The Philippines has an interesting way of dealing with corruption: we scrutinize the bearer of uncomfortable truths instead of confronting the truths they carry. We ask who they are, who funds them, what they believe—anything to avoid the harder question of whether what they are saying is true. In doing so, we undermine accountability and make it easier for corruption to persist.
For the third straight day, thousands gathered in the streets under the banner of transparency and accountability. Yet the loudest debate has not been about accountability. It has been about the Iglesia Ni Cristo.
"They're a cult."
"They're politically motivated."
"They're only following orders."
But here is the question that keeps bothering me: If the exact same rally—with the exact same call for transparency—had been organized by university students, business leaders, celebrities, or civil society groups, would we be having this same conversation?
Or would we instead be applauding "active citizenship"?
Political scientists have long observed that people judge the exact same argument differently depending on who delivers it. Psychologists call this source bias or motivated reasoning: our political and social identities often determine whether we accept a message before we have even evaluated its merits. We like to believe we follow facts. More often, we follow tribes.
Perhaps that explains why who is speaking has become more controversial than what is being said.
And that should disturb all of us.
Because corruption is perhaps the only crime in the Philippines where we spend more time investigating the motives of those asking questions than the allegations themselves.
We fixate on the whistleblower.
We dissect the protest.
We psychoanalyze the crowd.
Meanwhile, the public is still waiting for answers about how billions in taxpayers' money were spent on projects meant to protect communities from floods—echoing controversies from alleged irregularities in flood control projects to the Pharmally procurement scandal, where public attention often drifted from the allegations themselves to the politics surrounding them.
Somewhere along the way, outrage became selective.
We celebrate accountability, but only when it comes from people we already agree with.
We praise civic participation, but only when the participants look like us, think like us, and vote like us.
That is not principle. That is preference.
I write this from an unusual vantage point. I am not a member of the Iglesia Ni Cristo. I have, however, worked for NET25 for several years.
No one has ever asked me to convert. No one has ever instructed me what to believe.
What I have witnessed instead is something far less dramatic than the caricatures often repeated online: discipline, preparation, punctuality, volunteerism, and an organizational culture capable of mobilizing people peacefully and efficiently.
You may disagree with its theology, and that is your right.
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But for me, organizational discipline and religious belief are not the same conversation.
We do ourselves a disservice when we pretend they are.
Surveys have repeatedly shown that corruption remains among the top concerns of Filipinos. We complain after every flood, every collapsed bridge, every unfinished project, every budget controversy. We ask why nothing changes.
Yet when thousands of people publicly demand accountability, many of us become more interested in discrediting those raising the questions than demanding answers from those entrusted with public office.
Some have argued that the demonstrations caused inconvenience. They are right. Heavy traffic frustrated commuters, delayed appointments, and disrupted daily routines. Those frustrations are real and should not be dismissed.
But traffic lasts for a day. Public accountability affects generations.
The inconvenience was temporary. The questions raised deserve lasting answers.
After all, the floods these projects were meant to prevent have caused far greater inconvenience—destroying homes, livelihoods, businesses, and, in some cases, lives.
Maybe that is why corruption survives so comfortably here.
We have become experts at questioning inconvenience. We have become less interested in questioning what—or who—caused it.
History offers an uncomfortable lesson. People rarely applaud conviction while it is happening.
Those who challenge prevailing systems are often dismissed as disruptive, inconvenient, political, or dangerous before they are ever understood.
Standing for what is right has never been a popularity contest.
If anything, history suggests the opposite.
The real test of a principle is whether we defend it even when it is carried by people we neither know, like, nor agree with.
Because accountability is either a universal value or merely a slogan we reserve for our own side.
Perhaps the most important question raised by this week's rally is not whether one agrees with the Iglesia Ni Cristo.
It is whether we have become so tribal that we can no longer separate who is speaking from what is being said.
If we cannot, then corruption has already won half the battle.
Not because the guilty have become harder to catch, but because we have become easier to distract.
As long as we spend more time debating who asked the question than demanding an answer to what was asked, those in power have every reason to remain comfortable.
The next flood will not ask who organized the rally.
The next collapsed bridge will not care who held the placards.
The next missing peso will not distinguish between religions, political parties, or social classes.
Public money belongs to every Filipino.
So does the right—and the responsibility—to ask where it went.
It was never about the bearer.
It was always about the truth.
The question is whether we have the courage to face it, the discipline to demand it, and the integrity to defend it—no matter who dares to speak it.
