WHAT A touching drama we have all been cursed to witness over the past week. Our honorable senators crying live on national television during a Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing. No, it’s not about a most recent national tragedy or a calamity of global proportions. They’re weeping over a scandal they’ve known about for years: the multi-billion-peso corruption in flood control projects.
Their acting? Flawlessly cringy. And their sincerity? As real as a totally inexistent DPWH contractor’s project completion report.
So, here goes our nominees.
Senator Bato dela Rosa for “A Date to Remember.” His delivery of “Please make sure of your answer. 2016?” could very well rival the La Aunor classic, “My brother is not a pig!”
Once again, he brought his full emotional arsenal on the Senate floor. The former tough-talking PNP chief became everyone’s tearful telenovela tito, choking up in disbelief – as if corruption in the Department of Public Works and Highways was some kind of a new drug on the street.
Then there’s Senator Bong Go for the movie “In the Name of the Father.” His role of an amnesia-stricken dutiful son now claims innocence of his involvement on how his father’s construction company cornered large-scale flood control projects in Davao City. Move over Pen Media, here is a lawmaker who knows when to be in the frame and when to disappear completely – especially when things get messy. It’s the classic Go move: be seen when it’s clean, vanish when it’s dirty.
Enter Senator Joel Villanueva for a remake of the Maria Saret 1995 movie, “Bocaue Pagoda Tragedy.” In a scene-stealing performance, he seemed deeply moved – perhaps by the Spirit, perhaps by the billions missing. The “TESDAMan” turned moralist decried the injustice as though he’s spent the last decade living in a prayer room instead of the Senate.
Let us not even forget Senator Chiz Escudero for the only nominated comedy film “Kilay is Life.” The ever sharp-tongued intellectual who gave a new defection to the word forthwith, now delivered a stirring lecture on good governance like he wasn’t married to someone whose beauty masks an even more glamorous obliviousness to graft.
Next is Senator Raffy Tulfo for the hit movie “A Family Affair.” His acting brand is righteous fury, except when the heat is too close to home. Remember the 2023 DOT sponsorship scandal under his sister, then-Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo? That little matter of PhP 60 million in government ads funneled to a Tulfo family-owned media company? So, when Raffy rails against corruption on-air or on the Senate floor, just remember: sometimes, the angriest voices are just protecting the family business.
And finally, good old Senator Jinggoy Estrada for the movie “Anak ni Asiong Salonga”. The man who once faced plunder charges now sheds tears for corruption victims like a seasoned actor returning to his signature role. It’s giving a reboot vibe – same cast, same storyline, different season. Only this time, we’re flooded literally and figuratively.
Finally for god measure, let us all take a bow – or maybe a sob – for President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. in the movie “Iginuhit ng Tadhana,” a remake of his father’s propaganda movie. He managed to choke up during a podcast with Vicky Morales on September 7, 2025, lamenting how “ordinary Filipinos … don’t deserve” this suffering. Can somebody remind our dear president of the countless Filipinos who suffered unimaginable ways during his father’s dictatorial regime? And can someone from the Bureau of Internal Revenue tell him that if truly concerned, he might want to actually pay his family’s P203-B estate tax.
To our dear President and senators, sure you can cry for the cameras, sob for the headlines. Just don’t expect the rest of us to hand you tissues – our hands are too busy making makeshift bridges, and manually “pumping” floodwater from our living rooms right now.
