Death of delicadeza

In Japan, even the faintest whiff of impropriety is enough to end a career in government or the corporate world. Thus, an official caught in the vortex of a scandal resigns immediately and, in some cases, commits today’s version of seppuku. In the Philippines, however, politicians cling like leeches to their posts, refusing to surrender them even as the flood of corruption rises around their necks.

Delicadeza — that old-fashioned sense of honor and the instinct to step down before one is told — has all but vanished from our political vocabulary. What remains is a culture of stubborn entitlement, where the first instinct of a public official accused of wrongdoing is to not explain, much less to resign, but to ride out the storm until it passes.

This brings us to Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman who, by all accounts, has perfected the art of silence. Pangandaman has issued statements on the flood control budget controversy, but critics say she has failed miserably in directly answering the serious accusations raised by lawmakers.

Last month, Deputy Speaker Ronaldo Puno accused the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) of negligence for failing to detect redundant flood control allocations in the 2026 Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) budget.

Puno said it was implausible that the DBM, the agency tasked with reviewing the National Expenditure Program (NEP) before it is submitted to Congress, would have missed such irregularities.

“You mean to say they can’t decide on their own to scrutinize something as obviously questionable as this? What are they? Stenographers?” Puno asked.

He cited projects that had been completed but were still included in the budget, while ongoing works such as the Pasig-Marikina River Channel Improvement Project received no allocation at all. He even found a P100-million item that appeared under a new name, replacing a flood control project intended for a school in Antipolo City.

Any government official with a sense of accountability would have responded with documentation and transparency. Pangandaman’s statements, however, have been limited to general assurances of oversight and review. Ho-hum.

Now comes Caloocan Rep. Edgar “Egay” Erice, whose allegations are far graver. He claims that enormous sums — P300 billion in 2023, P500 billion in 2024, and P400 billion this year — had gone missing from DPWH appropriations. The DBM, he says, “knows all about that.” He accused Pangandaman’s office of either extreme negligence or gross incompetence.

These claims are of such magnitude that they demand a clear and public explanation, not one given only to the President. They should be refuted with evidence. Absent her explanation, Pangandaman’s continued stay in office is indefensible. She’s gravely mistaken if she thinks her silence can outlast the people’s outrage.

Contrast that with Japan, where a minister would resign for something as small as an accounting error or a lapse in judgment.

In 2022, Japan’s Economic Revitalization Minister Daishiro Yamagiwa resigned after admitting ties to a controversial religious group. He was neither charged nor proven guilty of corruption, yet he stepped down for bringing “shame” to the Cabinet.

Back in 2018, the head of Japan’s land ministry resigned for data tampering that did not personally enrich him. In both cases, the resignations were swift and unforced.

In the Philippines, shame is not a trigger for resignation; it is an inconvenience to be endured until the next news cycle. Officials cling to office not out of service but out of habit because power here is treated as a shield rather than a responsibility.

Pangandaman’s measured silence may be strategic, but it risks looking like avoidance arising from guilt. Her reluctance to confront the allegations or open the DBM to independent scrutiny reinforces the perception that the DBM, instead of safeguarding public funds, has become complicit in their misuse.

Delicadeza once meant knowing when to step aside before being told to. It meant understanding that public office is not personal property, that honor is not measured by stubbornness but by dignity. That virtue, it seems, has long been budgeted out of our political system.

Pangandaman can continue to call the criticism of Puno and Erice “political noise.” But every day that she remains in office, she buttresses the suspicion of Filipinos that she’s a party to Floodgate and, consequently, its whitewashing.

Marcos should hand Pangandaman the pink slip already.