Dealing with ‘inconvenient truths’
These days, the unraveling of some painful, inconvenient truths about our government systems and the people who run it has become our daily mainstream and social media fare.
As one scholar has said, truths are already there, to be discovered and unraveled. But it took us this long to realize that such truths have been there. Many of us have been hoodwinked to believe in lies that have been spun every now and then, to cover up for the most unsettling truths about how our top government officials and their collaborators have forged the Philippines as the third most corrupt country in the world.
Lies that have been invented have also made us apathetic—and even accepting of them. It is exactly what the notable Jewish-American philosopher and linguist, Noam Chomsky, has referred to as the process of “manufacturing consent.” Such lies, woven with such intricate fine threads of seemingly credible “facts” and spoken by distinguished, honorable men and women in government, have been promoted with the intent of generating assent from the greater public. Sadly, vociferously supportive sycophants and trolls have managed to worm their way into the general public’s consciousness to promote these lies as truths.
The saddest part is that among those in government that have called out such anomalous transactions, only a few can claim to have their hands entirely clean of such filth.
Even President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. himself cannot extricate himself from being complicit in these scandals, considering that a close relative—former Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez—has been associated with former Bicol party list Rep. Zaldy Co. We should also take note of plunder associated with his parents, as revealed in the late Sen. Jovito Salonga’s heavily documented book, “Presidential Plunder: The Quest for the Marcos Ill-Gotten Wealth.” (published in 2000)
But perhaps the almost daily unraveling of several truths about what happened in the Department of Education (DepEd) during the interim term of Vice President Sara Duterte is something for the books.
In her latest television statements, Duterte has become like a fish caught in its mouth. She babbled about how DepEd, during her term, “conducted its own investigation” to justify the spending of her huge confidential funds, jointly as the VP and as concurrent DepEd secretary then. As one famous blogger has commented, instead of justifying her actions in the controversial spending of her confidential funds, she has inadvertently admitted to exposing the truth of corruption during her term and that of her father’s.
Huge purchases of outdated laptop computers were made by DepEd in 2021, right in the midterm of then President Rodrigo’s presidency. No less than the Commission on Audit has called out DepEd’s P2.4 billion procurement for laptops that were priced at an exorbitant P58,300 each. No question about the amount if it was used to buy a high-end laptop that runs on updated operating processors. But such computers were running on outdated Intel Celeron processors—remember Windows 98? (I don’t even remember using these computers now).
As reported, in July 2025, the Ombudsman has charged former DepEd and Department of Budget and Management officials for the anomalous laptop procurement transaction.
Then she ranted further that she used her confidential funds to investigate corruption tied to contractors who flourished under her father’s term. One of these firms, according to her own admission, was Sunwest Corp., the one that was awarded the huge laptop purchase. Ironically, Sunwest is registered as a construction company, allegedly owned by the family of Co.
But more inconvenient truths were revealed. Sunwest also grabbed the huge financial deal with the Duterte administration to cash in on health products associated with the prevention of COVID-19 pandemic. Through a special program, Sunwest was able to provide overpriced personal protective equipment (PPEs) like face shields and face masks from 2020 to 2021, making it among the top 10 ranking suppliers of pandemic contracts.
But what was a construction company’s legitimacy as a provider of health supplies, especially during the time of the pandemic?
The same question can be asked of Rodrigo Duterte’s management of the pandemic. To recall, he appointed then undersecretary of national defense, retired Gen. Carlito G. Galvez, as the country’s “COVID Czar.” In this capacity, Galvez managed government operations, including purchases of overpriced vaccines like the controversial Sinovac from China to contain the spread of the virus.
But answers to all these questions were no longer unraveled. Rodrigo Duterte himself absolved all those involved in the questionable purchase of Sinovac vaccines and other COVID-19 PPEs.
(More next week.)
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