The situation, in brief
You notice it now, don’t you? A certain awkwardness when someone posts a designer bag online or shares a photo from a long-saved-for trip abroad. Suddenly, a thought pops up: “Baka galing sa flood control ‘yan.” And just like that, what should’ve been a celebration of hard work is treated like a…
You notice it now, don’t you?
A certain awkwardness when someone posts a designer bag online or shares a photo from a long-saved-for trip abroad.
Suddenly, a thought pops up: “Baka galing sa flood control ‘yan.”
And just like that, what should’ve been a celebration of hard work is treated like a crime scene.
It’s not paranoia. It’s the climate we live in, poisoned by the flood control scam and all its rotten cousins.
People who bled for their money—OFWs, small entrepreneurs, professionals who never saw daylight because they were grinding—now hesitate to show what they earned.
Imagine that: shame attached to success, because corruption has warped how we see prosperity itself.
Even the property sector feels the chill. Economist Emmanuel Leyco pointed out that high-end condos are suddenly hard to move, not because folks don’t have cash, but because buyers fear being mistaken for bagmen for corrupt politicians.
Of course, there’s nothing sinful about treating yourself. A family car, a nice vacation, a premium condo unit, even a luxury splurge once in a while: why not, if you worked for it?
Plenty of Filipinos have hustled for years, skipped meals, endured homesickness abroad, just to get here. That’s legitimate success, and it deserves applause.
But here’s the rub. The kids of politicians and flood control contractors, the so-called “nepo babies,” flood Instagram with private jet selfies, branded wardrobes, champagne brunches.
Their wealth, literally siphoned from public funds, makes it look like all affluence is dirty. And because of them, everyone else who lives comfortably is tainted by association.
It’s obscene, and it’s unfair.
If society keeps linking achievement to theft, why strive at all? Why burn yourself out building something honest, if flaunting the result makes you a suspect?
Corruption doesn’t just siphon billions; it kneecaps ambition. It convinces people that the game is rigged, that success is suspect, and that dignity has a price tag.
The cure isn’t complicated, but it is hard. Go after the shameless. Strip their ill-gotten gains. And maybe then, ordinary workers and entrepreneurs can breathe again—can post that bag, that car, that condo, without second-guessing themselves.
We can’t let the thieves and their spoiled children dictate what “success” looks like in this country.
Honest Filipinos—the ones who toiled, scrimped, endured—deserve to be proud without apology.
Until corruption is cut out at the root, every peso honestly earned will carry a shadow it doesn’t deserve.
