*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD
One long weekend, I finished the Netflix series Dexter. By day, Dexter Morgan was a trusted forensic expert in Miami’s crime laboratory, decoding crime scenes with uncanny precision. He tracked blood splatters, pieced together fragments of evidence, and helped law enforcers hunt killers. Yet by night, he became a killer himself, binding his victims, chopping their bodies into pieces, and tossing them into the dark waters off Miami. He was both the hunter and the killer—both the law enforcer and the lawbreaker—living a double life that deceived everyone around him.
When I look at the Senate today, I cannot help but see the same paradox. Our senators present themselves as hunters of corruption, enforcers of accountability, guardians of the law. They hold hearings, they interrogate witnesses, they act as if they are policing the budget for the good of the nation. Yet many of them, when the lights go dim, are killers of truth. They chop the budget into insertions, mutilate it into ghost projects, and dump the evidence into the dark waters of bureaucracy. By day, they play detectives; by night, they play butchers.
This is why the possible ouster of Senate President Tito Sotto and the silencing of Senator Ping Lacson is so alarming. They have acted as true decoders, like forensic experts pointing to the blood stains others try to wash away. They have traced the chopped-up bodies of our stolen projects and said to the public: here lies the missing classroom, here lies the collapsed flood control, here lies the road that never was. And because they reveal too much, they are now being stalked by their peers.
It is a grotesque irony. Instead of protecting the law enforcers who expose the crime, the Senate has turned into a hunting ground where truth-tellers are prey. Just like Dexter’s victims bound to his kill table, Sotto and Lacson are being prepared for the chopping block. Their “crime” is not corruption—it is honesty. And in a chamber ruled by Dexters, honesty is a death sentence.
Every insertion is a severed limb of the nation. Every ghost project is another torso discarded. Every overpriced contract is a head rolled into the shadows. And just as Dexter carried his bags into the sea, the Senate carries the bodies of these crimes into the abyss of silence, hoping the people will never know. But unlike the silent waters of Miami, our nation cannot hide its dead. We walk on the broken bones of unfinished roads, we study in skeletal classrooms, we bury loved ones in the absence of healthcare carved away by thieves in power.
The most chilling thought is this: when hunters who are supposed to enforce the law become killers of truth, there is no one left to protect the people. That is what the Senate risks becoming. And if the next to be chopped are Sotto and Lacson, then we lose not just two men, but the last fragments of conscience in a chamber drowning in bloodless crimes.
If Dexter taught us anything, it is that a double life cannot last forever. The truth surfaces, no matter how deep the sea. But the question for us Filipinos is urgent: will we allow our true hunters—the ones who seek evidence and expose the crime—to be chopped by the very killers they have unmasked? For if we do, then we too are throwing our future into the ocean, bagged and weighted, waiting to sink without a trace.
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Dr. Rodolfo “John” Ortiz Teope is a distinguished Filipino academic, public intellectual, and advocate for civic education and public safety, whose work spans local academies and international security circles. With a career rooted in teaching, research, policy, and public engagement, he bridges theory and practice by making meaningful contributions to academic discourse, civic education, and public policy. Dr. Teope is widely respected for his critical scholarship in education, management, economics, doctrine development, and public safety; his grassroots involvement in government and non-government organizations; his influential media presence promoting democratic values and civic consciousness; and his ethical leadership grounded in Filipino nationalism and public service. As a true public intellectual, he exemplifies how research, advocacy, governance, and education can work together in pursuit of the nation’s moral and civic mission.
