Elections 2028: Shady Characters Have Hijacked the Flood Control Issue

By Joey Salgado

Netizens called out a local personality for habagat-weather politicking, a kinder term for “epal.” The day before, the said local personality donned a full-body rain gear, hopped on a scooter, and went around the district with a social media team in tow, obviously intent on pointing out flooded communities and the human misery it brings.

Sadly, the flood control projects seemed to work; no floods, no misery, only shallow canals overflowing with garbage. After defending the social media-flood hunt as public service and denying political motive, said personality brought along celebrity partner for another round of flood-hunting. If that isn’t “epalitics” slash premature campaigning, then what is?

Elsewhere, netizens have been sharing photos and videos of flooded homes and streets, people wading in neck-deep, murky water to get home. The anger is palpable. And they are all directed at corrupt politicians, the same politicians, cynics say, whom most of them will vote back to office in 2028.

Ever since the President exposed widespread corruption in the government’s flood control program last year, politicians and government officials are automatically blamed for floods. Forget climate change, excessive rainfall, our own garbage disposal habits. If there’s flooding, it’s because of corrupt senators, congressmen, local and national officials. And you can’t blame the public.

Corruption will definitely shape voter sentiment in the 2028 elections. The President, embracing his self-appointed calling as anti-corruption crusader, says he will endorse a candidate in 2028 who will continue his anti-corruption drive, a drive that, in the public’s judgement, has sputtered and careened, and after a year, has hardly brought any substantial gains except the arrest of senators conveniently allied with the opposition, whose own pasts have been colored by similar misdeeds.

Civil society groups are hoping the scandal would trigger an awakening of sorts, the possibility that voters, tired of being robbed blind by the same old names and faces, would be more judicious in choosing their leaders, from the national to the local level. But this is not as simple as it sounds.

The flood control corruption issue has been hijacked by personalities with equally shady if not shadier backgrounds, inglorious track records, hidden agendas, and little else to show but name recall. They aspire to replace incumbents implicated, rightly or wrongly, in the flood control scandal. Yes, there are incumbents neck-deep in kickbacks, with paper trails and testimonies certain to lead to indictments before 2028, or enough to shake voter confidence in their self-professed incorruptible image when they seek re-election. Some, however, have been tarred by dubious characters such as the Discayas in testimonies before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, which treated them as whistleblower heroes before they fell from grace, in the manner of the previous committee chair. Those in the know speak of personalities omitted from the Discayas’ now-dubious ledger, and personalities included despite not having contracts with the now-detained notorious couple; no documents, no paper trails, just hand-written entries from a ledger which no one seems to believe except the former Blue Ribbon chair currently detained for plunder. The names just needed to be mentioned in an open hearing, and the political and social media operators took over.

The issue has been muddied and muddled many times over, and repetition has made false allegations a reality in the minds of many voters, such that now, characters with shady pasts are projecting themselves as lily-white alternatives to an electorate scandalized by the whole flood control affair. It’s a never-ending cycle and a cautionary tale that has defined Philippine politics. The late Danny Javier said it first, before Gary Valenciano made it a popular catchphrase: “Iniiwasan na, lalapit-lapit pa, ‘di na natuto.”