

How, pray tell, are we to trust in this “investigation” when the conflict of interest is so glaring you could spot it from the moon?

Then there’s committee chair Rodante Marcoleta, who has managed to conduct hours upon hours of questioning without once acknowledging the mountain of corruption that took place during the Duterte years. His laser focus on anomalies under the present administration might be impressive if it weren’t so transparently selective. To call it an agenda is putting it politely. To call it impartial oversight is comedy.

And speaking of Duterte-era projects, let’s not forget Senator Mark Villar. As the public works secretary of that administration, he signed off on billions of pesos in contracts now under scrutiny. Today, as a lawmaker, he’s suddenly positioned as an investigator of the very irregularities that flourished during his watch. The irony is so thick we can choke on it.

Oh, and it gets better. The father of Senator Bong Go happens to own a firm (CLTG Builders, “CLTG” being the senator’s initials) that bagged millions in public contracts. Majority Leader Joel Villanueva is on record as having received a P20-million donation from another contractor.

And yet we’re all supposed to clap and nod and agree when these senators express their horror at how the public coffers have been raided. Please lang, patawarin ninyo kami.

This is the level of hypocrisy we’re dealing with. Senators who may themselves be tangled up in the same corruption they’re loudly condemning, puffing themselves up with righteous fury as if we’ve all forgotten their track records. The result isn’t just hollow. It’s offensive.

The public reaction has been telling. On one hand, there’s seething anger — people who are sick of being treated like fools. On the other hand, there’s outright laughter at the absurdity of it all. Memes, gifs, and sarcastic posts have been flying online faster than the floodwaters rose two Saturdays ago. But when the line between farce and reality is blurred this much, what else can you do but laugh to keep from crying?

The principle here should be simple. A corruption probe cannot be credible when conducted by people who may themselves be complicit. Yet that’s exactly what we’re being served: a showcase of hypocrisy, self-serving denials, and a near-endless supply of hot, foul-smelling air.

The whole thing stinks like a particularly bad joke. The worst part? It’s all at our expense.