An anecdote shared by health advocate Tony Leachon aptly reflects what has been unfolding lately.

If you place 100 black ants and 100 red ants inside a jar, they coexist peacefully. But if you shake the jar violently, the ants begin attacking one another, mistaking each other for the enemy.

The lesson is simple: The real enemy is the one shaking the jar.

A divide-and-rule tactic has been resorted to while the true agitators remain hidden in the shadows. The hand that shakes the jar thrives on chaos, distraction and division.

The objective is too obvious: A smokescreen is needed to hide the corruption scandal stemming from the unbridled perversion of the budget, which is a syndicated operation.

The false narratives sow fear and suspicion in exchange for the truth. It is the unseen hand that manipulates, destabilizes and profits from disunity.

As the trail to the overlord in the public heist, estimated to have pilfered P1 trillion in the past three years, grew hotter, the stirring of the political cauldron moved faster.

An independent political analyst who gets to the bottom of the practice of gaming the public through manipulation asked the most relevant question: If charges are to be filed against the former House speaker and former Senate president, who are both under investigation for the flood control scandal, will they retaliate by pinning the blame on the corruption mastermind in the presidential palace?

Former Speaker Romualdez, breaking his silence, insisted that the executive bears responsibility for the drafting, release and supervision of the national budget.

“The budget does not begin in the House. It begins in the executive,” he indicated.

Diversionary moves intensified after mass actions swelled from hundreds to millions, but these were unfortunately divided along political lines, diminishing their overall impact.

The strategy is to smother protest not by denial, but by spectacle systematically.

The International Criminal Court chase, the Senate coup, the Marcos-Duterte family war, the cinematic arrests and the dramatic promises all serve to flood public awareness with vicious noise.

The single question requiring a quiet, clear answer gets drowned out: Who exactly authorized, signed off on and benefited from more than P1 trillion in ghost flood control projects and the manipulation of the yearly national budgets?

Investigations into the floodgate scandal were orchestrated through selective truth-telling, designed to shield political patrons and recalibrate alliances rather than expose systemic theft.

Accountability remains elusive in a state where infrastructures of impunity are as deeply embedded as the machineries of corruption.

While the Marcos administration spoke publicly of reform, pork-barrel funds remain ingrained in various agencies, ensuring that the “allocables” of Congress members persist.

The machinery of corruption was never dismantled; it was cosmetically rebranded.

A citizenry united in outrage over the unprecedented plunder of government resources has been successfully fragmented by a well-oiled syndicate moving in the shadows.

Partisan camps are driven to shout at each other rather than at the system that robbed them both.