The numbers and assurances alone do not sustain credibility. What the public now demands is consistency, urgency and unmistakable political will. Without them, the promise of accountability risks dissolving into yet another anticlimax, another corruption scandal that begins with fire and ends in smoke.

Vincenzo is fiction. The alleged plunder of public funds attributed to Co is not.Yet both point to the same enduring truth: there is no such thing as a permanent secret. No matter how deep the vault, how advanced the technology, or how powerful the people involved, the truth has a way of surfacing.

Unverified social media reports claim that Cabral had “11-digits” in cold cash, meaning at least 10 billion pesos. Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla’s estimate is P20 billion.