If we were President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. walking through that mud in Baliuag, inspecting a P55-million ghost wall, nothing there, “Walang hollow blocks, walang semento, walang kahit ano”, we would kick the mud, just for effect. We’d make the cameramen run, then grab an invisible slab and hurl it into the river. Let them fight over the symbolism.
We’d scoop up another handful of mud, bam! Right at Manny.... wait, where’s Bonoan? He resigned? We’d throw it anyway, just to feel something, like Marcos throwing mud, like nobody else can.
Great at concrete statements, terrible at cement. Took him long to realize he was wrong when he said, “Hindi ang pagre-resign ang solution.”
We asked: “What’s next, Manny? Accountability is optional?”
The man basically admitted in his interview: “Yes, I’m at the top, but… delegation, documentation, sanctions...”
Bonoan was not some fresh-faced rookie who wandered in from the street. Manny had been there his whole life. From engineer to executive, decade after decade, and built the bureaucratic maze that served as his alibi.
He raged a little against theft and vowed reform, before pleading cluelessness in all dialects of men protecting position, instead of institution.
That explanation made him look more compromised. Because if you’re Secretary of Public Works and P5.9 billion worth of phantom concrete had already been “completed and paid,” either you were complicit, or you’d lost all control of your department. Both answers are fatal.
If the DPWH chief stayed, it would confirm a government that can live with make-believe. It would teach every contractor this fraud is survivable.
But what stopped Bongbong from firing him? We saw him axe his top cop without much as a big head, but the wall-builder who forgot the wall still merited the trust of the President? What else the President fears Bonoan can do on his own volition?
And he’s supposed to be very angry? Oh really now? Bongbong is misallocating valuable emotional resources, furious at the wrong things, calm at the dangerous ones.
We’ve seen angrier Filipinos. And, unlike the President, we actually wanted Bonoan crucified. Real anger makes heads roll. Otherwise, the President is just furious at corruption because it made the news.
Marcos needed Bonoan to absorb the bullets. But the longer he stood, the clearer it was who’s hiding behind him.
You may think of it as a plane: the black box records everything, all the crashes, the mistakes, who’s mayor’s girlfriend’s son’s friend got a bridge contract in 1987. That’s how deep it can go.
Bonoan is the black box of DPWH. Might be why Bongbong kept him. Patted him on the back. “Great job, Secretary Bonoan.” He or someone at the President’s ear needed him, or this whole thing goes down.
But now he resigned, watch closely. See how many fawning sycophants in Congress suddenly start sweating what Bonoan might remember.
If, after resignation, the system let’s Bonoan walk, then corruption in this country has achieved what engineers call “structural integrity”, where nothing can collapse because nothing was ever standing.
Here’s where Vince Dizon comes in. The high-performing genius of DoTr, now new DPWH Secretary.
Do we clap? No, we stand. Slow, cold, deliberate applause. Because we’ve seen how Dizon became a demolition job. And demolition is what you do when the structure is rotten.