Opinion: The Money Trail No Politician Can Escape
When the government formed the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), the public shrugged. Another body, another acronym, another layer of bureaucracy to bury accountability. But the appointment of Rossana A. Fajardo, the country managing partner of SGV & Co., changes the game.
For the first time, the flood control scandal will be measured not in speeches, but in ledgers. And ledgers don’t lie.
A Commission with Teeth
Fajardo is no political appointee trading favors. She is the country’s top auditor, armed with the full weight of the Philippines’ largest accounting and advisory firm. Her career is built on following the money, exposing inconsistencies, and reading the silences hidden in financial statements.
She is not here to please politicians. She is here to ask the one question that terrifies them most: Where did the money go?
The Flood Control Scandal Meets Forensic Firepower
The flood control projects in Negros Oriental and beyond have been whispered about for months—112 projects, billions of pesos, and a paper trail as muddy as the rivers they were meant to contain. Contractors flagged in the Senate, ghost projects reported on official platforms, and the quiet complicity of lawmakers who looked the other way.
Now comes a Commission capable of peeling back every layer. Procurement systems, bank transfers, contract variations, shell corporations—no longer shielded by jargon or politics, but stripped bare by forensic accounting.
This is not politics. This is evidence. And evidence, once unearthed, cannot be spin-doctored away.
Congress Should Be Nervous
Members of Congress who laughed off citizen complaints should reconsider. Their privilege speeches will not hold against audited numbers. Their alliances with favored contractors will look less like governance and more like collusion. Resistance to the Commission will not appear as politics-as-usual—it will look like obstruction of justice.
And to those who enriched themselves under the cloak of infrastructure, here is the message: this is not a fight you can win with press releases. Your critics no longer carry placards; they carry balance sheets.
Why This Matters
For decades, corruption in infrastructure has thrived because it was too technical, too complex, too hidden in columns of numbers the public never saw. Politicians exploited that fog. But with Rossana Fajardo inside the Commission, the fog lifts. Every peso will be traced. Every contract scrutinized. Every anomaly illuminated.
This is what accountability looks like when stripped of politics and rooted in arithmetic.
The Bottom Line
Floodwaters can be diverted. Public anger can be stalled. But numbers flow toward the truth with ruthless precision. The Independent Commission for Infrastructure now has the one weapon corrupt politics fears most: a woman trained to expose fraud, backed by the nation’s top accounting firm.
Erring contractors, complicit congressmen, and silent enablers should understand: the audit has begun. And in the end, ledgers will be louder than lies.
