The latest news is sickeningly familiar: billions of pesos, earmarked for vital infrastructure like flood control projects, have vanished into the ether of “ghost projects” and inflated contracts. As typhoons batter our islands, the taxpayer is literally drowning, not just in rainwater but in the perverse greed of the very officials sworn to protect them. This isn’t just theft; it is a crime against humanity, and every Filipino should feel the chill of complicity if we let it pass.

The financial hemorrhaging is staggering. Reports on the 2024-2025 flood control controversies suggest astronomical amounts — potentially a trillion pesos since 2023 — lost to a sophisticated system of kickbacks, contractor monopolies, and padded budgets within agencies like the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). These funds were meant for climate adaptation, yet they are instead fueling the extravagant lifestyles of a few well-connected families and officials.

This cyclical plunder, however, is not a recent invention. The new historical biopic, Quezon, released this week, highlights the rise of Manuel L. Quezon to the presidency. The film explores his political savvy, his charisma, and the brutal game of politics he played to outmaneuver rivals.

While Quezon is revered as a founding father, the film subtly reminds us that Philippine politics, even at its inception, was a contest of power, patronage, and personal ambition — a blueprint for the deeply entrenched political dynasties and patronage networks that still thrive today. The colonial period may have ended, but the colonial-era mindset of treating public office as a means of personal enrichment, rather than public service, remains the ghost in our democratic machine.

The names change — from those implicated in the Fertilizer Fund Scam and the Pork Barrel scandal to the current figures allegedly complicit in the flood control fraud — but the mechanism of greed remains the same. When high-ranking officials — from Cabinet secretaries to members of Congress — are called out in the Senate, the pattern of delay, denial and distraction is their only defense, emboldened by a weak justice system that often grants them impunity.

This is why we, the Filipino people, cannot afford to nod sadly and move on. The stolen billions are not just numbers; they represent the homes that were swept away because flood control systems were “ghosts,” the children who died because public health funds were siphoned off, and the future that was mortgaged for a few politicians’ mansions.

Demand accountability now. File complaints with the Ombudsman and the Commission on Audit. Support investigative journalists and civil society watchdogs. Reject candidates, regardless of their last name, who exhibit the lavish-but-unexplained wealth that has become the calling card of corruption.

Until we make the cost of stealing from the public higher than the reward, until we collectively refuse to be mere spectators, the thieves will keep stealing. The ghost in the machine only disappears when the people decide to exorcise it with their outrage and their vote.