The Independent Commission for Illusions Bows Out – Curtains on the Greatest Farce of 2025

Fajardo’s Graceful Exit: Rats, Resignations, and a Ship Already Underwater

By Louis “Barok” C. Biraogo — December 27, 2025

IN THE polished corridors of corporate boardrooms, farewells are often scripted affairs—elegant, gracious, and utterly detached from the chaos left behind. So it was with Commissioner Rossana Fajardo’s resignation statement from the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), a body that has become the latest monument to executive vanity in Philippine governance.

“I have completed the work I set out to accomplish,” she declared, as if wrapping up a tidy audit at SGV & Co., her former perch as country managing partner. She spoke of “foundational goals met,” “comprehensive approaches for evidence gathering,” and “recommendations aimed at improving government procurement.” It was a corporate exit memo, serene and self-congratulatory.

But let us autopsy this “mission accomplished.”

***“Commission Accomplished: Rats evacuated, fish escorted, public soaked.”***

What, precisely, was accomplished?

A handful of referrals to the Ombudsman—an agency already burdened with its constitutional mandate? A few arrests of mid-level contractors and clerks, while the architects of the multi-billion-peso flood control heist roam free or abroad? And all this as the ICI hemorrhages its third high-profile member in mere months, leaving a skeletal crew of three to limp into 2026.

Fajardo’s polished retreat is not a transition; it is a strategic abandonment of a sinking ship. Rats do not flee a vessel because the voyage is complete—they flee because the hull is breached. Here, the breach is fatal: a commission born defective, now dying in ignominy, with President Marcos’ bold vow of “jail before Christmas” for the corrupt reduced to a holiday punchline. Christmas has come and gone, and the big fish swim undisturbed.

The Rotten Foundation

This brings us to the ICI’s rotten foundation. As the petitioner who felled the unconstitutional Philippine Truth Commission in 2010, I recognize a zombie when I see one. Executive Order No. 94 is a reanimated corpse—a brazen executive overreach that duplicates the mandates of the Ombudsman, the Commission on Audit (COA), and even Congress itself, all without legislative sanction or proper appropriation.

Created by presidential fiat in September 2025, the ICI was a Potemkin commission from birth: impressive facade, hollow interior. No subpoena power worthy of the name, no prosecutorial teeth, merely the illusion of independence while poaching functions from permanent constitutional bodies.

I have long called it the Independent Commission for Illusions, destined to produce glossy reports that gather dust while real accountability evaporates. Its rapid implosion—Magalong’s early exit amid questions of independence, Singson’s departure citing health (or perhaps the stress of futility), and now Fajardo’s—proves the point. It was designed not to succeed, but to contain.

The Cancer It Was Meant to Contain

And contain what? A cancer metastasizing through the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH): the flood control scandal, where billions vanished into ghost dikes, substandard barriers, and monopolized contracts.

The intrigues are damning.

The Cabral Conundrum. The late Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral, repository of secrets on budget insertions, dies in a ravine along Kennon Road—just days before potential testimony. Vice President Sara Duterte’s chilling quip about “ravine anxiety” gripping implicated officials captures the climate: fear silences witnesses, evidence buries itself.
The Fugitives and the Shielded. Contractor Sarah Discaya arrested—good theater. But where is Zaldy Co, fugitive former lawmaker? Where is former DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan, conveniently abroad? The infamous lists implicate senators, representatives, cabinet officials—yet the net catches only minnows. Where are the big fish the President promised?
The Senate’s Silence. Once roaring with hearings, the Blue Ribbon Committee now muted. This suggests not exhaustion of justice, but a political settlement—a quiet truce where probes fade to preserve alliances.

The Catastrophic Fallout

The fallout is catastrophic, far beyond Malacañang spin.

Institutionally, the ICI’s death scatters evidence into bureaucratic limbo. Permanent agencies, already overburdened, inherit a flawed probe—likely dooming momentum.
Economically, stolen billions directly sabotage growth. Recent GDP figures limp below expectations, public construction plunged, confidence eroded, peso weakened. Corruption is not abstract vice; it is theft from every Filipino’s table.
Socially, the cynicism metastasizes. Recover P20 billion in assets—laudable. But without convictions at the top, it teaches that graft is merely a transaction fee, permissible in the cost of doing government business. The public learns despair.

This is the Marcos administration’s indictment. Their creature, the ICI, collapses on their watch. Their Christmas jail promise—broken. Their transparency narrative—a farce. Is this mere failure of will, or orchestrated containment to shield allies?

The Cure: No More Illusions

Enough illusions. The cure is constitutional, not another ad-hoc fantasy.

Abandon the dream of yet more temporary commissions. The solution already exists:

The Ombudsman and Department of Justice must immediately and unconditionally accept full burden. Inherit all ICI evidence—flawed vessel or not—and commit publicly to transparent, expedited, fearless prosecution reaching the highest echelons.
Demand total transparency: a public, unredacted ledger of all findings transferred.
Demand accountability up the chain: nothing less than masterminds prosecuted, not just contractors and clerks.

And to the public, media, civil society: treat this not as concluded drama, but as an ongoing heist. Vigilance is our duty—the only antidote to the disease the ICI embodied, not cured.

The facade crumbles. Time to rebuild with steel, not straw.

The rats jumped, the ship sank, the captain salutes. I remain unimpressed.

–Barok