“This controversy is not yet a conviction. It is a crossroads”
FLOODS are unforgiving. They remember where money was promised and where it never arrived.
That is why the case of Justice Undersecretary Jojo Cadiz should worry Filipinos far beyond Ilocos Norte, where flood control projects worth hundreds of millions of pesos were awarded to a construction company owned by his teenage son.
The company was new. The owner was 19. The capital was improbably large. And the contracts were conveniently located in the home province of both Cadiz and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Cadiz offered his resignation last December, after investigative reporting exposed the conflict. President Marcos declined to accept it. Cadiz quietly returned to work this month, resuming his post in the Department of Justice.
The administration insists there has been no finding of guilt. That is true. But governance is not merely about guilt. It is about judgment.
And judgment is most clearly tested before a verdict.
Why the Law Leaves Little Room for Comfort
The Constitution is unambiguous: Cabinet members and their deputies may not have direct or indirect financial interests in government contracts (bold letters mine).
“Indirect” is not a technicality—it is the core of the rule. The framers understood that corruption rarely advertises itself openly; it prefers relatives, proxies, and plausible deniability.
No one has yet proven that Cadiz intervened in the awarding of these contracts.
But the Constitutional standard is not proof of bribery. It is the avoidance of conflicts of interest and even the appearance of impropriety.
The Supreme Court has long held that public office is a public trust, not a benefit of proximity to power.
That is why the Office of the Ombudsman’s investigation is essential—and why it should be unflinching.
Conflict-of-interest cases do not require evidence of kickbacks. They require proof that public authority and private benefit stood too close for comfort.
The Familiar Defense: Let the Process Work
Every administration eventually reaches this line: Let the investigators do their job. It sounds responsible.
But Filipinos have learned how often “process” becomes paralysis, especially when those under scrutiny sit close to the center of power.
President Marcos has denied allegations that Cadiz acted as a conduit for kickbacks, including claims made by a fugitive former lawmaker.
Without sworn testimony, those accusations remain legally weak.
But leadership is not measured by the absence of sworn affidavits. It is measured by the standards a president chooses to enforce.
Accepting Cadiz’s resignation would not have been an admission of guilt.
It would have been an affirmation of delicadeza (italics mine) — the idea that public confidence matters even when legal liability is unresolved.
By keeping him, the President chose loyalty over distance.
Why This Story Feels Uncomfortably Familiar
Philippine history is littered with flood control projects that failed to stop floods but succeeded in enriching insiders.
Across administrations, infrastructure has repeatedly become the safest hiding place for corruption—buried in concrete, shielded by technicalities, forgotten once the waters recede.
What makes this case dangerous is not only the alleged conflict of interest, but the timing.
The Marcos administration is already facing growing scrutiny over missing, unfinished, or ineffective flood control projects nationwide. In that context, keeping a contractor-linked official in the DOJ sends a damaging signal: that ethics are negotiable when politics intervenes.
The irony is hard to miss.
The Department of Justice is tasked with enforcing the law, even as one of its top officials remains under investigation for potentially violating the Constitution’s ethical commands.
A Choice Still Available
This controversy is not yet a conviction. It is a crossroads.
President Marcos can still demonstrate that ethical governance does not wait for court judgments, that proximity to power does not excuse poor judgment, and that public trust is not collateral damage in political calculations.
Or he can hope that time, legal ambiguity, and public fatigue will do what floods often do—wash away the evidence and leave the structures of power standing.
But floods have a way of returning.
And when they do, Filipinos will again ask where the money went—and whether anyone in authority cared enough to step aside when questions first arose.
The issue here is not whether Jojo Cadiz is guilty. That is for investigators to decide.
The issue is whether those entrusted with power understand that the highest office in the land sets not only the law’s limits, but its moral floor (bold letters mine).
And in a country that drowns every year, that floor matters.
