The River Does Not Lie

The Philippines has long lived with a wound that never closes. It is not only the floodwaters that swallow homes, nor the roads that crumble under rain, nor the hospitals that wait for medicine that never comes. It is the knowledge that these losses were preventable. Budgets were signed. Funds were released. And yet somehow, almost mystically, the money dissolved into thin air. Corruption does not only steal pesos. It steals futures. It strips dignity. It teaches an entire generation that effort is useless, because those who steal will always swim while those who toil will always drown.

The river does not lie. When the rains come, it remembers every stone stolen, every wall left unbuilt, every pocket lined with money meant to keep the flood at bay. Year after year, the waters rise, not only against homes but against hope itself. And yet, those who hold the power to stop it live untouched on higher ground, watching the current from behind glass towers.

And yet, corruption has become so familiar that it wears a mask of normalcy. Politicians sign projects for flood control, yet the dikes collapse. They promise protection, yet the waters still rise. The people wade through waist-deep floods while leaders glide across banquet halls. This is the violence we rarely name: corruption is not just theft, it is abandonment, betrayal, the quiet permission for suffering to multiply.

I know this because I once worked in government. I saw the machinery up close, and it is one of the reasons I resigned. I was asked to sign approvals for documents that would have released funds without merit, that should never have existed, pressured to make official what my conscience could not accept. I realized then that corruption is not always loud; sometimes it whispers in offices, hides in papers, and wears the face of procedure. But its damage is the same. It robs the many to fatten the few.

In the West, they speak of “nepo babies” children of privilege who inherit positions in film, business, or art because of their famous names. The term has bite in Hollywood, where talent and access can be distorted by bloodlines. But here in the Philippines, the picture is darker, and the word “nepo baby” feels too soft, too playful, almost harmless. Our dynasties’ children are not merely coasting on surnames in a competitive industry. They are living off the wealth carved from public coffers, luxuries bought with money meant for classrooms, clinics, and floodwalls.

Nepotism itself is not always evil. When parents labor with honesty, build businesses through sweat, or create wealth through years of sacrifice, their children deserve to inherit that fruit. It is their birthright, a reward secured by the blood and persistence of their family’s story.

But corruption, on the other hand, poisons this inheritance. It twists privilege into plunder, turning what could have been legacy into theft dressed as destiny.

They are not simply nepo babies. They are plutocrats-in-waiting, rehearsing for crowns they did not earn, certain that power is theirs by birthright. They are scions of plunder, children raised not on the fruits of service but on the rot of corruption. While their parents mastered the art of siphoning, their role is simpler: to inherit without question, to enjoy without labor, to consume without conscience.

And so while the poor rise at dawn to rebuild their homes after every storm, these false heirs rise at noon, shielded from mud and hunger, their hands soft from disuse. They do not work for their parents, nor for their people. They live only to spend what is not theirs to spend. And the cruelest irony is that in this land, where ballots too often bend to bloodlines, their inheritance is not a gift from heaven but a sentence upon the people.

But the story cannot end there. For the same floods that erase walls also expose foundations. Every storm uncovers what leaders tried to bury: the weakness of projects built only on paper, the emptiness of speeches built only on lies. And every storm reveals, too, the strength of ordinary Filipinos; neighbors carrying neighbors on their backs, children sharing rice by the handful, families rebuilding again and again with hands that refuse to surrender.

Not all dynasties are corrupt; some families build their wealth and legacy with integrity. But the houses of plunder are different: they may inherit wealth, yet the people inherit resilience. They may pass down corruption, yet the people pass down courage. And there will come a time when the river will no longer only flood, it will cleanse.

Because a nation is not saved by its scions of plunder. A nation is saved by those who refuse to forget. A nation is saved by those who endure, and yet still believe.

At the end of every storm, the people stand and whisper to themselves:

“Hindi kami pagod. Hindi kami takot. Hindi kami titigil. Ang bayan ay babangon, dahil kami ang bayan.”

Pearl Baclay