MANILA, Philippines—The startling image of high-rise buildings in the middle of a rain forest could have been a scene from Burma (Myanmar) or North Korea, where secretive cabals of official live and luxuriate with impunity. But while the buildings are indeed owned by Koreans, they are being built in Subic. Are they a case of deceitful foreigners, diminishing a precious resource under the very nose of our government? No. The construction of the buildings has been made possible with the connivance of our officials. Hanjin Heavy Industries, which claims that the buildings are meant to house its workers, says it has an environmental compliance certificate.

It probably does. And even if it doesn’t, the fact is, the buildings are already going up. Environmentalists can raise a howl, but the best they can hope for is for the buildings to be knocked down—which won’t bring the rainforest back. The rainforest in Subic has been touted as a tourist attraction, a great ecological resource. But obviously, even as the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority was bragging about its forests, it was handing out permits (with the help of the national government) to allow the planting of buildings where trees used to grow.

And it took whistle-blowers from the citizenry to alert media: otherwise no one would be the wiser.

But now that the public knows what’s taking place, what’s next?

The usual finger-pointing will follow: Who are responsible for this depredation? And the foreign investors will be the target of criticism, though the real criticism should be aimed at the local and national officials who allowed the foreign investors to do what they pleased.

We predict that no one will take the blame, because incumbent officials will point to their predecessors; and officialdom, past and present, will claim that much as it makes no sense, they have lovely maps showing that indeed, building apartments in the middle of a rainforest had been well-planned all along.

And if environmentalists insist on making noise about the ongoing construction, and demand that officials should be held to account, why then, officials can resort to that tried and tested government line, “Show us your evidence,” followed by “Bring it to court.”

Of course the public can point out that the buildings are there, and the rainforest has obviously been reduced, and the damage has been done. But officials will likely go scot-free; the buildings will remain, a monument to deceit.

We can all repeat Jose P. Laurel’s injunction that no one can love the Filipinos better than the Filipinos love themselves—and keep doing so until we’re collectively blue in the face. The problem is no one can sell out Filipino interests better than Filipino officials. It doesn’t matter if a plan allowing the construction of the “Subic forest apartments” exists, or if a cover-up would take place after the fact to justify it. The point is, it clearly makes no sense to punch a hole in the rainforest to build apartments.

Lip service goes hand in hand with a general policy that encourages the trumping of transparency to ensure impunity for the accountable. The ongoing construction in the Subic rainforest points to a government that views governance as a race—to do what it wants, so long as it keeps a step ahead of anyone who might have a contrary opinion to whatever it has set out to do. Anyway, in the end, so long as government gets what it wants, it will be generations of Filipinos yet to come who will pay for it.

Anywhere else, a society that cares for the environment and believes in public servants being held accountable for their actions would see the SBMA purged of its incumbent board, the environment secretary handing in his resignation, and Congress initiating an investigation due to pressure from an outraged environmental movement.

Instead, only in the Philippines would we get what we will get: nothing.

At least, when the present government wanted to lay waste to the La Mesa watershed area, environmentalists raised the alarm in time. This time, they got to be heard too late. And the fixers who made this latest ecological depredation possible are laughing all the way to the bank—confident that they can get away with it after telling the compliant public, again, not to destabilize the “resurgent” economy, and to just move on.