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Thanks for the Memories, Babes: How to Quit a Fake Commission Without Even Pretending to Fight

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Louis ‘Barok’ Biraogo

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Thanks for the Memories, Babes: How to Quit a Fake Commission Without Even Pretending to Fight
He came, he saw, he realized Malacañang needed a scapegoat more than a savior—and he chose door number two.

By Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo — December 4, 2025

WHILE Metro Manila drowns once again—knee-deep in the same filthy floodwater that invades living rooms, turns school corridors into rivers, and forces mothers to carry the bodies of their children down from the second floor—a seventy-seven-year-old man has quietly slipped out the back door of the very commission that was supposed to stop this annual humiliation.

Rogelio “Babes” Singson is gone from the Independent Commission on Infrastructure (ICI).

Official story:

  • His body is simply tired.
  • The work was “intense and stressful,” says ICI chair Justice Andres Reyes Jr.
  • Security risks were mentioned in passing—like bad weather.
  • Resignation effective December 15—perhaps extended to the 31st if Malacañang begs nicely.

How very civilized.
How utterly, laughably obscene.

Because every Filipino who has ever waded through chest-deep water carrying a refrigerator on his head knows exactly what this resignation smells like. It is the same stench that rises from esteros clogged with garbage and ghost projects: the rancid perfume of a system that would rather sacrifice its few remaining credible faces than actually punish the thieves who steal flood money while children drown.

“From DPWH hero to H2O-zero—splash-down in one easy resignation!”

1. The Fairy Tale vs. The Cesspool

A man who once ran the entire DPWH, survived decades in the snake pit, and publicly called the flood-control scam “the biggest corruption scheme” he had ever seen—suddenly discovers at 77 that investigating corruption is too stressful for his delicate constitution?

Spare us the lavender-scented press release.

2. The ICI: Not a Tiger, Not Even Paper – Just a Sponge

Born by Executive Order 94.
No contempt power.
No prosecutorial arm.
Can subpoena, can recommend, can shout into the void.
Then it hands its homework to an Ombudsman on tranquilizers and a DOJ that reports to the same Palace that created it.

This was never an independent commission.
It was a deodorizer.
A washing machine.
A punching bag with good credentials.

Appointing Babes Singson—the one DPWH secretary who still had a reputation—was the administration’s masterstroke:
“Look, we are serious! We even hired the honest guy from the previous regime!”

Translation: please yell at him, not at us.

3. The Quotes That Leak Like Broken Pipes

Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice (allegedly quoting Singson himself):

  • “The ICI is becoming a punching bag for Malacañang.”
  • “Why would I risk my life and my family solving the problems of Malacañang?”

Let those sentences burn in your chest for a minute.

4. So Why Did He Really Leave?

  • Principled stand? Possibly. Better to walk than lend your name to a circus.
  • Cowardice? Also possible. The water got hot, the reformer bailed.
  • Calculated reputation laundering? Most likely. Get out before the commission collapses and takes your good name with it.

Pick your flavor of betrayal—they all taste the same.

5. The Fallout (Because There Will Be One)

  • The ICI is now officially a lame duck with a missing wing.
  • The infrastructure mafia just opened the champagne.
  • The next credible elder asked to join a presidential commission will laugh in the appointing authority’s face.
  • Children will continue to drown in floodwater paid for by money that was already “spent” on dikes that exist only on paper.

6. The Final, Bitter Punchline

This is how Philippine anti-corruption theater always ends:

  • the only decent actor walks offstage muttering about his health,
  • while the villains remain in the VIP seats—dry, untouched, and already planning next year’s ghost projects.

Mark this day.

  • The floods will come again.
  • The contractors will grow

And the Filipino people?

  • We get neither justice nor flood control.
  • Just the same stagnant water,
  • the same broken promises,
  • and the same lingering stench of a nation that has learned to live with the smell of its own decay.

From the cave, ankle-deep in ghost-project mud, sharpening the machete,

— your furious Barok

Source:

Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo

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