While they are

 While politicians are busy with Senate coups, impeachment battles, ICC arrest drama, and walkouts — I want to remind everyone what actually matters to us as tax-paying Filipinos.

We are paying taxes every single month. VAT on everything we buy. Excise on every liter of fuel. Income tax from every paycheck. We are not paying these for political theater. We are paying these for public service. And right now, the people spending our money are spending all their energy protecting themselves instead of serving us.

So let me put the spotlight back where it belongs.

₱805 billion in alleged flood control kickbacks. Where are the convictions? Names have been named. Testimonies are on record. Assets have been frozen. But nobody is in prison. We need this resolved — not buried under a hundred other headlines designed to make us forget.

₱60 billion stolen from PhilHealth while the agency ran a ₱356.6 billion deficit. Hospitals went unpaid. Cancer and dialysis programs were gutted. Dr. Tony Leachon filed a plunder case against the officials responsible. That case needs to move forward without obstruction. Those are healthcare funds for sick Filipinos — not discretionary spending for politicians to redirect.

Typhoon season starts next month. The flood control infrastructure that ₱545 billion was supposed to build between 2022 and 2025 is still incomplete — because ₱118 billion of it went to ghost projects. Real typhoons are coming. Real floods are coming. And real Filipino families will be standing in waist-deep water in their living rooms because the walls that should have protected them were never built. We are expecting zero preventable deaths this season. Zero. The government needs to fulfill what it should have fulfilled long ago.

That's what matters. Not who sits as Senate President. Not which faction wins the impeachment vote. Not which senator gets "protective custody" from what arrest warrant. Those are their problems. Flood control, PhilHealth, and justice for stolen public funds — those are ours.

Every hearing, every walkout, every press conference, every counter-allegation — ask yourself one question: does this get us closer to convictions, better healthcare, and flood walls that actually exist? If the answer is no, it's a distraction. And we cannot afford to be distracted right now.

The powerful are fighting over control of 2028. We're fighting to survive 2026.

We deserve better than being an audience to their self-preservation. We deserve a government that spends its energy on the things our taxes were meant to pay for.

Stay focused, kabayan. Don't let the noise drown out what actually matters.