Proof of life

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January 14, 2026 | 12:00am

What the country needs today is proof of life from BBM. Analyst after analyst are saying that the first half of 2026 is given up as lost because business and consumer confidence faltered due to corruption. Yet, for BBM, it is as they say in the streets, parang wala lang.

Someone with more normal survival instincts would lose no time in trying to recover confidence in the economy and his administration’s governance. Confidence went more steeply downhill after BBM and the ombudsman failed to send a single major flood control crook to jail by Christmas.

Gloomy expectations can be self-fulfilling. That’s why BBM must urgently show signs of life that he is on the ball.

Worse, the ombudsman is now going after Lean Leviste for supposedly selling his solar energy franchise to Meralco PowerGen Corp, a Meralco subsidiary. As it turns out, the Ombudsman was wrong. The Meralco subsidiary explained that they bought a different Leviste company, not the one with the nationwide franchise.

Even if MGen did buy the one with the franchise, that should not be a priority concern of the ombudsman. He has bigger fish to fry in connection with the flood control scam.

It is obvious the Ombudsman was getting political after Leviste disclosed he has a copy of the Cabral files on the DPWH scams which implicates some big fish close to the administration.

The young Leviste may be guilty of seeking too much publicity, but he has not stolen a centavo from the treasury as of now. The Ombudsman must prioritize going after those who have.

With all the delays, the DPWH engineers who earlier confessed their participation in the mess to the Senate and who also returned some cash and vehicles have now filed their response that effectively negates what they previously said under oath.

There are many Filipinos who honestly want BBM to succeed even if they abhor his family’s track record in governing this country. They see the Vice President replacing BBM as jumping from the frying pan to the fire.

But if BBM fails to show some signs of life by showing the public he is serious beyond words to jail the big-time flood control crooks, his constitutional successor may just manage to sneak into power by default.

The public anger is real and surprisingly, still boiling hot. Normally, there are enough Filipinos who will just shrug their shoulders and move on. But not today. Folks are still very angry and getting more and more frustrated with BBM’s lack of action.

Hay naku, BBM… pakita ka naman ng gilas!

As it turns out, BBM even vetoed a wrong allocation in the national budget. He vetoed allocations for our counterpart funds to ODA-assisted projects. Our counterpart funds are used to pay for ROW and other requirements as the ODA agencies fund the actual projects.

As Sen. Win Gatchalian, the Senate finance committee chair puts it, the Government Counterpart for Certain Foreign-Assisted Projects, which amounts to P35 billion is our obligation.

“We have many incoming foreign-assisted projects that require a counterpart, and all of these are expected to come in around the second or third quarter. My concern is that if we do not have the counterpart, the loan counterpart will also not be released,” Gatchalian said.

But now that these items have been vetoed, do we give up the projects? Many of those are mass transportation systems we badly need.

Sen. Gatchalian is also worried about BBM’s veto of the appropriation to pay the Philippine government’s existing obligations to Mitsubishi and Toyota of about P4.2 billion.

Gatchalian said these companies heeded our call to invest and we promised tax incentives. But for the last four years, we have failed to keep our obligation. For a country in dire need of FDI, that shuts the door to foreign investors. If we don’t take our promises seriously, why should they?

If a cabinet revamp is in the cards, let it happen now and not later to have more impact. Some of the names being mentioned seem better able to do the work required.

A good example is Secretary Ping Aliling of Housing. He is an experienced construction professional. He is better suited to run DPWH than Vince Dizon who seems to have understandably burned out.

Sec. Vince has no experience in construction and the DPWH engineers can run circles around him. But Vince was doing well at the DOTr. He should return to DOTr and manage completion of delayed but much needed transportation systems.

The Health and Tourism Secretaries have obviously not been effective and must be changed.

But I am not sure Education Secretary Sonny Angara should be replaced just because his name was mentioned in some documents concerning the flood control mess. Sonny has organized the DepEd to deliver the performance we need and losing him will make us lose momentum.

But the TESDA head mentioned as his replacement is also very capable.

On the whole, BBM must realize that while the economy seems nominally healthy, the underlying numbers seem to indicate some red flags that need urgent attention.

Nomura, the Japanese investment and brokerage giant, characterized our current environment as one of high uncertainty.

Nomura has warned that the Philippines’ credit rating outlook faces a potential downgrade to “negative” if the lingering corruption scandal remains unresolved. This could derail our hopes for an “A” grade rating.

Japanese financial giant MUFG Bank Ltd. expects the peso to extend a streak of underperformance fueled by domestic government spending squeeze and fiscal uncertainty.

But most important of all, BBM’s lack of strong and decisive leadership at this time of crisis delivers the message that our political uncertainties continue. This lack of clarity will weigh on the decisions of investors, local and foreign, to invest. They will merely continue watching from the sidelines.

BBM must show us proof of life.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco