Rodante Marcoleta took the chair of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee like a judge in court, with a hopia in one hand and a gavel in the other. He thundered, pried, and hammered at contractors, Department of Public Works and Highways engineers, and politicians who treated flood control funds as their private coffers.

He relished the role of scourge and avenging angel, the man who would smoke out the rats. Gruff and perpetually furrow-browed, Marcoleta may be a neophyte in a Senate that could shame Julius Caesar’s own, but he thrives on power plays.

Now the wheels have turned. The inquisitor finds himself the subject of interrogation, days after Sen. Panfilo Lacson booted him from the all-powerful Blue Ribbon, with its sweeping oversight powers.

The spark came from a news report uncovering documents that listed Marcoleta’s wife, Edna, as an independent director in two insurance firms — one with links to the Discayas, those much-maligned contractors.

Marcoleta has vehemently — rather too forcefully — denied impropriety. An independent director, he argued testily, has no ownership stake, no blood ties, and no say in the daily management of a company. His son Paolo, a partylist lawmaker, echoed him.

But independence must not only exist in fact — it must appear to be beyond reproach. What matters is not just the connection, but the perception. It is the shadow, not only the substance, that lingers.

As reported, one of the firms where Edna sits supposedly issued a retention bond to a company owned by the Discayas — the same Discayas Marcoleta had been pushing hard to be placed under witness protection at the Department of Justice.

Coincidence? Convenience? Confluence? Politics, like physics, teaches that bodies in motion often collide.

When he was pressed about “delicadeza” and conflict of interest, Marcoleta lashed out at the news anchor, calling him “tanga” — stupid. Yet it was Marcoleta who had insisted that every trail be followed, every tie unearthed, and every shadow chased.

To the very standard he set, Marcoleta cannot now plead exemption. The broom that sweeps the dust must expect the dust to rise in its face. He, however, is hardly alone. The scandal has become a hall of mirrors.

Former House speaker Martin Romualdez is accused of collecting bags of “basura” worth billions in Forbes Park; Sen. Francis Escudero fends off the shadow of having received millions in shady campaign donations; and Rep. Terry Ridon says the National Bureau of Investigation is sparing Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin.

Such is the nature of sprawling corruption scandals: they consume the guilty and the self-righteous alike. Pot calls kettle black; kettle calls pot darker still. Truth becomes secondary to whose version dominates tomorrow’s headline.

Marcoleta is not guilty by association. He is not guilty at all until the evidence proves otherwise. But he cannot demand a standard for others that he will not accept for himself. He cannot grill DPWH engineers over bonds and not expect questions about bonds tied to his wife’s firm. He cannot demand transparency yet recoil from scrutiny.

In the end, facts may not even matter. In politics, perception often decides destiny. The Blue Ribbon, now in Lacson’s hands, continues its hearings. The floodwaters are rising, lapping at the Palace gates, with Bersamin’s name swept into the current. And the public, weary of billions floating away, grows ever more cynical.

That is the danger of this circus: when all are tainted, no one is believed; when all are accused, no one is absolved. The people watch, shrug, and wait for the boil. Marcoleta once demanded answers. Now he faces the questions. Such is the curse of wielding the mirror: sooner or later, you are forced to look into it.