‘SHUT THE F— UP’

By Herman M. Lagon

I have heard worse words shouted in a barangay basketball game over a bad foul, and nobody called it statesmanship; they called it ordinary Saturday. So when Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson opened the Senate Blue Ribbon hearing on flood control anomalies by telling the “skeptics, detractors, and hijackers” to “shut the f— up,” the line landed like a thrown monobloc: loud, ugly, and strangely satisfying to people who have been soaked for years by the same old scam, the same old flooding, and the same old excuses. The quote is real, on record, and he framed it as a warning against noise that, in his words, cannot convict or even indict anyone—only evidence can.

The honest confusion many of us feel is not really about manners. It is about fairness. We do not usually cheer invectives in official halls, but we also recognize a familiar species of disruption: the kind that does not ask honest questions, but hijacks a process to protect a person, poison the narrative, or turn a hearing into a clip-farm for social media. If you have taught in a public school, you have seen the classroom version: a student who keeps heckling not because he is curious, but because he wants the lesson to fail so nobody learns anything, including him. In politics, the heckling gets a budget and a microphone. Lacson’s outburst was relatively crude, yes, but it was also a tell: the investigation has started touching nerves that prefer darkness.

Still, it helps to name what Senate investigations are, and what they are not, because many “walang silbi” comments come from a basic mismatch of expectations. A legislative inquiry is meant to gather facts “in aid of legislation,” build a public record, and recommend action; it is not a courtroom that can hand down criminal convictions on the spot. The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that due process applies in Senate inquiries and that these proceedings are distinct from criminal investigations. That is why demands like “Why is nobody jailed after one hearing?” can be emotionally understandable and institutionally misguided at the same time. In real life, the Senate is the flashlight, not the handcuffs.

This is also why Lacson’s “noise cannot convict” line resonated, even with people who winced at the profanity. Corruption in flood control, as he described in earlier speeches, is not a one-scene crime; it is a system: budgets across years, project lists, bid patterns, contractors with multiple faces, and paper trails that have to survive not just Facebook outrage but also audit, prosecution, and judicial scrutiny. In his “Flooded Gates of Corruption” privilege speech, he laid out the scale—over a decade of appropriations running into trillions—and a recurring pattern of substandard and even “ghost” projects, with “greed control” as the punchline. When the scam is systemic, the response has to be methodical, even if the public mood wants instant drama.

Now, about the “receiver,” the most obvious one is the senator he did not name in that opening jab, but everyone in the room could identify: the colleague who has been publicly criticizing the committee and trading accusations with him. News reports describe a brewing word war with Senator Imee Marcos, including claims about blocking senators from attending hearings, counter-claims about budget benefits, and the kind of personal insinuations that do not advance a public conversation. The point is not to moralize who started it. The point is that once a hearing becomes a personality cage match, the flood victims disappear again, buried under clapbacks and trending phrases.

If this feels familiar, it is because we have been watching a rising subculture of “pa-epal” politics: not the old trapo who learned to smile in ribbon-cuttings, but the younger version who acts like a walking livestream. Some of the loudest noise lately has come from relatively young lawmakers who speak like they are auditioning for a viral soundbite, then act offended when the public calls it what it is: performance. In simple terms, “bata pa, trapo na,” because the face is new but the reflex is ancient—grab attention, weaponize outrage, and treat governance like content. Lacson’s relatively harsh jab can be read as an attempt to draw a boundary around an inquiry that is supposed to be about stolen public safety, not stolen screen time.

That said, nobody should place Lacson on a pedestal. He is a politician with interests, alliances, and calculations, just like the rest. It is reasonable to suspect that “anti-corruption” can also be a political brand, and that brand maintenance can shape tone, targets, and timing. Even his defenders should admit that profanity from a committee chair is not exactly a masterclass in institutional decorum. But politics is not judged only by etiquette; it is judged by whether it moves the needle toward accountability. If the hearing produces traceable records, referrals, reforms, and cases that survive legal challenge, then the country gains something more durable than a clean transcript.

There is also a psychological layer here that many of us intuit even without reading journals: people do not react to incivility the same way when they believe it is “earned.” Research on political incivility notes that swearing and insults are often perceived through partisan lenses and context, and that “uncivil” language can be read as either unacceptable aggression or as blunt authenticity depending on who is speaking, who is targeted, and what audiences believe is at stake. In plain terms: many of us are so exhausted by polite theft that a rude defense of process can feel like fresh air, even if it is still air from a politician’s lungs.

Teachers feel this tension daily. In school, we teach students that respectful language matters, then we watch the national stage reward the loudest interrupter. We explain due process in civics, then we see public pressure demand instant punishment without evidence. We train learners to cite sources, then we watch lawmakers argue by insinuation. What Lacson said—beneath the profanity—was basically a plea for disciplined attention: follow the paper trail, authenticate documents, match releases with actual projects, and let evidence lead. That is not a romantic message, but it is the only one that can outlive a news cycle.

So, yes, the invective was relatively harsh, and no, it should not become the new standard of Senate discourse. But it also exposed something many of us have learned the hard way: noise is cheap, while accountability is expensive. It costs time, patience, and the boring work of documentation—the kind of work that never trends, yet is the only thing prosecutors can carry into court. If politics keeps turning every hearing into a theater of hurt feelings and viral bravado, flood control corruption will continue to be “investigated” in public while it keeps operating in private. The country does not need saints in barong; it needs public officials who can stare at the mess, name it without flinching, and still do the unglamorous work after the cameras leave—because the next time the rain comes, it will not care who won the argument.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.