Hey Manny. Nice flight. Let’s stop pretending. You didn’t come back because you suddenly found courage.

Please. People with real problems don’t hurry home into a scandal this ugly. Either they go airplane mode or discover new illnesses. “The doctor said wife needs another scan.” Months later, still scanning. World-class scanning.

But not you, Manny. You booked a flight, were allowed to leave in the first place. ILBO? Pfft. Never had to escape. Escape requires resistance. This? Customer service.

Anyone can deny wrongdoing. The real test is whether the government panics when you try to leave.

People keep asking why you came back. Wrong question. Amateur Senator Imee Marcos hour. The real question: Who told you it’s already safe to return, huh?

Running works only until everyone agrees you ran. Once that word sticks, that’s it. Isn’t it, Manny? Your silence abroad is being misread — President’s guy. Suddenly, you look like the main character. That’s not quite a good way.

So someone realized, “Wow. Manny looks worse abroad than at home.” Perhaps they called you, no? Quiet call. Friendly voice: “Manny, listen. This isn’t helping. You’re dragging us down. Your running is attracting flies.”

His pitch: “Silence works better here, Sec. Our allies can make you visible but quiet. Expect no follow-up questions. You heard Ping: ‘Blue Ribbon can proceed without Bonoan.’ Which tells you everything, by the way. If they don’t need your answers, they never did.”

There’s a certain confidence that comes from returning to a place where nothing is expected of you.

Then: “We say, ‘He came back voluntarily. Why would a guilty man return?’ Very much like me, by the way. Why would I investigate a scandal anyway if I’m a part of it?”

Because survival, didn’t he tell you, Manny, is to be boring? The real danger isn’t so much what you might admit as what you could confirm if someone else opens his mouth.

“You can talk, Manny. Just don’t be useful. You’ve done it before.”

Yes? Yes.

Or maybe it was a little colder: “We can’t protect you so far away.” Which, let’s be adults here, means: “You’re easier to manage if you’re here, prick.”

Stay away too long, suddenly you’re the fall guy. Every scandal needs a Manny until it decides it needs a Zaldy. So you come home while the door is still open.

What makes us really furious is that, if you can leave at the peak of anger, come back at the peak of fatigue and still sleep peacefully, then your government has already decided how this ends.

Tell your boss Bongbong: Stop complicating it. If he’s serious, tell him to put you under oath. A hold departure order.

Because if a President really wants answers, it would force them. If he wants time, his government would do exactly what it’s doing now.

Are we supposed to believe billions moved without your awareness or without your control? Which one is it, Manny: blind or absent?

If your ignorance were this durable, it would be a building material. We’re so impressed by you who think ignorance improves with travel.

Nobody’s accusing you of pouring concrete with your bare hands or typing fake coordinates. We’re being asked to believe the one man whose job was to know didn’t know.

You can claim delegation, Manny. Fine — delegation is not abdication. A pilot who delegates flight does not get to say, “Well, I wasn’t holding the wheel” when the plane crashed and flooded the country.