THAT IS exactly how I felt when I bumped into a social media post of yet another “nepo-baby” who was shamelessly basking in designer outfits, flaunting luxury bags, and seeing the world on board a private jet. Such ostentatious display of probably ill-gotten wealth has gone way beyond insensitivity; no wonder every hardworking Filipino taxpayer found the need to call it outright as systemic corruption.
And the sugar plumbing of these privileged and entitled princesses? Their parents who, by sheer of politically-orchestrated luck, have cornered multibillion-peso flood-control projects while thousands of families in remote towns and coastal barangays remain submerged in flood waters.
According to various news reports from Philstar.com, these contractors, some with paltry capital that will never allow them to even bid for major flood-control projects, somehow pocketed billions — MG Samidan snagged ₱5.02 billion, QM Builders got ₱7.38 billion, Wawao Builders ₱4.2 billion, Centerways ₱5.1 billion, Triple 8 ₱3.91 billion – all while undercapitalized to boot. The gods of fortune from the Department of Public Works and Highways must have smiled on them graciously and granted them their wishes for a one-time, big-time project!
The Senate’s “Philippines Under Water” probe reported that from July 2022 to May 2025, flood-control spending hit an unprecedented ₱545 billion, with only 15 contractors snatching a staggering 20 percent of the pie, or roughly ₱109 billion. These 15 contractors represent less than one percent of the 2,409 contractors accredited by the Department of Public Works and Highways for the flood control projects for the same period.
So, pray tell, are Filipinos rightly enraged by all these? Should this new breed of “nepo babies” be spared from the taxpayers’ wrath?
At the risk of sounding like I condone the online bashing and countless memes, let me put it this way.
For context, the average Filipino worker earns about ₱15,000 monthly. Even if one dares to save every peso, it would take decades to afford a weekend in Bali, or buy a single designer bag. Yet these “nepo-babies” parade this lifestyle as if it were a normal routine on a regular Monday morning. That’s no longer tone-deafness but a flashing neon sign screaming endlessly as “ill-gotten gains.”
You want an even starker contrast? It would probably take a lifetime for a hardworking Filipino minimum-wage earner to even earn and save P800,000.00, which is just a few thousand pesos short of an ultra-posh dinner posted in the social media account of one of the country’s most ridiculed “Disney princesses.”
Let us never forget that when everyday Filipinos bust knuckles and endure stomach supper of instant noodles just to make rent, seeing a privileged influencer sip champagne while her family flushes billions in suspicious contracts is to say the least, infuriating. Why? Because what they parade as normal is actually the byproduct of a corrupt system bellowing into our faces.
So yes, forgive the memes, pardon the harsh words but they should be “called out.” Not just as spoiled brats, but as avatars of a broken, kleptocratic system feeding off taxpayers.
So, the next time they shed crocodile tears for being mocked by netizens, let us remind them of the tears shed helplessly by their countrymen who lost lives, properties and livelihood to incessant flooding.
When they talk about being depressed from online attacks, let us tell them how thousands had almost lost their sanity as they watched their life’s savings and investments washed away by the flood that should have been prevented, or at least minimized by the projects of their contractor-parents.
And the moment they play the victim card and try to squeeze an ounce of sympathy from us taxpayers, let us say it straight into their surgically-enhanced faces – justice isn’t cruelty but overdue accountability.
