You can rob the country, but you can’t sell it to China

The Filipino people can probably tolerate a plunderer, but not a traitor.

This seems to be the emerging public mood, at least among the people I’ve spoken to over the past couple of days, as the House prosecution team reaches the climax of its presentation on Vice President Sara Duterte’s unexplained wealth.

The prosecution presented Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) records showing that Cale88 Foods Corporation, in which Sara’s husband, Manases Carpio, held a 47.5 percent stake through 2024, received P319.33 million in inward remittances from China. Sen. Risa Hontiveros has raised questions about links between some of the remitting companies and Chinese state-owned enterprises, which she said are under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.

This is on top of forensic financial analyst Alex Cabrera’s testimony that Sara and her husband have an estimated P817.87 million in unexplained wealth; AMLC records showing around P4.4 billion in covered and suspicious transactions and financial records linking alleged drug lord Sammy Uy to transactions involving the Vice President. These include a P16-million manager’s check issued in Uy’s name in 2016 from a joint account held by Sara and her father, Rodrigo Duterte, and two checks worth a combined P14.88 million purchased by Uy and his associates, with Sara listed as beneficiary.

The figures are staggering even without the China connection.

And what is the defense offered by Sara’s lawyers? Pathetic, if not downright revealing. First, they threatened the AMLC witness and even media people, arguing that presenting Sara and her husband’s bank transactions before the public violates the Bank Secrecy Law. Second, they whined about the prosecution adding up Sara and her husband’s transactions, as though the people watching the trial are incapable of doing the same arithmetic and arriving at the same scandalous figures.

But what is glaring is that Sara’s defense has yet to directly dispute the authenticity of the multibillion-peso bank records and other financial transactions presented by the prosecution. Not once in its arguments so far has it squarely said that the multibillion-peso bank records and other financial transactions are false. It only objects that the financial records should not have been shown in the first place. Of all possible defenses, this is apparently the only one that confesses.

The picture is now crystal clear. Sara is not only facing allegations of unexplained wealth and suspicious financial transactions, but also of being a China-funded traitor.

To many Filipinos, this is what separates Sara and her family from other political dynasties similarly accused of plunder and corruption. They are now perceived as China’s most expensive collaborators, paid for by millions and millions of pesos.

The public, having grown cynical about our corrupt political system, has tragically become accustomed to corruption scandals. Many have come to believe that all politicians are dirty. The question, for some, is simply which of them might at least give something back.

The Dutertes know this cynicism all too well. They deflect scrutiny of their own corruption by pointing to the sins of their dynastic rival, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., and his allies in the flood-control scandal, even as they, too, are implicated. Their argument is simple. Because their rivals are accused of corruption, they deserve a pass. Apparently, one dynasty’s plunder is another’s alibi, a neat excuse for political dynasties, but a lousy deal for Filipinos.

Our standard for public officials has sunk so low that corruption has practically become part of the job description. But even on that low bar, there appears to be a red line. China.

So, are Filipinos patriotic but tolerant of corruption?

I would offer a nuance. Modern Filipino patriotism, particularly when directed against a foreign power, is not necessarily the anti-American rhetoric preached by some sections of the Left. Today, much of that patriotic anger is directed at China, and for good reason. Its harassment of Filipino fisherfolk and aggression against the country’s frontliners in the West Philippine Sea have made the threat immediate, tangible and deeply personal. This is about Filipino fishers being driven away from their traditional fishing grounds, Filipino frontliners being harassed while carrying out their duties and a foreign power acting as though Philippine waters belong to it.

The Dutertes may be counting on the public’s familiar cynicism toward corruption to carry them through this controversy. They may even hope to bury it beneath the usual accusations against their political rivals. But they may have miscalculated how deep Filipino resentment toward China runs. It is one thing for Filipinos to suspect that their politicians are stealing from them. It is quite another to suspect that money from a foreign aggressor harassing their fisherfolk and challenging their sovereignty may be flowing into the financial network of a powerful political family. The former invites the familiar shrug of a public weary of corruption. The latter hits a nerve that no amount of what-aboutism can easily numb.

The public may have become desensitized to corruption. But perhaps it has not become so numb that it can no longer tell the difference between a plunderer and a traitor.

True. The bar is low. The standards are abysmal. But it seems that there is still a red line that cannot be crossed. You can rob the country and expect people to argue over what amount merits national outrage. But if you are caught red-handed taking millions from China while poor Filipinos are treated with cruelty in their own waters, you are done for.

The message is clear to Sara and all her ilk. You can rob this God-forsaken country, but you can’t sell it to China.