In every democracy, elections are supposed to be contests of ideas — equal races among unequal men.
But the May 2025 midterm was never a contest.
It was a coronation.
Not because the people were fooled, but because the people were cornered — trapped inside a system engineered to guarantee the victory of those already in power. What we witnessed was not merely an election. It was the most expensive insurance policy ever purchased by incumbents, paid for not with their money, but with ours.
I. The Flood Before the Storm: AYUDA as Political Currency
Before the first ballot was cast, the nation drowned twice.
Once in the floodwaters that swallowed entire provinces, and a second time in the AYUDA that poured down with the precision of a campaign strategy, not a humanitarian act.
Boxes of goods appeared in barangays with no calamity declarations.
Cash assistance arrived in sitios untouched by storms.
Distribution lines magically grew long in areas where challengers were gaining momentum.
It was not relief; it was rehearsal.
Not compassion; but currency.
And the incumbents — armed with DSWD-linked machinery, congressional insertion lists, and access to local networks — rode those tides like a private army of benefactors. How can a challenger compete against a sitting official who hands out sacks of rice at dawn and flood-control contractors at noon?
The answer is simple: they cannot.
II. Flood-Control Pork: The Most Politicized Water in the Country
The second pillar of this purchased election flowed through DPWH flood-control projects — the country’s largest, dirtiest, and most manipulated budget artery.
We now know, through testimony and whistleblowers, that:
₱100 billion in insertions existed.
A 25% SOP was an “open secret.”
Undersecretaries invoked the President’s name to move funds.
Districts operated like franchises where the price of entry was obedience.
And these projects did not merely shape riverbanks —
they shaped political outcomes.
Flood controls became the perfect political tool:
invisible in execution, enormous in allocation, and profitable for every bagman, broker, and congressman within reach.
If ayuda bought the daily gratitude of voters, flood control bought the loyalty of contractors, who in turn bankrolled the election machinery of their political patrons.
We are told that incumbents had “natural advantages.”
But what we witnessed was not natural.
It was engineered.
III. The Numbers Don’t Lie: 85–90% Retention Is Not Democracy — It Is Capture
COMELEC has yet to issue a formal reelection statistic, but from publicly available data, the truth is undeniable:
District Seats
254 seats contested
Only 19 incumbents were defeated
Implied retention: ≈92.5%
Even if adjusted for term limits and retirees, any honest computation lands between 85% to 90%.
Party-list Seats
At least 11 sitting party-list reps failed to retain seats
Dozens of party-list groups remain controlled by dynasties, businessmen, and established political clans
Dynastic Succession
Across the country:
Term-limited incumbents replaced themselves with spouses, children, siblings.
Midterm vacancies were filled by relatives through special elections.
Party-list seats became safe houses for families adjusting political chairs.
The conclusion is mathematically unavoidable:
The 2025 midterm was structurally rigged—not by cheating at the precincts, but by engineering the field long before election day.
When incumbents retain 90% of seats, when relatives occupy most of the rest, and when ayuda and flood control flow only through those in power, the question is no longer:
Who won?
It is:
Was there ever a real choice?
IV. The Central Argument:
This Was a Bought Election — And the People Were Not the Buyers

An election is stolen not just by fraud.
It is stolen when the conditions make true competition impossible.
A challenger cannot compete
with a congressman who controls:
DSWD field offices
Ayuda distribution lists
Mayors tied to pork
Contractors tied to SOP
DPWH district engineering offices
Private armies disguised as “volunteers”
A challenger cannot compete
when flood-control funds flow exclusively to incumbents who serve as gatekeepers to billions.
A challenger cannot compete
when dynasties rotate seats like family heirlooms.
Thus, the 2025 House was not elected.
It was secured, purchased, prepaid.
V. Why a Mass Resignation Makes Democratic Sense
If the Supreme Court can void an election for “improper influence,”
If a barangay result can be annulled for vote-buying,
If a mayor can be removed for using government resources —
Why should Congress be exempt?
What we witnessed in 2025 was influence on a scale that dwarfs ordinary cheating:
Nationalized patronage
Institutionalized relief-as-campaign-fund
Contractor-backed political monopolies
Budget insertions traded like stocks
A retention rate incompatible with healthy democracy
A system this compromised cannot be reformed from within.
It must be reset.
A mass resignation — voluntary or compelled — is not radical.
It is the cleanest democratic act left.
Let every corrupt official step aside.
Let every dynasty’s chokehold be loosened.
Let the nation rebuild Congress not as a marketplace of favors, but as a chamber of the people.
Democracy did not fail us.
Its gatekeepers did.
And sometimes, the only way to restore a house is to clear the occupants and open the windows.

A nation that has been bought deserves to buy itself back.
And the first price we must pay is courage —
the courage to say that an election rigged by aid, drenched in pork, and guarded by dynasties
is no election at all.
Only in beginning again
can democracy begin at all.