*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
Tahimik na dumating ang retiradong Heneral—matikas ang tindig, banayad ang kilos, dala ang disiplina ng isang buhay na inalay sa serbisyo. Walang yabang sa kanyang pagpasok sa opisina na iniatang sa kanya ng Pangulo. Walang kayabangan, walang pag-aastang makapangyarihan. Tanging layunin lang. Bumuo siya ng pangkat na binubuo ng matatapat at marangal na mga tauhan, mga taong naniniwala pa na ang pamahalaan ay hindi palengke kundi misyon. Sama-sama nilang sinimulan ang matagal nang iniiwasang gawin: linisin ang isang opisina na matagal nang kinakalawang sa loob dahil sa korupsiyon.
Sinala nila ang mga dokumentong matagal nang tinatalikuran ng iba.
Tinatanong nila ang mga gawaing walang nagtatapang na usisain.
Hinamon nila ang mga ritwal ng katiwalian na itinuturing nang “normal.”
At unti-unti, muli na namang huminga ang opisina.
Ngunit walang mas nakakatakot sa mga tiwali kaysa sa isang taong hindi nabibili, hindi nababaluktot, at hindi kayang takutin. At sa mga anino, may isang matang nagmamasid—isang lalaking nabubuhay sa kadiliman, na ang kapangyarihan ay hindi nagmula sa boto ng taumbayan kundi sa mga bulong na kanyang ipinapasok sa tenga ng mga nasa trono.
Ang lalaking ito, ang hindi halal, ang maestro ng pailalim na impluwensya, ang mamaya’y tatawaging Makabagong Pilipinong Rasputin.
Hindi siya natatakot sa mga inutil.
Ang kinatatakutan niya ay integridad.
At ang integridad ng Heneral—matatag at hindi matitinag—ay isang panganib na hindi niya kayang pagtiisan.
Sa isang iglap na kasinlansa ng saksak sa dilim, pinaalis ni Rasputin ang Heneral—hindi dahil sa korupsiyon, kundi dahil nilalabanan niya ito. Hindi dahil nabigo, kundi dahil nagtagumpay. Hindi dahil banta siya sa bansa, kundi dahil banta siya sa aninong inalagaan ni Rasputin sa loob ng maraming taon.
Lumabas ang Heneral nang tahimik, tulad ng kanyang pagdating. Ngunit ang katahimikang iniwan niya ay nag-ingay nang mas malakas kaysa sa anumang pahayag sa media.
At doon nagsimula ang pagyanig kay Rasputin.
Ang kanyang pagbagsak ay hindi lamang pagkatanggal sa puwesto—ito ay isang pagbubunyag. Nayanig ang kanyang imperyong itinayo sa mga bulong nang sumabog sa publiko ang iskandalo sa pondo ng flood control—isang iskandalong sumaklaw sa kasakiman at kapalpakan ng mga taong nagkamal gamit ang pera ng bayan. Sa gitna ng pagkabulok na iyon, nakaupo si Rasputin, akala mo’y hari ng dilim, hanggang sa tuluyang putulin siya ng Pangulo.
Ang Heneral, na pinalayas dahil sa katapatan, ay biglang naging simbolo ng kung ano ang tama.
Si Rasputin, na naghari dahil sa takot, ay biglang naging halimbawa ng kung ano ang hindi dapat mangyari.
Ngunit ang pagbagsak ni Rasputin ay hindi simpleng kuwentong personal. Ito ay salamin ng isang mas malalim na sugat sa ating lipunan. Hindi siya umangat dahil siya ay natatangi. Umangat siya dahil pinayagan natin. Dahil may kultura tayong kumakalinga sa mga aninong nagmamanipula, at pumapatay sa mga taong naglilinis.
Ito ang katotohanan na matagal nating iniiwasan:
Hindi anomalya si Rasputin.
Produkto siya ng sistema.
Sintomas siya ng sakit.
At dito muling lumilitaw ang kabuluhan ng kuwento ng Heneral.
Sa kanya natin nakikita kung paano dapat tumakbo ang gobyerno—malinis, disiplinado, tapat, at nakatuon sa bayan. Sa kanya nakikita ang trabahong dapat ginagawa ng bawat lingkod-bayan. At sa kaso ni Rasputin, nakikita natin kung ano ang mangyayari kung tayo ay magbubulag-bulagan, kung paiiralin ang bulag na katapatan, at kung papabayaan ang aninong maghari sa halip na ang institusyon.
Ang totoong trahedya ay hindi ang pag-iral ng isang Rasputin.
Ang totoong trahedya ay ang pagpayag nating magkaroon ng isa.
Ngayon na siya’y wala na, kailangan nating tanungin ang ating mga sarili: Paano natin siya hinayaang lumakas nang ganito?
Ang sagot ay mahapdi, ngunit totoo:
Dahil mas marami ang natutong matakot kaysa manindigan.
Dahil mas marami ang piniling manahimik kaysa magsabi ng totoo.
Dahil mas marami ang naghintay ng “ibang taong lalaban” sa halip na sila mismo ang humarap sa mali.
At sa gitna nito, tanging ang Heneral lamang ang tumayo.
Isang tao laban sa isang impyernong pinalago sa palasyo.
Isang tao laban sa kulturang kayang wasakin ang sinumang matapat.
Isang tao laban sa Rasputin ng ating panahon.
At ngayon, sa pagbagsak ni Rasputin, ang katahimikan ng Heneral ay naging panalo. Hindi niya kailangang magsalita upang mapatunayan ang kanyang katapatan. Hindi niya kailangan ng media para maipakitang tama ang kanyang ginawa. Ang mismong pagkabulok ng Rasputin ang nagpatunay kung gaano kabuti ang taong kanyang sinisira.
Ngunit ang tanong ngayon ay hindi kung bumagsak si Rasputin.
Ang tunay na tanong ay: May natutunan ba tayo?
Kung hindi natin babaguhin ang istrukturang nagluwal sa kanya, may darating ulit—mas tuso, mas tahimik, mas mapanganib. Kung hindi natin sisirain ang sistemang nagpapalakas sa mga anino, ang susunod na Rasputin ay mas lalong hindi nahuhuli.
Ito ang sandali ng paghuhusga ng bayan.
Ito ang oras ng pagmulat.
Ito ang panahong dapat nating piliin kung nais pa ba nating pamahalaan ng mga bulong, o pamahalaang isinasaalang-alang ang taumbayan.
Ang pagbagsak ng Makabagong Pilipinong Rasputin ay hindi wakas.
Ito ang simula ng ating paghusga sa sarili.
Ito ang pagkakataong durugin ang imperyo ng mga anino.
Ito ang hamon na wakasan ang kultura ng takot at palitan ito ng katotohanan.
Kung hindi natin gagawin ito,
madali nating palalayain ang susunod na Rasputin—
at baka hindi na natin siya kayang pabagsakin muli.
Sa huli, nananatiling gintong aral ang kuwento:
ang kapangyarihang galing sa bulong ay pansamantala,
ngunit ang kapangyarihang galing sa katapatan ay panghabangbuhay.
Ang Heneral na pinalayas ay nananatiling marangal.
Ang Rasputin na naghari ay lumisan na walang dala kundi ang bigat ng kanyang pagbagsak.
At ganoon kumilos ang kasaysayan—
nilalagay nito sa tamang lugar ang mga bayani at ang mga mandaraya,
kahit gaano katagal ang kailangan nitong hintayin.
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TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH
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THE MODERN FILIPINO RASPUTIN: ANATION’S RECKONING IN THE SHADOWS OF POWER
*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
He arrived quietly, the retired General—steady in posture, gentle in manner, and carrying with him the discipline of a lifetime of service. There was nothing boastful in the way he walked into the office the President entrusted to him. No swagger. No entitlement. Only purpose. He gathered a team of honest men, the kind who still believed that government was a calling and not a marketplace. Together, they began to do what had long been avoided: cleaning an institution that had been suffocating under the weight of corruption.
They reviewed documents others refused to touch.
They questioned practices no one dared to question.
They challenged the comfortable rituals of wrongdoing.
And slowly, the office began to breathe again.
But nothing threatens the corrupt more than a man who cannot be bought, bent, or intimidated. And in the shadows, someone was watching—a man who thrived in darkness, whose authority did not come from the people, but from the whispers he fed into the ears of those in power.
This man, this unelected operator, this architect of quiet influence, would later be known as the Modern Filipino Rasputin.
He did not fear incompetence.
He feared integrity.
And the General’s integrity, unwavering and unyielding, was a danger he could not tolerate.
In a move as swift as it was cruel, Rasputin orchestrated the General’s removal—not because the General was corrupt, but because he was cleansing corruption. Not because he failed, but because he succeeded. Not because he was a threat to the nation, but because he was a threat to the shadow that Rasputin had spent years building.
The General walked out as quietly as he walked in. But the silence he left behind said more than any resignation letter ever could.
And then, as fate would have it, Rasputin’s own storm arrived.
His removal was sudden, dramatic, and poetic—brought down not by bullets, but by the flood control scandal that exposed the greed he had long woven into the machinery of power. There, in the ruins of his fall, the General’s story resurfaced—not as a footnote, but as the very mirror of what this country has been trying to forget: that power, when misused, eventually devours its own.
Rasputin’s collapse did not begin with the scandal. It began the moment he decided he was larger than the system, larger than the law, larger even than the presidency itself. He mistook proximity for permanence. He believed influence was immunity. He thought he could shape futures with a whisper and erase reputations with a raised eyebrow.
And for a time, he was right.
People trembled in his presence not because he was brilliant, but because he was dangerous. He had mastered the language of shadows—the subtle intimidation, the manipulation disguised as advice, the favors that were actually chains. He created an empire without borders, a government of whispers and silences, sustained not by merit but by fear.
But even shadows forget that they depend on light to exist.
When the flood control scandal exploded into public consciousness, the spell broke. Suddenly, everyone could see what had long been hidden: the informal networks, the quiet deals, the invisible influence that had shaped decisions affecting millions of Filipinos. And when the President finally expelled him from the palace, it was not merely an administrative action—it was an exorcism. The whisperer was gone. The ghost had been cast out.
Yet his downfall reveals something more unsettling: Rasputin did not rise because he was extraordinary. He rose because our political culture allowed him to. He thrived in the cracks of a system that tolerates silence, worships proximity, and punishes honesty. He is not an anomaly. He is a product. A symptom of a deeper sickness that we, as a nation, have never fully confronted.
That is why the General’s story matters.
Because in him, we see what governance could look like—principled, transparent, disciplined, and anchored in public service. And in Rasputin, we see what governance becomes when we allow unelected figures to accumulate power without accountability. His fall is not the victory; it is the mirror. It shows us the cost of allowing shadows to rule while institutions are weakened. It reminds us that a single Rasputin can only rise when too many people choose to look away.
The tragedy is not that one man manipulated power.
The tragedy is that an entire system made space for him to do it.
Now the question for the nation is not whether Rasputin has fallen. He has. The question is whether we have learned anything from watching him rise.
Will we allow the next shadow operator to emerge?
Will we continue to empower the unelected?
Will we keep rewarding cunning over competence?
Will we punish the next General who dares to clean the dirt?
Because unless we change the environment that created Rasputin, another one will take his place. A smarter one. A quieter one. A more dangerous one.
And so this moment—this rare moment when the curtain has finally been pulled back—must become more than relief. It must become resolve. It must become a collective awakening that says: never again will we allow whispers to govern the republic.
The fall of the Modern Filipino Rasputin is not the end of a scandal.
It is the beginning of a reckoning.
It is the reminder that power is borrowed, but consequence is owned.
That shadows can grow, but daylight always arrives.
That truth may walk slowly, but it never loses its way.
And perhaps the greatest irony of all is this:
The man Rasputin tried to erase—the General who refused to bow—now stands taller in the memory of the nation than the man who tried to destroy him. While Rasputin fades into a cautionary tale, the General rises as a quiet symbol of what this country still hopes to become.
Not governed by shadows.
Not ruled by whispers.
Not built on fear.
But led by integrity, guarded by truth, and carried forward by those brave enough to clean what others have dirtied.
In the end, the General walked out with his honor intact.
Rasputin walked out with nothing but his downfall.
And that is how history tells the difference between a servant of the nation
and a servant of himself.
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*About the author:
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.
