Corruption scandals do not just siphon money; they siphon legitimacy. The flood-control fiasco has done more than expose ghost projects, padded contracts, and 25% kickbacks. It has hollowed out government itself, leaving institutions wobbling under the weight of suspicion.

The Palace calls corruption “horrible” and promises independent commissions. Yet every promise is read not as reform but as damage control. When the Speaker of the House resigns under a cloud, when senior lawmakers are named in sworn testimony, when Cabinet officials fall, what we see is not accountability but erosion: a government forced to retreat, step by step, from the public’s trust.

Every resignation becomes less an act of responsibility than an admission of fragility. Power, once projected as unassailable, suddenly looks brittle.

Congress is both investigator and suspect. Hearings turn into theater, where those who should be in the dock preside at the dais. Denials are issued faster than evidence is examined. Conflict of interest is not theoretical; it is live, staining every proceeding. The institution meant to hold others accountable is instead consumed by its own rot.

The Department of Public Works and Highways, long burdened by inefficiency, now stands accused of being little more than the cashier’s window for congressional “insertions.” Even legitimate projects risk being dismissed as rackets.

Oversight bodies, COA, Ombudsman, Judiciary, now face a crucible. Act decisively, and they may salvage institutional credibility. Falter, and they become accessories to collapse.

For ordinary Filipinos, this is not an abstract scandal. It is the dike that collapses, the barangay swallowed by flood, the classroom under water. Every peso stolen from flood-control projects is a death sentence written in advance of the next typhoon.

But beyond anger lies cynicism. The more people see exposés that lead to nothing, the more they conclude that democracy is incapable of cleansing itself. And in that vacuum of faith, the temptation of authoritarian shortcuts i.e. “discipline,” “strongman rule”, grows stronger.

What weakens a government is not only scandal, but the inability to respond credibly to scandal. What hollows out institutions is not only corruption, but the certainty that accountability will never follow.

The flood-control scandal has already claimed projects, reputations, even a Speakership. But its deeper casualty is trust in government, in institutions, in the very idea that democracy can defend itself from the predators within.

This is the mark of a crumbling state: not just battered by floods of water, but eaten away by floods of corruption. And when institutions collapse, it is not the corrupt who drown first. It is the people.