Smoke, mirrors, ICI

As the oil price crisis begins to bite, the Marcos administration is moving swiftly to contain the political fallout from the flood control corruption scandal, aiming to resolve it by month’s end, when the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) winds down its operations.

From the outset, the ICI appeared to serve as a decoy, following President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s pointed “Mahiya naman kayo” remark during his State of the Nation Address.

What was billed as a vehicle for accountability instead risks being seen as a containment mechanism, one that addressed the noise of the flood control scandal without reaching its alleged architects.

On 11 September 2025, President Marcos signed Executive Order 94 creating the ICI as a three-member ad hoc fact-finding body with the mandate to investigate “ghost” flood control projects, substandard infrastructure, and anomalies in public works from 2015 onward, focusing on the Department of Public Works and Highways.

The Palace peddled it as a decisive response to the exploding scandal involving hundreds of billions of pesos in missing and wasted funds for flood mitigation.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Andres Reyes Jr. led the body as its chair, lending it integrity. Early on, Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong was brought in as a special adviser but he immediately wanted out.

The Palace expressed “regret” and replaced him with former Philippine National Police chief Rodolfo Azurin.

The already limping fact-finding body received fatal blows in December 2025 when two of its key members — former Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson and top SGV executive Rossana Fajardo — resigned, leaving only Reyes.

With the commission reduced to a one-person show, its investigative capability and credibility evaporated, leaving it a hollow shell, though still useful as a smokescreen.

The pattern of containment became unmistakable primarily because the hearings were deliberately held behind closed doors, with the ICI rejecting public and media appeals for transparency.

Groups seeking absolute accountability for the scandal saw the body as deliberately excluding the top-level personalities, keeping the yearly budget from scrutiny, ignoring budget insertions and alleged kickbacks under the present regime, while focusing only on past or lower-level figures.

By 6 February 2026, the gutted commission quietly submitted its 125-day accomplishment report of over 1,000 pages directly to Malacañang. President Marcos said he was personally reviewing the ICI’s output, but no copy was released to the public.

On 11 March 2026, still without releasing the report, Marcos announced that the ICI’s “assignment has already been fulfilled,” adding that the documents he reviewed were being collated for handover to the Department of Justice and the Ombudsman.

On 13 and 14 March, the ICI documents, evidence, and findings were turned over to Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla who described the hoard as “200 mega boxes of data.”

The recent announcement that former Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Bulacan district engineer Henry Alcantara had turned state’s evidence added more weight to the suspected Palace plot.

Alcantara joined contractor Sally Santos and former DPWH undersecretary Roberto Bernardo and regional director Gerard Opulencia as state witnesses.

The swift absolution of Alcantara while the investigation was ongoing created the impression that “certain personalities” higher up the chain were being shielded.

University of Santo Tomas professor, political analyst, and Daily Tribune columnist Dennis Coronacion described the whole ICI saga as underwhelming due to the absence of the “big fish.”

“So far, I think there are only eight individuals against whom cases have been filed. We were expecting more, because we are talking about systemic corruption,” he said.

The biggest fish swim free; the line was never cast for them.