Budots, bagmen and getaways

Budots, bagmen and getaways | Daily Tribune

Revilla and his ‘standards’

In 2019, Bong Revilla called for the death penalty for plunderers, a year after he was acquitted of plunder in connection with the 2013 pork barrel scam. In 2026, he is once again facing corruption charges — this time over a P92.8-million ghost flood control project.

The irony is hard to ignore. When politicians demand the harshest punishment for others, should they not be ready to be held to the same standard themselves?

Perhaps the real punishment Revilla now faces is not imprisonment, but exposure. Exposure by his own words. Exposure to a public that does not forget, no matter how often the music or the dance changes.

Listen, Mr. Revilla, if you truly believe that plunder deserves death, then you should welcome the full force of accountability on yourself. Until then, your past statements stand less as a call for justice and more for a performance to mask guilt born of greed.

If you truly love performances, show the inmates your moves and make them happy — but forget putting on a show calling for the death penalty, which would only oppress the poor and the powerless, not you.

The audacity, Budots King. Shame on you.

— Jason Mago

Bad genius

They are not sloppy. They are not stupid. They are, in fact, terrifyingly smart.

Look at the DAILY TRIBUNE banner story last Thursday. Assuming the allegations are true, what was revealed was not chaos but design. Bagmen. Different addresses. Different names. Different schemes. Money moving through layers of hands, accounts, properties, and proxies, just enough distance to blur accountability and exhaust investigators.

This is how corruption survives. Not with one name, but with many, hidden behind paperwork, lawyers and “plausible deniability.”

Then comes the theater. Grandstanding in hearings. One politician exposes another. The other fires back. The cycle repeats. Committees spin. Sound bites fly. Everyone plays their assigned role. They make you chase the script they wrote.

Ghost projects. Ghost students. Ghost beneficiaries. Billions reduced to accounting smoke.

And when pressure builds, out come the speeches. The righteous tone. The claim that the system is being “cleaned.” The suggestion that transparency is already happening.

We even invent new flavors of pork: unprogrammed appropriations, insertions, reallocations. Same meat.

Our politicians are smart. Brilliant, even.

Alas, that intelligence is never used to serve the people.

— Carl Magadia

Bring ‘em home

For some, traveling abroad is leisure — an escape from reality that offers a break, rest and peace. For others, traveling abroad is freedom — a one-way ticket to escape accountability.

At present, it is clear that going overseas has become the go-to move for people under intense public scrutiny. Zaldy Co, among the alleged masterminds of the flood control scams, is believed to be living in a gated community in Lisbon, Portugal. Atong Ang, linked to the disappearance of a hundred sabungeros, is reportedly either in Cambodia or Thailand. Manuel Bonoan, former DPWH chief, recently arrived from the US — who knows if this was an honest return or an orchestrated comeback.

Funny how the government allows these individuals to leave the country when it has the power to issue hold departure orders. Immigration officers offload ordinary Filipinos they doubt will return, yet those stealing taxpayer money board planes with ease.

For many Filipinos, going overseas is a hard-earned dream won through years of sacrifice, delays, and relentless hard work. For others, it is a calculated choice: The safest route to escape arrest.

Well, what can we expect from an administration led by a family whose members fled the country decades ago, seeking exile in Hawaii while the people filled EDSA in revolt?

Accountability should not apply only to those who fled the country and ran from allegations; it must also apply to those who enabled their escape. When malevolence boards, morality departs.

— Vivienne Angeles