Reopening Floodgate(s)

Floodgate, that trillion-peso-plus flood control scandal that burst its dam last year, flooded the attention of Filipinos for a goodly amount of time and swept away what was left of President Marcos Jr.’s public trust, appears to have been contained — albeit in a limited sense — a few months ago.

The first measure was a change in the Senate presidency, deposing Senator Chiz Escudero and necessarily replacing all committee chairs, especially that pesky Marcoleta who, as Blue Ribbon Committee (BRC) chairman, kept inching the Floodgate investigation ever closer to Malacañang.

Marcoleta was replaced by Senator Lacson, who dutifully kept the inquiry away from his political patrons in the Palace.

Then, when another Senate leadership blitzkrieg that put Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano at the helm threatened to implicate the administration allies once more (with Sen. Pia Cayetano heading the BRC), Malacañang again moved heaven and earth to replace Alan, even resorting to its favorite doctrine of “bend the law” to install a new Senate pro tempore in Sen. Win Gatchalian, who then became “acting Senate President” (whatever that means), and then flipped Senator Villanueva to legitimize a twisted power grab.

Now, with Martin Romualdez’s lackey Sen. Erwin Tulfo safely installed as BRC chair, not only did Tulfo lose no time in locking the floodgates of the Floodgate investigation in the Senate, but he also connived with the puppet Ombudsman for the latter to take over the Floodgate investigation by his lonesome.

Why? Because if the Senate reopens the investigation, even with Erwin Tulfo as BRC chair, there’s no stopping the pesky minority from attending the BRC hearings and raising all sorts of embarrassing issues, while if the Ombudsman investigates, he has sole discretion as to what to do. Convenient, no?

But nature has a way of imposing things we puny humans cannot resist. Thus, as Mother Nature fact-checked Marcos Jr.’s claim last year of 5,500 flood control projects barely two weeks after the boast was made by an unprecedented flooding and its concomitant damage to lives and the economy, so it was that this year the administration’s bluster and bluff of flood control made right was refuted by winds and tide and torrential rains and cities submerged, of mountains and highways collapsed, and people and plantations buried under rocks and soil.

And just like that, the people were reminded of how much was stolen by those who were supposed to represent their interests in the so-called People’s House. Ironically, even the zarzuela that is the Impeachment Trial, designed with the bifurcated purpose of distracting the Filipino from the stench of Floodgate and at the same time trying to knock the Filipino’s overwhelming choice for the next President out of the race, was postponed due to the floods. The sideshow was sidelined.

Now the floods and the elephantine question in the room — who should answer for the stolen flood control money — are again at the forefront. It is, after all, hard to ignore the issue when your house is half-submerged in floodwaters and you’re wading in a filthy lake of flotsam.

The gates have been reopened, and it may be impossible to close them again.