Let’s cut through the noise on the Korean loan “that never was.” South Korean President Lee Jae-myung publicly halted a 700-billion won (P28.7 billion) loan for Philippine bridges, citing the “potential for corruption” and praising Korean media watchdogs for exposing a “substandard project.”

Then, our very own Department of Finance (DoF) came out with a straight-faced response: “No such loan exists.”

You can’t blame Filipinos for feeling the whiplash. One leader is taking a victory lap for stopping graft, and our officials are essentially saying, “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Somebody isn’t telling the whole story, and the credibility of our entire system is on the line.

What we know is.... President Lee’s Facebook post on 9 September was no off-hand comment. It was a detailed public statement stopping a P28.7-billion loan from Seoul’s Economic Development Cooperation Fund to build 350 modular bridges across the Philippines.

His reason? To prevent “unnecessary waste” and “preemptively block risks of poor management and corruption.” This wasn’t a quiet internal memo but a global announcement, underscoring South Korea’s commitment to transparency and its zero tolerance for graft.

The Hankyoreh, a major Korean daily, added context, reporting that the project had been previously flagged as “poorly performing” and mired in suspicions of “political and business collusion.”

Sadly, it’s a phrase that hits a little too close to home given our currently raging flood control scandal.

Backed by a major investigative report from The Hankyoreh, the findings are brutal.

On the surface, it is said to be a defiant defense of the government’s integrity. But scratch that surface, and murky questions arise. Why would a South Korean president fabricate a detailed claim about suspending a loan? Why would his government’s auditors and media outlets expose a “fraudulent” project if it were purely fictional?

For many, the DoF’s firm assertion that any such official development assistance (ODA) loan ever existed was less a clarification. You can’t have a scandal about a deal that is claimed to have never happened — of billions in potential aid and with our reputation hanging on the world stage.

Note the emphasis on “no such loan exists” rather than “no such loan was ever discussed.” It’s a distinction that reeks of semantics.

Remember that in December 2024, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) board approved a P25.7-billion Accelerated Bridge Construction Project to be financed with an ODA loan from France.

The project aimed to build 29 bridges nationwide, with timelines eerily overlapping the scrapped Korean-funded project. Coincidence?

The timing was convenient, to say the least. It looked like we just swapped funders, not fixed the problem.

This doesn’t reassure anyone; it just makes it seem like we’re shopping for a lender who might ask fewer tough questions. It suggests that the need for bridges didn’t vanish; only the funding source changed.

President Lee’s halting of a project is synonymous with halting the way we do business. His praise of investigative journalism as “the salt that prevents corruption” was a not-so-subtle jab at a system where backroom deals too often trump the public good.

It came amid a massive corruption scandal in the Philippines involving flood control infrastructure and the collusion between politicians and contractors. The perception of corruption is as damaging as the corruption itself. It deters investors, stains our international reputation, and undermines public trust.

The DoF’s denial might be technically correct in the strictest legal sense — maybe the paperwork wasn’t fully signed. But in the court of public opinion, it ignores the real issue that the perception of corruption is poison. It scares off honest investors and makes a mockery of promises of “full transparency and accountability.”

The real victims here are the Filipino people. Those bridges, regardless of the number, were meant to connect communities, boost agriculture, and save lives during calamities. When loans get suspended over corruption fears, and officials respond with deflections, it’s the poor who pay the price.

Until then, the only thing being built is distrust.