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Performative justice: Now showing 

Raymund E Narag, PhD

The Filipino criminologist

#thefilipinocriminologist

The Senate inquiry has become less an exercise in accountability than a theater of indignation. Performative justice, as they call it in the textbooks. A palabas. Senators pounding tables, raising voices, feigning tears—asking questions so bombastic you could almost see the cameras zoom in for effect. They act as though by playing prosecutors in prime time, they can erase their fingerprints from the crime scene.

But the performance is hollow. The questions are shallow. The outrage scripted. What we witnessed was not investigation but spectacle—an attempt to ride public fury and repackage themselves as tribunes of the people. Theatrics meant to distract from the truth that many of them are as enmeshed in the rot as the contractors they pretend to grill.

Political scientists have long written about this. They call it grandstanding: the tendency of lawmakers to use hearings not to solve problems but to project moral superiority. In the Philippines, it’s compounded by patron-client politics: contractors win bids not by merit but by padrino. Procurement “reforms” are paper shields. The Commission on Audit points to anomalies but lacks teeth to enforce. And so the circus repeats: senators acting shocked, the media covering the noise, the people left none the wiser.

If the senators were serious, they would have asked harder questions. Questions that slice through the layers of patronage, the machinery of corruption, the collusion between politicians, bureaucrats, and businessmen. Questions that could map the anatomy of this rot and put names to the faceless. But those were the very questions avoided—because they would have implicated their friends, their financiers, and sometimes themselves.

Instead, we got a clown show: questions asked without preparation, meant to corner enemies but ricocheting back at the clowns themselves. Most telling of all, the “friendly” contractors, the ones tied to their own kaibigans, were spared. No grilling. No exposure. A clean pass.

This was not oversight. This was cover-up dressed as outrage.

Questions they should have asked

Based on research into Philippine public works corruption, procurement practices, and congressional inquiries, here are ten questions that pierce where it hurts:

 1. Bidding process – Who sat in the Bids and Awards Committee that awarded these contracts, and what is their relationship to sitting politicians and contractors?

 2. Political connections– Which senators, congressmen, or local officials endorsed or “sponsored” these contractors during the bidding process?

 3. Campaign financing – How much did these contractors donate, directly or indirectly, to candidates in the last two election cycles?

 4. Subcontracting chains – Were these projects subcontracted multiple times, and if so, who profited at each level before actual work was done?

 5. COA findings – Did the Commission on Audit issue adverse findings, and if yes, what specific irregularities were noted and why were they ignored?

 6. Ghost projects– How many of these projects exist only on paper, and why were certificates of completion signed despite absence of actual infrastructure?

 7. Community consultation – Were affected communities consulted before project approval, and where are the records of such consultation?

 8. Project inspection – Who signed off on inspections and accepted substandard or nonexistent work, and what sanctions were applied to them?

 9. Tax records – Do these contractors’ tax filings reflect their government earnings, and if not, why has the BIR not investigated?

 10. Pattern of capture – Do these contractors appear repeatedly in DPWH contracts nationwide, and what explains their monopoly despite repeated failures?

We don’t need another Senate circus. We need an independent commission of citizens—not beholden to campaign donations or political friendships—to conduct this investigation. Scholars call this “insulation”: protecting oversight from capture. Only such a body, with real subpoena powers and public trust, can cut through the web of corruption.

We owe it to our children, if not to ourselves, to fix this once and for all. Not another palabas. Not another season of outrage without consequence.