*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
I learned the
truth about our justice system not from a courtroom, but from the ruins of the
place where I grew up. Manggahan in Barangay Bagong Lipunan ng Crame was once a
quiet community filled with families of retired soldiers and police officers.
These men had served the Republic through the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, carrying in
their bodies the exhaustion of conflict and the weight of public duty. They
built their lives on land granted with the permission of an American owner.
Later, when President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. issued Presidential Decree No. 2016,
the community felt something close to relief. The decree recognized their
long-term possession and granted them the dignity of security. For a long time,
that decree was their shield.
Then one day,
the shield shattered.
A claimant no
one had ever seen emerged through lawyers whose confidence seemed to signal
something more powerful than truth. A sheriff arrived with a demolition order
for twenty-six houses, yet far more than twenty-six fell. Families who were not
even part of the order watched their walls collapse. Homes that stood since
1952 were turned into rubble. Medals from past service were buried under dust.
Mothers cried over crushed furniture, fathers tried to salvage what remained,
and children watched the familiar shape of their childhood disappear in a
morning.
What made the
tragedy unbearable was not only the destruction, but the silence that
accompanied it. PD 2016 was still valid, still binding, still the law. Yet no
court stepped forward to uphold it. No judge issued an injunction. No
institution questioned why the demolition exceeded its mandate. The law that
once protected the community remained in the archives while the community
itself was swept away.
That is where
corruption in the justice system truly lives—not only in bribes exchanged in
dark rooms, but in the decisions judges choose not to make. Corruption is also
the refusal to enforce the very laws that give meaning to people’s lives. It is
the selective blindness that appears when the powerless beg for help and the
powerful whisper into the right ears.
Manggahan was
my first lesson in this kind of corruption. The Flood Control Corruption
Scandal is my second, and this time it is the entire country learning the same
bitter truth.
Billions were
allocated for flood control—a promise that communities would be protected by
proper drainage systems, functioning floodgates, and solid river defenses.
People believed these projects were their shield against calamity, just as
Manggahan once believed in PD 2016. But the shield was hollow. Many projects
were overpriced. Others were never built at all. Some were built with materials
so substandard they washed away at the first heavy rain. And when the floods
came, they revealed not the strength of the government’s infrastructure, but
the magnitude of corruption within it.
Floodwater
swallowed homes from Central Luzon to Metro Manila. Families stood on rooftops
waiting for rescue. Old men carried soaked sacks of clothes, and mothers held
their children above muddy currents. Roads disappeared into brown water.
Schools and businesses drowned. Lives were disrupted not by nature alone, but
by theft disguised as public service.
And once again,
the justice system watched quietly from the sidelines.
Investigations
stalled. Cases were delayed. Temporary restraining orders appeared at
convenient moments. Complaints were dismissed on technicalities. Officials
implicated in the scandal suddenly found legal shelter from judges who moved
with a swiftness the poor never experience. The same silence that erased
Manggahan now threatens to erase accountability for billions stolen from the
Filipino people.
This pattern is
familiar. It echoes through the country’s history. There are judges who have
been caught fixing decisions for money, judges who issue restraining orders
that benefit criminals and politicians, judges who allow case folders to
mysteriously vanish, judges whose rulings deviate so sharply from the law that
even the Supreme Court calls them malicious, judges who work with prosecutors
and police officers in extortion schemes, and judges who move mountains for the
powerful while burying the powerless under paperwork. These stories surface
every few years, then disappear again under the weight of tradition and fear.
We pretend corruption lives only in the other branches of government. We call
the judiciary the final refuge of justice even when we know some courtrooms
have become marketplaces where outcomes can be bought.
What makes
judicial corruption the most dangerous form of corruption is its invisibility.
When the Executive steals, we see the missing funds. When the Legislature
engages in wrongdoing, we see the padded budgets and unusual insertions. But
when the judiciary is corrupt, the entire mechanism for correcting wrongdoing
collapses. A corrupt judge can bury a case, shield the guilty, destroy the
innocent, and hide behind a robe that too many Filipinos are taught to respect
without question.
This is why
Manggahan and the Flood Control Scandal belong to the same narrative. They
expose a system where truth matters less than influence, where the law bends
toward whoever can manipulate it, and where the people suffer because justice
depends on who controls it. Manggahan was the microcosm of this tragedy. The
flood scandal is its national version.
And yet,
despite everything, people still hoped. The residents of Manggahan once
believed that President Bongbong Marcos Jr., as the son of the man who issued
PD 2016, would defend the community that his father’s decree intended to
protect. They waited for intervention, believing that legacy carried weight.
But no protection came. PD 2016 was ignored, and the community was erased. That
failure is remembered now as the nation looks to the same President to ensure
justice in the flood control scandal.
This is the
heart of the country’s dilemma. If a President cannot defend his father’s
decree when it matters, can he defend the Filipino people from corruption on a
massive scale? If he could not intervene for a small community of veterans
wronged by a corrupt process, can he intervene for millions who were wronged by
a corrupt network? The people are left wondering whether justice can still be
expected, or whether justice in the Philippines has always depended on who
stands to benefit from its absence.
The truth is no
longer avoidable. Corruption in the Executive is being exposed. Corruption in
the Legislative is being exposed. And now, the Judiciary must be exposed as
well. We cannot continue pretending that the courts are untouched by the rot.
We cannot demand accountability from politicians and ignore the judges who
enable them. We cannot fix the country if the very institution tasked with
delivering justice is compromised.
Judicial reform
is no longer optional. It is urgent. It is necessary. And it must include the
possibility—not the mere suggestion, but the real and enforceable
possibility—that corrupt judges will go to jail. Not reprimanded. Not quietly
retired. Not transferred. Jailed.
Because a
nation cannot heal when justice itself is corrupted. And a people cannot trust
a system that has repeatedly abandoned them.
Manggahan
taught us what happens when the courts fail a community. The Flood Control
Scandal is teaching us what happens when the courts fail an entire country.
These are not isolated stories. They are warnings. And if we ignore them, we
will have no right to ask why our nation keeps breaking in the same places.
When justice
becomes the crime, the whole country becomes the victim. And unless we confront
the corruption inside our courthouses, the tragedies we have lived through—both
on land and under water—will repeat themselves again and again.
