Resetting the Government: A Risk The Philippines Can’t Afford

I’ve heard it too many times: “What if we change the system?” Some dream of parliament, some whisper about federalism, others even suggest scrapping democracy itself. The belief is always the same — that if we shift to a new form of government, the corruption and inefficiency will finally go away.

But moving rotten tomatoes into a new basket doesn’t make them fresh. It only changes the container.

Corruption here isn’t a quirk of leadership or a matter of political form. It’s structural, baked into institutions that have been deliberately kept fragile so those in power can keep feeding off them. The padrino system, oligarchic capture, political dynasties, bureaucratic red tape — these don’t vanish when you change the shape of government. They adapt, survive, and flourish.

And when the frustration boils over, some argue that maybe it’s better to burn the whole thing down — dissolve the state, tear up the constitution, start from scratch. History has an answer for that, too: collapse punishes the poor first.

So before we romanticize radical change, it’s worth asking: what really changes when the form of government shifts, and what happens when government disappears altogether?

Institutional Foundation of Corruption

Corruption in the Philippines isn’t random. It’s a system — old, deliberate, and self-sustaining. Every time we elect new leaders, they don’t walk into a clean office. They inherit an entire operating system designed to favor connections over competence.

Take the padrino system. Born in the Spanish colonial period, it’s still the backbone of politics today. Appointments, promotions, contracts, and favors flow not through transparent rules but through patronage. The padrino acts as gatekeeper, the “sponsor” who decides who gets hired, who gets a contract, who gets protection. The form of government doesn’t touch this. Whether you call it democracy, federalism, or even monarchy, padrino is the real constitution.

Then there’s palakasan, the cultural cousin of padrino. It’s the “sino kilala mo sa loob” way of life. Everyone knows that if you want a driver’s license processed fast, or if you need a permit signed before a deadline, you don’t wait in line. You call someone inside, slip a bill across the counter, or find the shortcut. The public adapts because resistance is slower, more punishing.

Over it all sits regulatory capture. Oligarchic families don’t just run businesses — they write the rules. From telecoms and shipping to energy and banking, industries dominated by a handful of clans benefit from weak regulation. Why push for strong institutions when weak ones let you corner markets and kill competition?

And then we get to political dynasties. More than 70% of elected seats are controlled by families who treat public office as business property. When the form of government changes, they don’t disappear. They shift loyalties, rebrand their slogans, and keep their grip. Dynasties are built to outlast constitutions.

If you need proof, look at how little has changed over the decades. Scandals rise, outrage follows, new leaders step in, and yet the same old patterns remain. From permits at the barangay hall to national contracts worth billions, the cycle repeats.

The names on the doors change. The networks don’t.

Cultural and Systemic Entrenchment

Corruption isn’t just a game played at the top. It seeps into everyday life, shaping how ordinary people move through the system. When citizens see that connections or bribes get things done faster, many feel they have no choice but to participate. Resistance becomes impractical. Paying a small “fee” to speed up an application, or calling in a favor to secure a slot, feels like survival in a system already tilted against those who follow the rules.

This is the vicious cycle: people expect to use shortcuts, and officials expect to be paid for providing them. The cycle feeds itself until it feels normal, and the line between official process and personal transaction fades completely.

Political dynasties deepen this entrenchment. For decades, families have passed down offices like inheritances, treating public power as family business. It doesn’t matter if the country experiments with federalism, parliament, or another model. These clans simply adjust, switching party names or shifting loyalties while keeping their hold on local territories. Power remains intact, passed from one generation to the next.

The impact isn’t abstract. Billions are poured into projects that fail the moment shovels hit the ground. Flood control projects, meant to protect communities, have instead become cash cows for corruption. Funds disappear while people wade through waist-deep water during typhoons. Farmers know the same pain. The rice industry, a sector central to survival, has long been burdened by corrupt deals and policy manipulation. While promises of support are made every election cycle, the system leaves small farmers exposed to market shocks and cartels that thrive under weak institutions.

This is what keeps corruption alive: not only the grand scandals we see on the front pages but the quiet deals, the shortcuts, and the way ordinary citizens are forced to adapt just to survive.

The Limits of Leadership-Centered Reform

Every change in leadership has carried the promise of renewal. Each time, the public is told that this is the moment corruption will finally be confronted. And each time, the story ends the same way: new scandals, new names, but the same patterns repeating.

After the fall of Marcos, there was a sense that the country could reset itself. We had a new constitution, new oversight agencies, even something called a “moral recovery program.” It sounded like the right ingredients for a fresh start. Yet, corruption remained alive and well. Contracts and appointments still flowed through connections, scandals surfaced in every administration, and public trust never recovered.

Ramos had the PEA-Amari deal. Estrada fell under the weight of jueteng payoffs. Arroyo faced accusations of rigged deals and election manipulation. Aquino III was caught in the pork barrel controversy. The forms changed, the names shifted, but corruption never slowed down.

Then came Duterte, who built his campaign around the idea of “political will.” He projected strength, promised to eliminate corruption with the same iron hand he used in Davao. But even he admitted defeat in the end, calling corruption endemic. His administration faced its own string of scandals despite the tough image.

The lesson is plain. Authoritarian strength doesn’t cure a system built on weak institutions. Strong leaders don’t necessarily clean up corruption; more often, they produce grander scandals. And when international bodies push anti-corruption campaigns, they falter here for the same reason. Without independent, functional institutions, these drives amount to paperwork and headlines, not real change.

The focus on leadership, on finding the right “strong” figure to clean up the mess, misses the point. Personal willpower doesn’t undo systems designed to reward corruption. It takes more than one person — it takes tearing out and rebuilding the machinery itself.

The Budget and Economics of Corruption

Corruption is not only political; it is economic. It drains the very lifeblood of the country. Each year, about one-fifth of the national budget is lost to graft. For 2025’s ₱6.352 trillion budget, that’s more than ₱1.2 trillion gone. Money that could have built classrooms, paid nurses, or fixed roads instead disappears into the pockets of those who treat public office like a private fund.

These aren’t invisible losses. They show up in flooded streets where drainage projects exist only on paper. They show up in hospital wards where patients share beds while billions meant for healthcare are siphoned off. They show up in schools where children squeeze into overcrowded classrooms because funds for construction never reached the ground.

The problem grows worse during elections. Campaigns in the Philippines are prohibitively expensive. To win, candidates need vast sums, often sourced from wealthy backers who expect something in return. By the time a politician steps into office, they are already indebted. The system demands payback — through contracts, favors, and positions handed out not on merit but on obligation.

This is how corruption becomes self-financing. The money stolen today funds the elections of tomorrow. Politicians need to steal to compete, and those who financed them need their share once victory is secured. It is a cycle that sustains itself, immune to the morality of any individual leader.

When you put all this together — the trillions lost, the endless cycle of debt and repayment, the public services hollowed out — corruption is no longer just a side effect of governance. It becomes the business model of governance itself.

Colonial Path Dependence

The corruption we live with today didn’t appear overnight. Its roots were planted centuries ago, and they were never pulled out.

Under Spanish rule, governance revolved around loyalty and privilege. The friar or the governor-general wasn’t accountable to the people — only to Madrid. Positions were bought, favors were traded, and public service mattered less than private enrichment. That pattern filtered down through the provinces, where local elites ruled as extensions of colonial power.

The Americans promised modernization, but much of what they built rested on the same fragile foundations. They introduced legislatures, courts, and agencies, but never made them sturdy enough to stand on their own. Meritocracy was stunted. Influence and family ties carried more weight than ability.

When independence came, we inherited these institutions almost intact. We never tore them down or rebuilt them. Political families turned them into dynastic tools, while business clans wrapped themselves around regulations. Systems created to serve colonial rulers were now serving local elites.

This is why corruption here feels permanent. It isn’t about who leads or what form of government we adopt. The deeper issue is that the machinery of governance was designed, from the beginning, to bend under the weight of privilege. And until we rewire those structures, every new form of government will simply run on the same crooked frame.

The Catastrophic Cost of Collapse

Some argue that the only way forward is to tear the whole thing down. Scrap democracy, dissolve the state, and start from scratch. It’s an idea born out of frustration — but history shows what really happens when governments collapse. The results are catastrophic, and the people who suffer most are the ones with no safety nets, no savings, and no way out.

Somalia: The Failed State Blueprint

When Somalia’s government fell in 1991, the country lost more than just a president. Its economy shrank by more than half. Schools and hospitals shut down. Power grids and water systems broke apart. One-third of the population was displaced. Warlords carved up territories, and the state effectively vanished.

Yes, remittances from the diaspora eventually kept the country on life support, but that doesn’t change the reality: everyday Somalis endured famine, insecurity, and violence. Statelessness didn’t liberate them; it locked them into survival mode.

Yugoslavia: From Federation to Fragmentation

Yugoslavia’s story is one of economic collapse leading straight into bloody conflict. Hyperinflation gutted the value of money, foreign debt ballooned, and the country’s industries began to crumble. Regional inequalities — wealthier republics in the north, poorer ones in the south — tore at the seams of the federation.

When the country dissolved, successor states faced severe economic decline and war. Infrastructure was destroyed, trade collapsed, and refugees fled in the millions. It took decades for some of those states to recover even a fraction of their former stability.

Soviet Union: Anticipation of Collapse as Collapse Itself

The Soviet Union collapsed not only when the flag came down, but in the years leading up to it. As republics began declaring autonomy, trade relationships broke apart. Factories had no inputs, and store shelves went empty.

After the formal breakup, GDP across former Soviet states dropped by about 20%. Inflation hit triple digits, and criminal networks moved into the vacuum. In Russia, the mafia seized assets and provided “protection” where the state no longer could. Collapse didn’t just dismantle communism — it dismantled daily life.

Libya: Fast Freefall After Revolution

Libya in 2011 shows how quickly a modern economy can unravel when government collapses. GDP fell by over 60% in a single year as oil production plunged. Inflation hit 30%. Even when oil production partially recovered, the country’s economy never returned to pre-revolution levels.

Public services didn’t just weaken — they disappeared. A country once boasting some of Africa’s highest living standards descended into chaos, leaving citizens dependent on militia-controlled zones and fragmented governance.

Afghanistan: Aid Cut, Society Shocked

When the Taliban took over in 2021, foreign aid — nearly half the country’s GDP — was cut off overnight. Within a year, the economy shrank by a third. Jobs vanished, businesses shut down, and up to 70% of Afghans could no longer afford basic necessities.

For families who were already poor, the collapse meant hunger. For children, it meant a lifetime of stunted opportunities. The political change wasn’t a reset. It was a plunge into economic desperation.

Iraq: Institutions Dismantled, Recovery Stalled

Iraq’s collapse after 2003 illustrates how dismantling institutions creates wounds that don’t heal quickly. Two decades of sanctions had already weakened the economy, but when existing structures were torn down instead of reformed, instability deepened.

Oil revenues became the only pillar left, making the country dangerously dependent on a single resource. Public trust eroded, corruption flourished, and the promise of reconstruction turned into years of stagnation.

Central African Republic: The Long Shadow of Collapse

The Central African Republic is another cautionary tale. Once government broke apart, recovery became a distant dream. For decades, the country has cycled between weak administrations and armed groups controlling territory. Poverty remains entrenched, and international aid struggles to plug the holes left by a broken state.

The Common Thread

Across these cases — Somalia, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Central African Republic — the pattern is consistent. Collapse doesn’t free societies from corruption or inefficiency. It destroys economies, displaces millions, and replaces fragile institutions with violence and scarcity.

Collapse is a tax on the poor. And they pay it every single day.

What Collapse Would Look Like in the Philippines

Let’s assume, for a moment, that we take the route of a total reset. The government is shut down completely. No Congress. No Malacañang. No bureaucracy. Everything wiped clean.

Picture payday morning. Workers line up at ATMs across the country, but the machines flash the same error: system offline. Banks have locked their doors. The peso has no anchor. Those with savings watch them turn to dust in real time.

At gas stations, the queues stretch for blocks. By evening, the pumps run dry. Jeepneys stop plying their routes. Buses park in terminals. On EDSA, people walk shoulder-to-shoulder under the heat because transport has collapsed. Fuel tankers aren’t arriving. Imports are frozen.

Night falls and the power cuts. Whole barangays are swallowed by darkness. In Manila, the skyline that once glowed is now a shadow. In the provinces, candles burn inside cramped homes, their wax dripping into plates meant for dinner. Cell towers go down one by one. The internet flickers, then dies. The archipelago falls silent.

Supermarkets don’t last a week. Shelves stripped bare, checkout counters abandoned. In the wet markets, a kilo of rice costs a week’s wages. Parents haggle desperately, their children tugging at their clothes, hungry. By the second month, barter replaces money: antibiotics for a sack of grain, gasoline for powdered milk.

Law and order unravels in plain sight. Mayors and governors retreat to their compounds, flanked by private guards. They are no longer officials — they are warlords. In cities, police precincts split into factions. Some sell their firepower to the highest bidder. Others disappear, their uniforms traded for plainclothes and new allegiances. Armed men patrol streets where traffic enforcers once stood.

For the poor, there is no escape. Hunger sets in first, followed by disease. Parents skip meals so their children can eat. Hospitals turn away patients because there are no supplies left. Those who can leave — the wealthy, the connected, the skilled — flee to safer countries. Everyone else is trapped in a collapsing archipelago.

If this sounds far-fetched, remember the pandemic. With just partial government paralysis, millions lost jobs, hunger spread, transport froze, and families survived on community pantries. That was only a glimpse. A full shutdown would magnify it a hundred times.

And unlike a storm, collapse doesn’t pass. It settles. Somalia has been broken for more than thirty years. Libya still hasn’t recovered a decade after its government fell. Afghanistan’s economy remains in ruins years after its takeover. Collapse becomes the new normal, dragging on for generations.

This is the reset imagined as liberation — but lived as ruin.

Why Collapse Would Hit the Philippines Harder

History gives us examples of collapse, but the Philippines carries its own unique weaknesses that would make the fall even more devastating.

We should remember that we’ve already lived through one reset. In 1986, people filled EDSA and forced out a dictatorship. Overnight, we shifted from authoritarian rule to democracy. A new constitution was written, new institutions were built, and the air was filled with hope. But that transition was not guaranteed. It was fragile, even lucky. The military could have fractured. The country could have spiraled into violence. Instead, we held together just enough to survive.

Even with that good fortune, corruption didn’t disappear. Dynasties regrouped, patronage adapted, and the same families who thrived under dictatorship learned to thrive under democracy. The faces changed, but the machinery did not.

That’s the danger people underestimate today. When they call for another reset, they speak as if it’s simply a matter of swapping one form of government for another — democracy for parliament, or worse, democracy for something darker. What they forget is that the forces operating beneath the surface have never left. Political clans with private armies, business cartels shielded by weak regulation, institutions starved for decades — these dark currents still shape our politics.

Now add the vulnerabilities unique to the Philippines. We are not a compact landmass like Libya or Afghanistan. We are an archipelago of 7,640 islands bound together by fragile logistics. Without central coordination, transport and communication between islands would unravel in weeks. Ferry routes would stop, ports would freeze, and remote provinces would be cut off entirely. What little food or medicine moves through the system today would no longer move at all.

The economy is also tightly tied to global trust. Our lifeline — the billions in overseas remittances — depends on functioning banks and stable governance. In a collapse, that flow ends immediately. International partners won’t wire money into a country with no working financial system. Families who rely on those remittances, from Ilocos to Mindanao, would suddenly find themselves without their only safety net.

Foreign investors would vanish overnight. Exports would stop moving. And because the Philippines sits at the heart of a major maritime corridor, collapse here would not remain an internal issue. Global powers would step in, not to rescue us, but to secure sea lanes. The South China Sea and the Pacific passageways are too strategic to leave unguarded. In the absence of a functioning state, territorial partition — even foreign control of key ports — becomes a real possibility.

Politically, collapse doesn’t erase patronage. It mutates it. The same dynasties that thrive today would turn into local warlords tomorrow, each one carving out provinces as their fiefdoms. Private armies that have always existed in the background would rise to the foreground. Local governance would no longer mean barangay captains and town mayors — it would mean whichever clan has the most guns.

Reform Within the System

If collapse is ruin and resets are illusions, then what remains is the long, difficult road of reform. It isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t stir the crowd the way promises of revolution or radical change do. But it is the only path that avoids dragging the country into chaos.

Reform begins with professionalizing the civil service. Government posts cannot remain rewards for loyalty or extensions of dynastic power. They need to be filled by people with competence, not connections. Without this, every agency will remain vulnerable to padrino politics.

Processes also need to be stripped of their loopholes. As long as permits, licenses, and government contracts require endless signatures and face-to-face encounters, corruption has room to thrive. Automating and digitizing these systems may sound mundane, but they reduce the very opportunities where bribes are slipped and favors are demanded.

Judicial independence must be strengthened. Without courts that can stand up to political pressure, laws mean nothing. A justice system that bends to influence is a green light for corruption, because everyone knows accountability can be negotiated.

Campaign finance reform is another pillar. As long as elections cost billions, candidates will remain indebted to financiers and cronies. And as long as dynasties dominate ballots, the same families will recycle power. Structural limits — real limits — on campaign spending and dynastic control are necessary if politics is ever to be more than a family business.

And yet, reform demands something harder than laws and policies. It requires institutions that choose to reform themselves. That is the contradiction at the heart of the struggle: the very bodies that benefit from the current rot must be the ones to cut it out. It is why progress is so slow, why promises are often empty, and why frustration boils over into calls for collapse.

But reform, slow as it is, remains the only option that does not end in ruin.

The result would not be freedom. It would be a return to feudalism, this time dressed as warlordism. And unlike corruption in a functioning state, which at least pretends to serve the public, warlordism makes no such promises. It rules openly through force.

For a country as fragmented, dependent, and strategically located as the Philippines, collapse wouldn’t just mirror Somalia or Libya. It would strike harder, faster, and cut deeper.

Doable Now: Small Gears

Big reforms sound overwhelming, almost impossible. But even small gears can move a machine. There are steps that don’t require rewriting the constitution or toppling the whole system — steps that can still make a difference.

Transparency is one. Every contract, every project, every peso spent should be visible to the public without a maze of requests. When people can see where the money goes, it becomes harder to hide theft.

Digitization is another. Automating basic services — licenses, permits, tax filings — cuts out the middlemen who profit from red tape. Each process taken online is one less opportunity for someone to slip a hand across the counter.

Civic pressure matters too. Protests and public outcry may not always topple dynasties, but they create costs for corruption. Every time people gather in the streets or flood social media demanding answers, politicians are reminded that silence is not free.

Partnerships with watchdogs, both local and international, can help. Technical support, monitoring, even naming and shaming corrupt practices can chip away at the impunity officials have enjoyed for decades.

These aren’t silver bullets. They don’t erase dynasties or padrino politics overnight. But they tilt the field, however slightly, toward accountability. Small gears may not look like much, but without them, the larger machinery never moves.

The Role of the People

Corruption doesn’t survive on its own. It survives because people live inside it. Every shortcut taken, every envelope slipped under the table, every pakisuyo to someone inside the system keeps it alive. Ordinary citizens aren’t the ones who designed it, but they become part of it when survival feels easier than resistance.

That doesn’t mean blame belongs to the people. When the honest path is slower, costlier, and more punishing, many feel they have no choice. But no amount of reform will work without citizens drawing the line. Corruption feeds on silence. It weakens when people demand receipts, ask questions, and refuse to shrug off theft as “ganyan na talaga.”

The same truth applies to elections. Dynasties keep winning not only because they are powerful, but because they are chosen again and again. Breaking that cycle begins with voters who see past family names, cash envelopes, and campaign gimmicks.

Small refusals matter. Refusing to sell a vote. Refusing to pay grease money. Refusing to look away when officials pocket funds. These may not topple political clans overnight, but they are the seeds of a different kind of politics — one where power finally answers to the people.

Institutions can change, but only when citizens demand it. Without pressure from below, those at the top will never move.

Where I Stand

Changing the form of government will not clean up corruption. Dissolving the state will not deliver justice. Collapse punishes the poor first and hardest, while dynasties and cartels adapt to whatever system replaces the old one.

We’ve already tried a reset once in 1986. We were fortunate that democracy held, fragile as it was. That kind of luck doesn’t come twice. Today, the dark forces embedded in our politics are stronger, richer, and more prepared to seize opportunity if the state falters.

The real work is slower. It’s the grind of reform — professionalizing the bureaucracy, protecting the courts, cutting down campaign costs, and dragging every transaction into the open. It’s not as dramatic as a revolution, and it won’t make headlines overnight. But it’s the only path that doesn’t end with a mafia state running the country.

So when people talk about resetting the system or shifting to another form of government, I go back to that simple picture: rotten tomatoes in a new basket. The container changes, the decay remains.

The harder path is keeping the basket we have and finally removing the tomatoes that poison it.

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117. COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_Philippines