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It is being made to look like a new era of transparency. Senators began releasing their Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALNs) with a solemnity that gave the act a semblance of moral revival in public service.
Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla’s decision to lift a Duterte-era memorandum circular that restricted access to these documents was hailed as reform. Yet the earlier directive by then-ombudsman Samuel Martires never actually stopped any official from publishing their SALN. It only made it harder for citizens to obtain them through formal channels. What it protected was not privacy but discomfort.
Now, with that restriction gone, senators have found new confidence in disclosure — or so it seems. The filings, polished and partly redacted, appeared almost at once, as if choreographed. It felt less like a burst of honesty than a managed performance. The message was control: reveal what you want, when you want, and call it transparency.
In Philippine politics, even openness has a script.
And so, senators paraded their wealth like penitents carrying relics but blacked out the names of their companies as if secrecy were a form of devotion. It is a political striptease where one sees much moral posturing, but very little exposure. And in this charade of righteousness, few perform with more polish than Senator Joel Villanueva.
There are few sights more self-righteous, or more disquieting, than the son of a televangelist preaching about integrity. In one Jesus is Lord (JIL) video posted on YouTube, Villanueva, heir to the family pulpit and now the face of a growing political dynasty, sermonized about “Joseph the Dreamer.” The choice of character feels almost prophetic. Who better than the Old Testament Joseph, the dream interpreter turned bureaucrat, to inspire a man whose visions always seem to end in resource allocations?
We are told that Joseph was betrayed by jealous brothers and cast into a pit, only to rise, through divine favor, to power in Egypt. Villanueva’s “pit” was his dismissal from government for misuse of pork barrel funds; his “divine lifting” came when that decision was mysteriously reversed, a private resurrection known only to then-ombudsman Martires and the anointed few.
And thus we have a modern miracle: accountability undone by prayer and paperwork.
Villanueva as Joseph, the righteous man slandered by lesser mortals? That would make his accusers Potiphar’s wife lusting after and clutching at his cloak of innocence, the whistleblowers serpents in the wheat, and the watchdogs and critics a plague of locusts.
He insists, of course, that he has no flood control projects at all, a denial so pure it borders on metaphysical. The projects are ghostly, formless, like acts of faith: infrastructure unseen but believed. They are invisible because they are probably spiritual.
Villanueva also asserts that Senate records will show he raised hell about the flood control projects. Well, he may well have thundered against ghostly infrastructure in committee hearings, his voice trembling with the fury of the clean. But noise is not proof of virtue; it is merely evidence of a microphone.
Quite frankly, to hear Villanueva preach is like watching theology debase itself and collapse into arithmetic. Such a faith has become a merger of pulpit showmanship and political calculation, like a prosperity gospel in a hard hat, with God promoted to the post of contractor in the skies.
Just like in any Villanueva-like church, scandals are cast as tests of faith, every investigation a conspiracy — or persecution — against the chosen. “The Lord blesses the faithful,” followers are told, though one notices that providence has an uncanny habit of favoring a few. In the Villanueva church, the blessings, it seems, are strictly dynastic.
Villanueva’s genius, if one may call it that, lies in his ability to sanctify survival. When cornered by scandal, he does not apologize or retreat. Rather, the ordeal is recast as a divine trial. And so, his dismissal from government became like the trial of Job; his reinstatement, a resurrection.
Every twist of fate, from setback to success, is retold as proof of heavenly favor, as if the Almighty had nothing better to do than manage the career prospects of this senator.
Villanueva would have us believe he is the dreamer, persecuted but pure. But he is hardly alone in this pageant of selective virtue. Around him, the Senate gleams with halos: billionaires and millionaires posing as reformers, dynasts as servants, populists as martyrs of “public trust.” Transparency, in their hands, is actually performance art.
The Independent Commission for Infrastructure has since recommended charges against several of these figures, Villanueva among them, for allegedly pocketing commissions from flood control projects. Cuts of 20% to 30%, according to witnesses. Yet in this Republic of Divine Favor, every exposé is a crucifixion, and every subpoena is a test of faith.
The accused protest with rehearsed indignation. “I welcome every opportunity to clear my name,” they declare, as if due process were a sacrament.
And so the charade continues. Our politicians have perfected the art of appearing virtuous without the burden of virtue.
It is said that sunlight is the best disinfectant. But here, the light merely flatters. What we see is not exposure but the gleam of power, wealth varnished with piety, and, yes, alleged corruption dressed as faith. Their financial confessions are not revelations but rehearsals, each one a moral pageant where every halo is self-issued and every scandal forgiven in advance.
One day, perhaps, Senator Villanueva will dream again, this time of an Egypt where the slaves have grown weary of pyramids built on prayers and pork. Until then, he will likely go on preaching, halo slightly askew, voice trembling with borrowed conviction, while the faithful, trained to mistake power for grace, roar their usual benediction: “Amen, praise the Lord!”
Isn’t that the genius of it all — people clapping and praying while the game goes on exactly the same behind the curtain? Pastilan. – Rappler.com
