Few political moments reveal the fragility of a nation’s democratic memory more clearly than now. As Filipinos face what many call the largest corruption scandal in Philippine history—the flood-control project scandal, involving an alleged multi-billion-peso conspiracy within the Marcos Jr. (BBM) administration and its allied contractors—the threat hanging over public life is not only impunity but also political amnesia. The danger is not just that the guilty escape justice but that a people conditioned to forget eventually accept the very systems of corruption that impoverish them.

In examining this peril, the insights of memory studies—across political science, critical pedagogy, cultural studies, and communication—are indispensable. Scholars across disciplines warn that when societies forget, they become governable not by democratic deliberation but by manipulation, revisionism, and manufactured nostalgia. In this commentary, I synthesize these insights to explore the crisis of Filipino civic memory and propose concrete ways for Filipinos to resist the descent into political amnesia.

I. What Is Political Amnesia?

Political amnesia refers to the systematic erosion, suppression, or manipulation of collective political memory. It is not an accident but a condition produced by institutions, power structures, and cultural technologies (Houston and McLaren 2005, 147). As Donna Houston and Peter McLaren argue, amnesia is “never simply forgetting”; it is the outcome of ideological processes that shape what societies choose to remember or erase (Houston and McLaren 2005, 149).

Margaret Farrar (2011) similarly describes political forgetting as a conflict over place memory, where erasing past events becomes tied to spatial narratives and government power. Forgetting, in this context, is a political act: by controlling memory, governments uphold legitimacy.

This dynamic is not merely theoretical. Murat Goc (2019, 29–30) demonstrates—via analyses of films such as Memento and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—that memory is always subject to reconstruction under hegemonic influence. Collective memory can be replaced, overwritten, or selectively highlighted to produce obedience or passivity.
Thus, political amnesia is manufactured, and like all manufactured goods, it serves interests—usually those of the powerful.

II. The Philippine Flood-Control Scandal as a Site of Forgetting

The flood-control mega-scandal—allegedly involving billions in overpricing, collusion among contractors, and high-level political protection—is not merely a case of bureaucratic corruption. It is a stress test of whether Filipino democracy still retains the capacity to remember wrongdoing, demand accountability, and impose consequences.

The fear among many observers is clear: if Filipinos begin to “move on,” the scandal will fade into obscurity, enabling both the masterminds and the complicit officials in the Marcos Jr. administration to evade prosecution. This cycle has happened before—with the fertilizer fund scam, the pork barrel scam, and even the atrocities of Martial Law.
The Philippines thus finds itself at the precipice of political amnesia.

III. Why Political Amnesia Is Dangerous

1. Amnesia enables the return—and persistence—of abusive power. Drawing from Laura Tingle’s Political Amnesia (2015), democratic systems decay when institutions lose memory of past abuses. Tingle observes that when governments fail to internalize the lessons of history, they repeat catastrophes—just as Rome’s descent into empire was enabled by a citizenry that forgot the republican virtues that once sustained it.
   The Philippines mirrors this pattern. When histories of plunder or authoritarianism are forgotten—or intentionally revised—old patterns resurface. Political amnesia, in this sense, is the infrastructure of impunity.
2. Selective forgetting allows elites to rebrand and re-legitimize themselves.Kristen Hoerl (2017) shows how selective amnesia allows U.S. political culture to reshape and sanitize historical narratives, making previously marginalized political identities more acceptable. In the Philippine context, similar dynamics help political dynasties reinvent themselves as reformers—despite being involved in widespread corruption scandals. Amnesia is thus a tool for laundering reputations.
3. Amnesia is often institutionally produced. As Alastair Stark (2024, 33–35) demonstrates, bureaucracies often suffer from “institutional amnesia” when records are insufficiently maintained, transparency mechanisms break down, or deliberate obfuscation occurs. This results in policy failure and conceals misconduct. In the Philippine flood-control controversy, opaque procurement processes and incomplete documentation serve exactly this purpose, creating informational gaps that weaken accountability.
4. Mass political memory is vulnerable to manipulation. Maggie Pitfield et al. (2021) emphasize the political nature of remembering: memory is curated by institutions, curricula, media, and pedagogical choices. In the Philippines, state-aligned media machines and troll networks already manufacture noise to drown out public outrage. This is an engineered forgetting.
5. Forgetting distorts national identity and fosters unhealthy nostalgia. Baker and Cupery (2023) reveal how collective amnesia about colonial abuses shapes mass attitudes toward former colonizers. A similar phenomenon is visible in the Philippines—nostalgia for “the order of Martial Law,” or portrayals of strongman rule as “efficient.” These distortions thrive in the absence of a robust civic memory.
6. Political amnesia shapes electoral behavior. Samantha Padilla (2025) warns that fading political memory enormously influences electoral outcomes. When voters forget scandals, abuses, or structural failures, they become susceptible to charismatic narratives, misinformation, and revisionism. The 2022 Philippine elections already demonstrated this risk.

IV. How Political Amnesia Works in the Context of the Flood-Control Scandal

Political amnesia in the Philippines today is produced through several mechanisms:

1. Narrative saturation and scandal fatigue
   Daily media cycles shift rapidly. The public is overwhelmed by competing crises—economic distress, inflation, foreign policy anxieties. Scandal fatigue leads to desensitization (Houston and McLaren 2005).
2. State-sponsored disinformation
   Networks of online propagandists actively frame the scandal as “overblown,” “politically motivated,” or “fake.” Pitfield et al. (2021) note how institutions curate narratives to direct public memory.
3. Institutional stonewalling
   Stark’s (2024) analysis of bureaucratic amnesia helps explain how silence, missing documents, and procedural obstructions drain scandals of momentum.
4. Manufactured nostalgia
   As Farrar (2011) and Baker and Cupery (2023) describe, nostalgia shapes political memory. Narratives of “unity,” “return of greatness,” and “strong leadership” distract from wrongdoing.
5. Emotional exhaustion
   Goc (2019) notes that identity and memory are deeply personal: when individuals feel powerless, forgetting becomes a coping mechanism. Thus, political amnesia is not a passive forgetting—it is the outcome of active cultural, political, and psychological pressures.

V. Why Filipinos Cannot Afford to Forget
The stakes of remembering the flood-control scandal go beyond punishing culprits.

1. Memory is the foundation of accountability. Without memory, justice becomes impossible. As Tingle (2015) argues, democracies deteriorate when institutions lose their capacity for long-term recall.
2. Forgetting incentivizes future plunder. If this scandal is forgotten, it signals to political actors that corruption carries no real cost.
3. Collective memory safeguards national identity. Goc (2019) warns that the reconstruction of memory under hegemony distorts identity. Forgetting state abuses endangers the nation’s moral fabric.
4. Historical consciousness is essential to resisting authoritarian drift. Farrar (2011) shows that political forgetting reshapes the lived landscape and legitimizes new forms of authority. In the Philippines, this could enable the resurgence of authoritarian governance.

VI. Escaping Political Amnesia: A Program for the Filipino People

Building on the theories in the literature, the Philippines can resist political amnesia only through a deliberate and multi-sectoral project of remembering.

1. Civic Memory Infrastructure. Following Stark (2024), institutions must implement:
   1. Mandatory archiving of government procurement records
   2. Transparent access-to-information protocols
   3. Independent repositories for corruption-related documents
   4. Citizen-led databases that track scandals over time
      Memory requires infrastructure.
2. Memory Activism and Public Pedagogy. Pitfield et al. (2021) emphasize the political role of educational spaces. Filipino civil society, media educators, schools, and universities must:
   1. Integrate contemporary corruption cases into civic education
   2. Develop curricula on the structure of political plunder
3. Produce accessible multimedia narratives that keep scandals alive. Counter-disinformation ecosystems. Because forgetting is often engineered, remembering must be organized. This involves:
   1. 1. Investigative journalism consortia
      2. Open-source intelligence hubs
      3. Anti-disinformation fact-check armies
      4. Long-term narrative campaigns

1. Rituals and public commemorations. Farrar (2011) highlights the politics of place memory. Filipinos can institutionalize remembering through: (a) Annual nationwide “Days of Accountability.”; (b) Community events marking major corruption revelations; and (c) Digital memorial sites documenting plunder and abuses

2. Cultural production and storytelling. As Goc (2019) argues, cultural forms shape memory. Films, plays, songs, graphic novels, and satire can preserve the narrative of the flood-control scandal beyond the news cycle.

3. Legal and political reforms. To prevent institutional amnesia:
   a. Strengthen the Ombudsman and COA independence
   b. Impose mandatory lifetime bans on officials convicted of large-scale corruption
   c. Strengthen whistleblower protections
   Memory must translate into structural change.

4. Citizen-led vigilance. Padilla (2025) warns that elections are shaped by memory. Filipino voters can:
   a. Track candidates’ stances on the scandal
   b. Treat silence on corruption as disqualifying
   c. Use community networks to maintain awareness

5. Intergenerational transmission. Hoerl (2017) shows how selective forgetting reshapes identities across generations. Filipino families, teachers, and communities must ensure that:
   • Young people understand the stakes of corruption
   • Scandals become part of civic storytelling
   • Memory is not left to state institutions alone

VII. Conclusion: Remembering as Resistance

Political amnesia is not a natural process—it is a political weapon. In the Philippines, the danger is not only that the flood-control masterminds escape prosecution, but that Filipinos, exhausted by crisis and noise, allow themselves to forget. As Houston and McLaren remind us, forgetting is always ideological: memory is a terrain of struggle.
The antidote to political amnesia is not mere recollection but collective, organized remembering—through institutions, culture, education, activism, and law. Filipinos must transform memory into an instrument of democratic survival.

In the face of the largest corruption scandal in Philippine history, remembering becomes a moral act. It is the refusal to normalize betrayal. It is the refusal to permit impunity. It is the refusal to allow the cycle of plunder to continue.
To remember is to resist.

(Chapter 10 of my book, ” The Artikulo Onse: History of the Filipino People.” to be made available soon. For copies email me at rickyrivera@impactpubph.com.