When the Filipino nation becomes the lamb

In earlier surveys, nearly three-fourths of Filipinos in Pulse Asia polls identified inflation as the country’s most urgent concern. Issues like low wages and poverty followed closely, while corruption was cited by less than a third — comparable to concern for job creation.

That changed dramatically after the flood control scandal broke wide open. Exposed in the Senate, House of Representatives, and by the Independent Commission for Infrastructure, the controversy spilled into the streets — from the Trillion Peso March at the People Power Monument to the Baha sa Luneta at Rizal Park. The outcry has spread to key cities and provinces, marking a rare moment of national reckoning.

This time, Filipinos realized that their public officials, elected and appointed alike, together with favored contractors have been bleeding them dry, stealing not just their taxes but their dignity and their children’s future. What once appeared as isolated irregularities in public works has now revealed itself as a vast, coordinated network of collusion and profiteering — an entire system of plunder masquerading as infrastructure development.

By late September, Pulse Asia found that 97% of Filipinos believed corruption in government is “widespread,” 85% said it had worsened in the past year, and a disturbing 59% saw it as a “normal” part of Philippine politics. These numbers are staggering. They reflect not only outrage but fatigue, a moral exhaustion that comes from seeing scandal after scandal end with impunity. The sudden spike in public disillusion followed President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.’s own exposé in his State of the Nation Address and the continuing legislative investigations that have since dominated public discourse.

Corruption, of course, is not new.

It has long shaped the Filipino’s daily struggles — from securing a driver’s license to clearing goods at Customs, paying taxes at the revenue office, or titling a small parcel of land. It thrives in both grand theft and petty rent-seeking. During the pandemic, several high-ranking officials were implicated in the procurement of overpriced, substandard medical supplies — underlining how, even in crisis, some saw opportunity for enrichment.

It is therefore no surprise that the Philippines’ ranking in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index fell further in 2024 to 114th out of 180 countries, and the Heritage Foundation continued to rate the country as merely “moderately free.” The pattern is depressingly consistent: when corruption becomes systemic, governance weakens, investor confidence softens, and citizens lose faith that reform is possible.

Even business sentiment, once resilient, has begun to show strain. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ Business Expectations Survey for the third quarter of 2025, conducted in the middle of the controversy, revealed that while optimism eased, from 28.8 to 23.2, the year-ahead expectations were less optimistic, with the index falling from 51 to 48. This suggests that while businesses may have hoped the scandal would be contained, as the next quarter index shows, they now see it as symptomatic of deeper institutional rot.

The timing of that survey explains much. Only two weeks had passed since the President disclosed that 15 big contractors cornered P100 billion worth of flood control projects over the last three years — five of them with projects spanning the entire archipelago. What initially appeared as negligence soon revealed a syndicated system — a cartel operating with the protection of powerful allies in the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and even within the Commission on Audit.

This is not mere inefficiency; it is systemic plunder, an organized assault on the public treasury. It is theft not just of money, but of opportunity, education, and health. When the budget for infrastructure, schools, and hospitals is siphoned off to ghost projects and kickbacks, the result is a hollow state — grand in budget, weak in delivery, and poor in soul.

No wonder, then, that 34 of the country’s major business groups — among them the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Inc., the Employers Confederation of the Philippines, the Makati Business Club, and the Management Association of the Philippines — issued a joint statement condemning the “historic, massive, and unprecedented corruption scandal crippling flood control projects.” They called it nothing less than a crisis that erodes public trust and endangers national security.

Their demands were both symbolic and practical: empower the Independent Commission for Infrastructure; prosecute all those responsible, no matter how powerful; recover ill-gotten wealth; and institute permanent procurement and audit reforms. They further urged regular public reporting to avoid a cover-up or whitewash. In essence, the business community was telling Malacañang how to govern — calling for decisiveness and integrity long missing from the bureaucracy.

What they left unsaid, but unmistakably implied, is that accountability must reach even into the President’s own circle and family. True reform cannot coexist with selective justice. The credibility of any anti-corruption drive depends on moral consistency — the willingness to uphold the law even when it cuts close to home.

Some leaders, like Senator Kiko Pangilinan, have long argued that the President could demonstrate such moral courage by ensuring the settlement of his family’s P203-billion estate tax. Doing so, Mr. Pangilinan suggested, would show statesmanship and provide substantial fiscal relief that could fund public education and health without burdening small entrepreneurs with new taxes. It would also send a powerful message: that leadership begins with personal accountability.

Economic policymakers and analysts have taken notice.

The Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) recently downgraded its growth projections for 2025-2026 to 5.5-6.5% and 6-7%, respectively. The IMF, in its 2025 Article IV Consultation, cut its forecast to 5.4% for 2025 and 5.7% for 2026. The ADB and AMRO followed suit. Credit rating agencies — Fitch, Moody’s, and S&P — either trimmed their outlooks or maintained them below government targets.

The downgrades reflect not just external headwinds but a loss of confidence in governance quality. As the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has observed, the country’s output gap has turned slightly negative: actual growth is falling short of potential. Corruption is not just a moral failure; it is an economic drag — diverting capital, deterring investment, and eroding trust in public institutions.

The human toll is visible.

Despite improving indicators, poverty and hunger remain stubbornly high. The Social Weather Stations survey of June reported that 49% of Filipino families — around 14 million households — consider themselves poor, and 16% experienced involuntary hunger, with over 3% reporting severe hunger. These are not abstract numbers; they represent millions who still struggle to eat three meals a day in a country touted as one of Asia’s emerging economies.

Regionally, the Philippines’ poverty incidence remains higher than those of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, and only slightly better than Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Myanmar. Despite record budgets and infrastructure spending, the country has remained trapped in the lower middle-income bracket for nearly four decades.

Economist Daniel Susskind, in Growth: A Reckoning (2024), argues that merely expanding physical infrastructure rarely sustains growth. He calls it “capital fundamentalism” — the mistaken belief that pouring concrete automatically yields prosperity. Roads, bridges, and flood control systems matter, but without governance, integrity, and innovation, they become monuments to waste. Susskind reminds us that ideas, not structures, drive long-term growth — and that nations rise when they invest in research and development, human capital, technology, and trust.

The Philippines’ tragedy is that billions meant to build the future have been stolen to fortify privilege. Infrastructure has become not the backbone of progress but the bloodstream of corruption. As long as impunity prevails, every taxpayer becomes an unwilling donor to a corrupt elite — a modern tithe for a false god.

But the deeper tragedy lies in our collective resignation.

Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, in Nudge (2008), warned that greed and corruption persist not just because of bad systems but because of “simple human frailty” — our bounded rationality, weak self-control, and social conformity. When nearly six in 10 Filipinos say corruption is “normal,” we are no longer just victims; we have become accomplices in our own exploitation.

And here lies the piercing metaphor. In the Old Testament, lambs — pure, gentle, and without blemish — were sacrificed daily in the tabernacle, their blood offered for the sins of the people. Their innocence bore the guilt of others. The lamb’s silent submission made the ritual possible.

Today, the Filipino nation has become that lamb. Year after year, it is led to the altar of corruption — bleeding quietly while those in power feast on its lifeblood. Our taxes, our patience, our faith in government — all offered up on the altar of greed.

Yet in Scripture, the sacrifice of the lamb was never the end of the story — it pointed to atonement and renewal. If the Filipino nation is to cease being the lamb, it must reclaim its voice, demand justice, and insist that those who steal from the people be made to answer before the law. Redemption begins not in silence, but in courage — the courage to say, “Enough.”

This is how the Filipino nation should rise again — not as the lamb that is slain, but as the people who finally refused to be sacrificed.