“What happens when the ghost of them all marches in from wherever in the universe he now hides?”
When we wrote about the “flavors of the month,” we were thinking of Sept. 23 as this month’s flavor as the ICC had scheduled the confirmation hearing on former president Duterte’s case.
We were wrong. Not only has that hearing been postponed, many ghosts in this ghost month came marching into town. So many “flavors” are vying against each other.
On the peak of the ghost month, Sept. 6, the die was cast on the beheading of Chiz Escudero as Senate President. A very powerful personality talked to two senators to come up with more than the “13” lucky number. And when 14 were clinched, the 15th signed up as well.
Escudero didn’t have an inkling of what hit him, for while a few senators and the public were glued to the ghastly confessions of the Discaya couple, naming several congressmen as the purveyors of flood control corruption in cahoots with DPWH officials, stealthily, the resolution declaring him replaced by his “republics” was being signed.
Deliberately excluded from the wooing process that precedes such a major political shift were the Duterte loyalists: Bong Go and Bato, Marcoleta and Imee and, of course, Robinhood. The three others were parts of the Chiz tag team: Alan, Joel and Jinggoy.
Two days after the ghost month peaked, the die was cast, ironically on the feast day of the Virgin Mary.
The Discayas ghastly confessions were eclipsed by the ghostly manner which replaced the nimble Chiz.
And since there is now a new majority in the Senate, speculation on who would replace Marcoleta in the Blue Ribbon Committee was rife Monday evening. But the new SP cut short the rumor mill by declaring that it would be Ping Lacson.
Expect Ping Lacson to dig deeply and thoroughly in uncovering the mess behind “Philippines under water.”
As in, “walang sasantuhin,” whether new or old ghosts.
But last Tuesday in the HoR, the InfraCom chaired by a former urban poor commissioner and Kabataan party list congressman turned instant Bicolano through LRay Villafuerte’s in-house party list, opened the door for a new set of ghosts.
Their “star” witness, Bulacan’s assistant district engineer earlier held for contempt by the Senate, turned the tables on the Discaya’s list of HoR members by naming two senators of the realm, now both in the Senate minority.
His revelation hit the day’s charts, complete with photos of thousand-peso bills stacked up by the hundreds of millions inside the first district office of Bulacan, mismo! Nothing could be more shocking. Nothing could be more brazen.
Walang tinatago. Walang kahihiyan. Lantaran na, as in a full monty of their deeds.
And the line of questioning by the honorables of the HoR showed a clear tit for tat against the other chamber that fancied itself as “august.”
Sunugan na ng bahay!
The two senators were vociferous in their protestations of innocence, charging a demolition job to sully their reputations.
Their protestations preceded the bombshell that Ping Lacson was to deliver — his promised Part Two privilege speech, this time showing the unconscionable manner by which the Bulacan Group of Contracting Criminals (BGC Boys) milked us taxpayers dry to finance a lifestyle that would make even the old rich drool.
Ghost projects were awarded, completed and paid in impossibly quick construction timelines, clearly a case of fraudulent monetization of budgetary insertions, and with several casinos used as laundromats.
Then again, a DPWH undersecretary for planning had the effrontery to offer P500 million worth of inclusions in the president’s yet to be submitted budget, the 2026 NEP, “for now” to a newly proclaimed senator who she probably thought would be SP by the time SONA was delivered. Together with that voluntary “sip-sip,” she would take care of everything, from road right of way to all the processes to ensure satisfactory compliance.
“Sinindikato ang gobyerno,” Toby Tiangco of below sea level Navotas decried.
The ghosts of corruption most foul are now marching in droves, while the houses of Congress are in mutual destruction mode to save their own skins, and even protect the system that they have milked through the years for personal benefit.
But in this ghost month of the year 2025, a multitude of ghosts have swarmed into the national consciousness, kindling an outrage short of how Indonesians are expressing pent-up resentments against their government.
What lies ahead?
And by the way, where has the biggest ghost of them all, Ako Bicol’s Zaldy Co gone?
What happens when he marches in from wherever in the universe he now hides?
