CORRUPTION CRIPPLES GOVERNANCE

CenPEG Issue Analysis 02

Center for People Empowerment in Governance

03 June 2026

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." 

Corruption is a thorn in the center stage of Philippine politics.

Just look at the Senate. Gone are the "glory days" of the Philippine Senate - the post-WWII era from 1950s-1990s, a period renowned for producing intellectual giants, intense patriotic debates, and statesmen of the highest caliber, among them, Claro M. Recto, Jose W. Diokno, Jovito Salonga, Joker Arroyo, the Tanadas, and author Renato “Ka Tato” Constantino.

Sourly, most of today’s senators are engaged in mudslinging politics. The upper chamber has descended into theatrics, chaos, and physical threats bereft of intellectual discourse and eloquence of yesteryears. With some exceptions, the Senate is considered by many Filipinos as a sham spectacle.

Today, people view politics as a joke due to the absurdity of political gaffes, campaign theatrics, and broken promises. In newspapers it is a perennial issue in opinion columns. It is the predominant issue for generations that ruffles no more people as it is widely seen as a realpolitik, albeit, as part of the country’s political culture and nothing can be done about it.

Corruption infests the entire state legislature and executive bureaucracy. Courts are also contaminated.

Year in and year out, corruption sparks public indignation through protest rallies across the country as billions of public money are wasted amid chronic poverty among millions of people.

So entrenched is corruption that it has torn apart the nation’s political system in the Senate, public trust is at the bottom pit that some concerned Filipinos are now calling for its abolition. There is now an emerging clamor to restore the death penalty upon the belief that capital punishment will end this scourge.

The political thorn stormed the headlines yet again in July 2025 in the wake of reports of massive plunder in the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). The finance department estimated that in 2023-2025 as much as PhP119 billion was lost to corruption, kickbacks, and "ghost" projects in flood mitigation alone. A senator - Panfilo Lacson - estimates that out of PhP2 trillion spent on flood management over 15 years half of it was pocketed. Greenpeace, on the other hand, estimated up to PhP1.1 trillion was lost to corruption across agencies since 2023, with the DPWH holding the bulk of the questionable projects.

Recent nationwide polls indicate that 94 percent of Filipinos believe corruption is widespread in the Philippine government.

The widening inquiry and public backlash has led to the resignation of top officials including former Public Works Secretary Manuel Bonoan, massive asset freezes, as well as plunder and graft probes filed before the Ombudsman.Recently, the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan issued an arrest warrant for Sen. Jinggoy Estrada in his non-bailable plunder case arising from his alleged receipt of PhP573M worth of kickbacks from flood control projects. Upon arrest, the senator was to be committed to the new Quezon City jail in Barangay Payatas.

Thrice accused of plunder, Estrada has been jailed twice. His three plunder cases and detainment history include the jueteng scandal (numbers gambling, 2001) and pork barrel / PDAF scam (2014, jailed for three years).

Aside from Estrada, other senators are facing corruption allegations, likewise primarily in connection with kickbacks in government flood control projects and past pork barrel scandals. Joel Villanueva was implicated by the justice department and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in a multibillion-peso flood control corruption scandal involving alleged kickbacks; Senate President Francis Escudero was named in the same DOJ/NBI flood control probe regarding potential fund anomalies while facing unresolved complaints related to election campaign contributions connected to government contractors; Duterte protégé Cristopher Go, Mark Villar (son of former Senate President Manuel Villar), and sister Camille – were linked to cases of infrastructure and flood-control budget misallocations.

Sen. Ramon Revilla, Jr., an actor-turned-politician, faces plunder and two counts of graft filed by the Ombudsman, also in connection with the flood control project corruption mess. Revilla Jr. was jailed for four years but was ultimately acquitted of corruption and plunder charges regarding his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) in 2018.

In all, several incumbent and recently arrested Philippine senators are facing allegations or warrants of arrest for plunder, graft, and crimes against humanity. Aside from Jinggoy Estrada (plunder with no bail) are Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa, wanted by the ICC for his alleged involvement in crimes against humanity during the prior administration's anti-narcotics campaign; and Christopher "Bong" Go, implicated in corruption probes regarding public works contracts, and faces potential charges linked to the ICC case.

In short, six of the current 24-member Senate have pending cases in infra and flood control projects and other anomalies.Moreover, the Senate has been rocked by an unprecedented wave of controversies, including a dramatic lockdown and a legislative standoff. The recent turmoil stems from deep political division, institutional standoffs, and issues surrounding accountability among its members. Dela Rosa, Duterte’s police chief when he was Davao City mayor, is also being arrested for alleged crimes against humanity and will be brought to the Hague, Netherlands to face possible trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

On May 11, the Senate was wracked by a coup involving its presidency. In the blitzkrieg leadership shakeup, 13 senators voted to declare the chamber's leadership positions vacant, unseating then-Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III and installing Alan Peter Cayetano as the new senate president. (Cayetano was the losing vice-presidential candidate and teammate of Rodrigo Duterte in the 2016 national elections.)

The sudden overhaul was orchestrated by senators allied with the Duterte family. It coincided with two major national events: the House of Representatives passing articles of impeachment against Sara Duterte, and Dela Rosa taking protective custody in the Senate to evade an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC).

For hundreds of years, the executive bureaucracy and legislature have been mired in systemic corruption or the abuse of public power for private gain, ranging from "petty" daily administrative bribery to "grand" embezzlement of public funds and kickbacks. It spreads throughout high-level political appointments, routine citizen-to-government transactions, and the local government units (LGUs).

Systemic corruption in the Philippine bureaucracy dates back to the Spanish colonial years (1521–1898) and, during the American colonization, was institutionalized as a survival mechanism and later exacerbated by unequal socio-economic structures.Systemic corruption is inextricably linked to socio-economic structures as well as electoral politics in a country where democracy is perceived to be in form only with no substance.

Introduced by American colonial rulers, elections succumbed to elite capture entrenching rent-seeking and political patronage that favored to wealthy families and oligarchs. Every election renews the system of family dynasties who have dominated national and local politics. In recent past, these dynasties – many linked to corruption - have included the Marcoses, Osmeñas, Diosdado Macapagal and daughter Gloria M. Arroyo, Corazon C. Aquino and son Benigno Aquino III, and the Dutertes – former President Rodrigo R. Duterte and daughter incumbent Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio.

Sara Duterte has been linked to corruption through several major allegations, leading to her impeachment trial and plunder complaints in the Senate. The accusations primarily revolve around the misuse of confidential funds and unexplained wealth.

The county’s weak justice system exacerbates corruption. The institution is widely perceived as failing to effectively address corruption. To illustrate, the Philippines fell to 120^th out of 182 countries in the latest global Corruption Perception Index (CPI) reflecting low public trust, entrenched impunity, and a worsening perception of public sector integrity.

Plugging the holes of the problematic justice system is highly imperative but most efforts have failed to penalize corrupt officials. The systemic failure to penalize corrupt officials arises from systemic delays in judicial proceedings; and a two-tiered justice as shown by a well-documented disparity in how the law is applied. While the system often acts swiftly and harshly against ordinary citizens and low-ranking officials, powerful individuals can navigate the slow legal gears to avoid punishment or secure acquittals.

Yet another wrinkle is political interference: powerful political figures exert influence over investigative bodies, prosecutors, and even judges, undermining the independence of the judiciary and allowing corruption networks, or "state capture," to persist with impunity.

To iterate, while the Senate continues to pass laws and conduct sessions, its performance as an independent legislative body is heavily compromised by political divisiveness, power struggles, and corruption allegations. Public trust and the institution's prestige have suffered tremendously as a result.

Too, the quality of the Senate’s performance is impacted by the time and resources spent on political grandstanding, intra-chamber squabbles, and protecting political allies distract from substantive, independent lawmaking.

Corruption aggravates poverty: Both are bound together in a cyclical, bidirectional relationship where corruption acts as a primary driver of economic hardship, and the resulting poverty reinforces the conditions that allow graft to thrive. This dynamic creates an enduring "poverty trap" that disproportionately impacts marginalized populations. 

Corruption functions as a hidden tax on development, systematically siphoning resources away from those who need them most through several distinct mechanisms. Corruption diverts social expenditures, degrades public services, imposes regressive financial burdens on the people, and immobilizes economic growth.

More, corruption weakens institutional accountability – the poor often lack the legal wherewithal, literacy, and political leverage needed to challenge elite cronyism or safely report extortion. Trapped in extreme poverty, immediate economic survival outweighs long-term civic accountability. This vulnerability is routinely exploited by corrupt actors through vote-buying or clientelism. 

The collective impact of this relationship is a steep rise in income inequality: corruption concentrates wealth upward. It weakens tax collection infrastructure, starving governments of the public revenues necessary to finance equitable, pro-poor economic development. The poor simply suffer from corruption.

Corruption is embedded in the Philippines’ semifeudal and semicolonial society. Leveraged by dynastic power, big-time politicians serve as impediment to social and economic reform that should enhance the poor families’ quality of life.

Change can come only by coming to grips with the basic sources of social inequality such as the unequal distribution of wealth and incomes, the unequal access to quality education and the inequitable incidence of government taxation and spending programs.

Required is a collective activist constituency for governance reform. Few if any of these requisites can be accomplished without the active role of civil society organizations (CSOs) who take the institutions of the state seriously to demand results and strict adherence to the larger set of rules for all of society. These requirements may appear an uphill battle, but in the end, the problem of corruption cannot be solved apart from the problem of institutional and governance reform and of development itself. The means for solving one systemic problem will go a long way toward addressing others.  

AMERICA AND EUROPE ARE IN DECLINE AS GLOBAL SOUTH RISES

Major powers China, Russia, and Iran, which is now under hujuum (attack) by the US and Israel, seek a “new world security architecture” underlined by multipolarity being advanced by the three powers to replace the “law of the jungle” of the hegemons. The new security model also includes Pakistan and the DPRK or North Korea.

The five countries represent nearly 25 percent of the earth’s population. The new architecture model was on the table in May this year. It is culled from the evolving Russian-conceived strategic Eurasian concept that aims to establish a polycentric, inclusive, and indivisible security system across the Eurasian landmass, operating independently of Western-dominated institutions.

The concept’s strategic aims include indivisible security - no state should strengthen its security at the expense of others, effectively challenging NATO's expansion; polycentricity, a geopolitical goal of establishing a multipolar world order that reduces Western leverage and rebalances global power; inclusiveness, focusing on continental independence through dialogue, addressing non-traditional threats like cyber warfare, economic coercion, and environmental concerns.

The world order is transitioning from unilateralism under the bidding of US imperialist hegemonism toward a multipolar world system in an international power structure where three or more countries or blocs hold relatively equal amounts of economic, military, and cultural influence. In this system, no single superpower can dictate global policies, forcing states to rely on complex alliances and negotiations.

The economic collapse of the US and other western powers will hasten the end of imperialism and ring in the new global multipolar system.

Peace and stability is on the world’s cusp. #

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