At first, it seemed senators implicated in public works for profit might be breathing easier with talk of witnesses recanting incriminating affidavits. But the recanting didn’t take place for people like dismissed Bulacan first district engineer Henry Alcantara. When it was first alleged that recanting was going on, I’d asked lawyers what all the hubbub was about. A news site hit it on the nose when it pointed out there’s “a billion-peso gap between what he admits to taking and what investigators say he actually spent.” The blunt reality is that to recant is a tactical move, either as leverage for a better deal for a witness or as a quid pro quo for senators’ support for whichever side. In any case, the damage had already been done in the court of public opinion by the initial testimony, and enough evidence had been unearthed by investigators to present a pretty compelling case. As it turned out, Alcantara appeared at the Department of Justice yesterday to be provisionally admitted into the government’s witness protection program.

For his part, Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who had suggested Alcantara and friends faced bigger problems if they recanted their previous testimony, is reportedly considering resigning from the Senate blue ribbon committee—again. This, after scathing remarks about his colleagues Senators Imee Marcos and Rodante Marcoleta, and what he perceives to be an attempt to discredit his committee’s work (the committee’s hearings are due to resume on Jan. 19).

Lacson knows that—by a thin margin, to be sure, but still, a margin—the Senate is held to be the most effective venue within the government for getting to the bottom of the flood control mess. When asked by Pulse Asia to assess the “comparative trustworthiness of selected entities in addressing the problem of corruption in flood control projects,” survey respondents gave the highest percentage to the Senate: 37 percent (31 percent for the House of Representatives, 30 percent for the President, 28 percent for the Ombudsman). Highest marks, though, went to media (54 percent) and civil society (47 percent). The public, in the same survey, seems to have no illusions about the circus-style of the Senate when holding hearings: 36 percent feel “investigations sometimes reveal the truth but are limited in impact,” 29 percent feel “investigations are likely to uncover the truth and hold those involved accountable,” while 21 percent believe “investigations rarely lead to meaningful results,” even as 12 percent are convinced “investigations are mainly for show or political theater.”

Threatening to quit yet again shows Lacson believes no one is prepared to call his bluff: the numbers above, while healthy for his committee, are significantly lower than when he first assumed the chairmanship, only to relinquish it for a time. Back in November, Pulse Asia respondents had an 8-point higher belief that investigations sometimes revealed the truth; the belief that investigations are likely to uncover the truth was 16 points higher. While surveys by different firms are snapshots taken from different perspectives and use different methods, it’s interesting to note WR Numero’s snapshot of opinion back in November. While almost one in four respondents had no trust in any institution being able to properly investigate flood control corruption, 20 percent believed in the National Bureau of Investigation, 17 percent in the Commission on Audit, and 13 percent each in the Senate and the President, with media having 12 percent trusting it to do the job, followed by the Ombudsman at 11 percent, the House at 9 percent, and civil society at 6 percent.

The Senate president, for his part, said the blue ribbon committee can convene ahead of the Senate as a whole because it has the privilege to do so; this nails down flood control-related investigations at the top of the agenda, which means everything else will be understood to be related to it. So when the President is being warned of an impeachment attempt, even as he himself has dropped his public objections to the Vice President’s impeachment, this is all being understood as a scramble inseparable from the flood control mess. In two arenas—the House, where impeachment originates, and the Senate, where any successful impeachment is tried—the votes of individual legislators are being tied to their culpability in the scam.

Here’s good news for congressmen. In November last year, WR Numero took a snapshot of public opinion. To me, the sign of how the more things change, the more they remain the same, was this finding. In the middle of this colossal corruption crisis, the public was asked, “How do you assess the performance of your congressman? Sixty-three percent responded favorably; only 13 percent were dissatisfied, while 18 percent were unsure. It suggests that if respondents viewed that some congressmen were crooks, it wasn’t their congressman. So while in the media and the popular discourse, politicians are in the dock, individual politicians can plausibly assert they are free agents, and be believed by their constituents whether actually implicated, and thus be vulnerable to pressure from one or both sides.

Pulse Asia tells us, finally, that, asked whether corruption has increased in the past 12 months, 11 percent fewer thought so in December compared to November (4 percent more think it decreased, 7 percent more think it has stayed the same). Focus remains on past, not current, crimes.