‘For the love of money’

The arrest of nine of the 16 accused of graft and malversation in the P289.5-million road dike project in Naujan, Oriental Mindoro, awarded to now-resigned Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co’s Sunwest Corp. marked the first concrete sign that this administration is serious about prosecuting officials who allegedly pilfered state coffers with impunity.

That’s a good start, but where are the big fish?

The Sandiganbayan has already ordered the arrest of Co, who has long escaped abroad and prefers to hold court through taped revelations made in a striptease fashion from an undisclosed location. His strategy, familiar to crisis management experts, is to divert attention from his deeper involvement in the flood control mess by throwing mud at other government officials.

Former Department of Public Works and Highways engineers Henry Alcantara and Brice Hernandez testified at the Senate blue ribbon committee hearings that Co had secured as much as P86 billion from DPWH contracts since 2016 (see “Ex-DPWH chief Bonoan cleared to leave for US,” News, 11/12/25). However, in his latest video statement that he posted on Facebook on Monday, he denied receiving any kickbacks, insisting that the funds only passed through him.

Resigned DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan is himself out of the country. He flew to the United States on Nov. 11, just three days before former DPWH Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo implicated him in the kickbacks scheme at the DPWH under his watch (see “Emotional Bernardo pins down mentor Bonoan, Cabral,” News, 11/14/25).

The public is becoming increasingly impatient by the day, waiting for the formal charging of the eight former and current senators implicated by both Bernardo and Alcantara, as well as the 17 House members mentioned by mega-contractor Pacifico Discaya, for their involvement in the kickbacks scheme related to DPWH projects. Hernandez added several House members from Bulacan who also pocketed kickbacks. And what happened to the 15 contractors who secured P100 billion of the P545-billion budget for flood control since 2022? Ombudsman Crispin Remulla, who is busy as a bee these days, has vowed to have the guilty jailed before Christmas.

Obscene consumption. The haunting image left by confessions—if we can call them such—of former DPWH Bulacan first district engineers gambling away taxpayer money in glitzy casinos with gusto, even incurring P950 million in gross losses and driving around in luxury cars, will continue to boggle the minds of the majority of us who have limited means to indulge in such luxuries. Adding insult to injury, this flood-weary country has been relentlessly inundated with stories of corrupt politicians receiving kickbacks from substandard and ghost flood control projects.

These taxpayer-funded projects could have prevented the unnecessary loss of lives, livelihoods, and properties during the recent storms that buffeted our country, a grim reality that would continue to mire this archipelago situated in the Pacific typhoon belt.

Before whistleblowers exposed this flood control scandal, the stigma of obscene consumption and scandalous reveling in wealth by the nouveau riche and certain elective officials seemed to have been thrown out the window. This arrogant display of wealth—posted on social media for all to see—has continued to exacerbate the social divide between the haves and have-nots, adding to the misery of nearly a quarter of Filipino families who have been experiencing involuntary hunger, according to the latest Social Weather Stations survey.

Counterfeit god. Why would holders of public office choose to shamelessly betray the public trust? Greed is an insatiable desire. How much is enough? Just a little bit more, billionaire John Rockefeller once told a reporter.

Greed is not just an offshoot of our modern society’s materialism. It’s the overt expression of the human desire for more, an inner drive to outdo everyone, even at the expense of others. In this raging flood control scandal, the pursuit of ill-gotten wealth is being done at the expense of us all.

In “Counterfeit Gods” (2009), New York Times’ best-selling author Tim Keller discussed the “’culture of greed’ that has been eating away at our souls,” but noted it’s nonetheless hard to detect “because greed and avarice are especially hard to see in ourselves.” He described money as a “counterfeit god” that we could unwittingly idolize and worship, and this form of slavery blinds “greedy people to their own materialism.”

Quoting Friedrich Nietzsche, Keller answered the question of what induces a person to steal or engage in fraud. Nietzsche observed how people of his day had the “terrible impatience at seeing their wealth pile up so slowly,” and thus, “what once was done ‘for the love of God’ is now done for the love of money…”

For Keller, a personality identity based on money “is to be defined by what you own and consume.” He quoted Jesus Christ, who himself cautioned his listeners to be on guard against all kinds of greed, saying “For a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). Indeed, the love of money, not money itself, is a root of all kinds of evil. That message from 1 Timothy 6:10 remains relevant to our day.

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lim.mike04@gmail.com