Allegations and the Architecture of a Scandal
Allegations and the Architecture of a Scandal
Amiel Gerald A. Roldan™
February 26, 2026
There is a particular architecture to modern scandal: a foundation of documents, a scaffolding of names, and the inevitable scaffolding of denials. Into that architecture steps Lawyer Levi Baligod, carrying an affidavit like a lantern in a fog. He says he has filed a signed affidavit of the 18 individuals against lawmakers and other government officials from BuCor and DA before the Ombudsman. He says the money was received, yet not reflected in the SALN. He says the meeting happened at a house associated with Ombudsman Remulla, that the ICC is being consulted, and that the funds did not come from flood control projects but from assorted programs of the DA, DENR, and other agencies. These are claims, and in the theater of public life claims are the currency of drama.
This essay will not adjudicate truth. It will, instead, treat the episode as a text: a palimpsest of legalese, rumor, and rhetorical flourish. It will be academic in tone, satirical in spirit, esoteric in metaphor, humorous in cadence, anecdotal in texture, and riddled with rhetorical questions—because what is a scandal if not a question posed to a polity that must answer itself.
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The Affidavit as Relic
An affidavit is a curious relic: sworn, signed, and intended to be incontrovertible. Yet relics are only as powerful as the faith they inspire. Baligod claims to have filed such a relic on behalf of eighteen people. Eighteen is a number that suggests weight without being unwieldy; it is a chorus, not a mob. What does it mean when eighteen voices converge into one legal instrument? Does the multiplication of signatures amplify truth, or merely complicate the narrative?
Consider the affidavit as a map. Maps can be precise or propagandistic. They can show roads and rivers, or they can redraw borders to suit a conqueror. When an affidavit alleges that "Tumanggap sila ng milyon milyon na pera pero hindi napakita yan sa kanilang SALN," it is drawing a line between public duty and private enrichment. The SALN—Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth—is the civic x-ray. If money appears in pockets but not on the x-ray, what does that say about the transparency of the body politic?
Is the affidavit a torch or a mirror? A torch illuminates; a mirror reflects. Baligod’s document might illuminate alleged transactions, or it might reflect the anxieties of a public that has grown suspicious of the spaces where money and power meet. The rhetorical question here is not merely whether the affidavit is true, but whether truth matters more than the spectacle of truth.
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The SALN and the Economy of Visibility
The SALN is a bureaucratic ritual that promises to make private wealth visible to public scrutiny. It is, in theory, the antidote to corruption’s favorite trick: invisibility. Yet the SALN is also a paper thing, and paper can be folded, misfiled, or misread. When Baligod says that millions were received but not shown in the SALN, he is accusing the system of a failure of representation.
How do we read such an accusation? As a forensic claim, demanding audit and cross-examination? As a moral indictment, calling for shame and resignation? Or as a theatrical device, designed to provoke outrage and thereby force action? The SALN functions as both instrument and symbol. It is an instrument for accountability and a symbol of the social contract. When the symbol is alleged to be violated, the social contract creaks.
There is also a comedic element to the SALN drama. Imagine a public official, pockets jingling with unreported millions, sitting down dutifully to fill out a form that asks for "other sources of income." Does the official pause, pen hovering, as if the form were a moral Rorschach test? The humor is dark, but it is humor nonetheless: the absurdity of expecting full candor from those who profit from opacity.
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Houses, Meetings, and the Geography of Influence
Baligod’s claim that "Nabanggit si Ombudsman Remulla kasi sa bahay niya nagkaroon ng meeting ang mga taga-ICC. Nakikipag-usap siya sa ICC. Siya ang alter ego ng presidente (when he was justice secretary)," introduces a domestic geography into the public drama. Houses are intimate spaces; meetings in houses are intimate meetings. When the house of an Ombudsman becomes a locus of international conversation, the private and public blur.
What does it mean to say that an Ombudsman is an "alter ego" of a president? The phrase is theatrical, almost mythic. It suggests a doubling, a shadow-play in which one figure stands in for another. The rhetorical question is deliciously destabilizing: if the Ombudsman is the president’s alter ego, who then is the Ombudsman’s conscience? Is it the ICC, the international conscience, knocking at the door of a private home?
There is a satirical image here: a house where the ICC and local officials sip coffee and exchange notes, while outside the street hums with the ordinary business of citizens who will never be invited in. The anecdote becomes a parable about proximity to power. Meetings in houses are not merely social; they are cartographic: they map influence by address.
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Programs, Projects, and the Alchemy of Funds
Baligod claims the money did not come from flood control projects but from "different programs of the DA, DENR, and other government agencies." This is an accusation of fungibility: funds intended for one purpose allegedly diverted to another. The language of programs and projects is bureaucratic, but the alleged diversion is almost alchemical: turning public resources into private gold.
How does one trace such alchemy? Through ledgers, procurement records, and the patient work of auditors. Or through the more narrative tools of rumor and affidavit. The rhetorical question here is methodological: do we trust the slow, meticulous work of institutions, or the sudden, dramatic revelation of a sworn statement? The satirist in us wants to answer: both are necessary, and both are insufficient.
There is also a comic inversion: agencies whose names evoke stewardship of land and food—DENR, DA—become, in the allegation, sources of liquidity for private pockets. The image is absurd and therefore potent. It invites a question that is both rhetorical and ethical: what happens to public trust when the agencies that manage common goods are suspected of private enrichment?
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The ICC, the Ombudsman, and the Theater of Accountability
The invocation of the ICC—an international body—elevates the drama from local scandal to global concern. If local mechanisms fail, the story goes, international institutions may be called upon to adjudicate. Baligod’s mention of the ICC and the Ombudsman’s alleged conversations with it suggests a transnational choreography of accountability.
Is the ICC a deus ex machina or a distant chorus? The rhetorical flourish of invoking international law can be read as a plea for seriousness: if domestic remedies are compromised, perhaps the international stage will be less susceptible to local entanglements. Or it can be read as a strategic escalation: the mere mention of the ICC signals that the stakes are high and that the accuser is prepared to internationalize the dispute.
There is a satirical twist: international institutions, which often move at glacial pace, are invoked as the swift remedy for alleged local corruption. The juxtaposition is comic: the slow machinery of international justice as the cavalry for a scandal that demands immediate headlines.
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Anecdotes, Irony, and the Citizen’s Gaze
Anecdotes are the human scale of scandal. They are the small stories that make the abstract concrete: a cashier’s ledger, a neighbor’s whisper, a driver’s recollection of a meeting at a house. Baligod’s affidavit, if it contains such anecdotes, will be more persuasive for their texture than for their legalese.
What does the citizen see when confronted with such anecdotes? Often, a mirror of their own suspicions. The rhetorical question becomes personal: have we, as a public, normalized the gap between official rhetoric and private practice? The humor here is rueful: citizens who have long suspected that money and power dance in private are now offered a choreography in black and white.
Irony is the essay’s natural seasoning. The institutions designed to prevent corruption—audits, SALNs, Ombudsmen—become the stage on which corruption is alleged to have been performed. The citizen’s gaze, sharpened by anecdote and affidavit, becomes both jury and audience.
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Rhetorical Questions as Civic Exercise
This essay promised rhetorical questions, and they have arrived like confetti at a civic parade. Why do affidavits matter more than investigations? Why does the SALN retain its symbolic power even as its practical efficacy is questioned? Why do houses become the preferred venues for meetings that shape public life? Why invoke the ICC if domestic institutions still function? Why do we expect transparency from forms that are easily gamed?
Rhetorical questions are not evasions; they are invitations. They invite readers to inhabit the space between claim and proof, between allegation and adjudication. They ask the public to consider not only the facts but the systems that process facts.
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Conclusion: The Public as Arbiter
Lawyer Levi Baligod’s claims, whether they prove true or false, perform a civic function. They force attention, demand documentation, and provoke institutional response. The affidavit is a provocation; the SALN is a test; the house is a stage; the ICC is a distant referee. The rhetorical questions remain: will institutions respond with the rigor of law, or with the theater of politics? Will the public accept the affidavit as a lantern or dismiss it as a torchlight show?
In the end, the most important question is not whether the affidavit contains truth—though that matters greatly—but whether the polity will treat the affidavit as a prompt for accountability. Will audits be opened, records examined, and processes strengthened? Or will the episode be absorbed into the steady churn of headlines, a momentary gust in the long weather of governance?
The satirist smiles at the absurdity; the academic notes the patterns; the anecdotalist remembers the small human stories; the esotericist senses the symbolic currents. The rhetorical questions linger, like footprints on a wet street: they invite us to follow, to investigate, and to decide.
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Amiel Gerald A. Roldan™ curatorial writing practice exemplifies this path: transforming grief into infrastructure, evidence into agency, and memory into resistance. As the Philippines enters a new economic decade, such work is not peripheral—it is foundational.
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A multidisciplinary Filipino artist, poet, researcher, and cultural worker whose practice spans painting, printmaking, photography, installation, and writing. He is deeply rooted in cultural memory, postcolonial critique, and in bridging creative practice with scholarly infrastructure—building counter-archives, annotating speculative poetry like Southeast Asian manuscripts, and fostering regional solidarity through ethical art collaboration.
Recent show at ILOMOCA
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