From university campuses to church pulpits, from jeepney terminals to digital platforms, Filipinos are gathering not in rage, but in righteous indignation. The recent scandal involving anomalous flood control projects has ignited a wave of protests, culminating in the symbolic “Bilyon People March” on September 21, the anniversary of Martial Law.
This movement is not merely political—it is philosophical. It echoes Friedrich Nietzsche’s warning: “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster… if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you”. The Filipino people, long subjected to systemic abuse, now confront the abyss of corruption with clarity and courage. Their indignation is not blind fury but a demand for justice, reminiscent of Socrates’ pursuit of moral truth in The Republic. “So long as I do not know what the just is,” Socrates said, “I shall hardly know whether it is a virtue or not and whether the one who has it is unhappy or happy”.
In this light, the protests are not just against wrongdoing—they are a collective search for the meaning of justice in a society where it has long been obscured.
The slow pace of reform and the cautious response from the government have only deepened public frustration. While investigations have been launched and officials placed under scrutiny, many Filipinos remain skeptical.
Yet, amid this cynicism, there is hope. The people’s awakening is a testament to what Carl Sagan called “the painful acknowledgment that we’ve been taken,” and the refusal to remain bamboozled. It is a philosophical act of resistance, a reclaiming of civic virtue in the face of moral decay.
We can always listen to hearings in the two Congressional Houses, and we can issue statements and press releases but if the same do not give rise to actions that buttress accountability, everything is doomed. We can say that if all these are simple rhetoric and optics , the people will still be indignant and will ultimately find a way to quench its thirst for justice. We must however be very careful that we will not become the or mutate into the same evil that we wish to put down.
In the end, people would always want transparency and they would crave for accountability. Whatever one’s politics be or whatever party affiliation he or she bears, the people would demand justice specially on the face of the scandals upon scandals of corruption we discover daily. Right now, we are seeing the slow yet steady rise of indignation and outrage.
As the King of Philippine Movies once said Kapag puno na ang salop, kinakalos!
