We Failed the Test of Unity

By Manny Vivas

What just happened — the scandal, the Senate hearings, the so-called “Trillion March,” the online fury — should have been our breaking point. It should have been the moment we finally rose together and cracked the rotten system wide open.

But it wasn’t.

Instead of uniting, we fractured even further. The hearings turned into theatre. The march became another hashtag. The outrage became partisan fuel. What should have been a spark for reform became yet another reminder that Filipinos would rather fight each other than fight corruption.

That’s the hardest truth for me to accept: the scandal didn’t weaken corruption, it made it stronger. It showed the corrupt that no matter how massive the theft, no matter how blatant the betrayal, they can always count on us to stay divided. We gave them armor. We gave them cover. We gave them survival.

I see now that corruption is not just in our leaders — it is in our reflex to defend them, our blindness to excuse them, and our stupidity in letting colors matter more than country.

This was a test of unity. And we failed. The question now is whether we have the courage to admit that failure — or whether we’ll keep sinking, pretending it was only the politicians who betrayed us, when in truth, we betrayed ourselves.