“A fairy tale written in taxpayers’ money and floodwater.”
The flood control controversy has done more than expose billions of pesos in questionable contracts. It has unmasked a culture of entitlement that now parades openly on social media. We see it in the children of dynasties and favored contractors, living large, flaunting luxury bags and private jets, while ordinary Filipinos wade through floodwaters.
The public has found the perfect vocabulary for them: nepo babies, Disney princes, and Disney princesses. Different labels, yes, but they all point to the same thing: they are symbols of a rotten system where power is inherited, wealth is flaunted, and accountability is optional.
The sting of these labels lies in how they invert fantasy. Disney princes and princesses are supposed to be aspirational. These ones are cautionary tales. Their curated feeds resemble fairy tales, castles, crowns, and endless banquets, yet their kingdoms are built on contracts, their jewels paid for by taxpayers, and their privilege underwritten by public suffering.
It is easy to dismiss them as careless kids showing off. But they are more than that. They embody a political culture where lineage is license, where connections outweigh competence, and where dynasties pass power like heirlooms. They are living reminders that while the public suffers, a select few inherit the right to float above the flood.
“Mahiya Naman Kayo”
Even President Marcos Jr., in his recent SONA, could not resist scolding erring officials with the line: “Mahiya naman kayo.”
The irony, however, was not lost on many. Because if anyone knows the life of a nepo baby, it is him and his siblings, who occupied Malacañang during the heydays of the senior Marcos and their Imeldific mother. Long before Instagram, the Marcos children lived in the palace, not by merit but by surname, heirs to their father’s dictatorship.
That history lingers. Today’s “House of Nepo” is simply a sequel, its new princes and princesses playing the same dynastic script.
And the contrast could not be sharper. While people drown in waist-deep water, the princes and princesses of flood control pose with luxury hauls, cocktails, and foreign getaways. Their spectacle is not just obscene. It is mocking. They float above the flood, smiling down as if calamity is merely a backdrop to their curated lives.
This is why the labels resonate. They cut through official denials and excuses. In one biting phrase, the people capture the truth: these are not leaders-in-waiting, but characters in a cruel fairy tale, oblivious to the suffering outside their gates.
The Real Fantasy
The greater illusion, however, is believing that institutions will correct themselves. They will not. Dynasties will keep producing princes and princesses. Contractors will keep minting nepo babies. Unless structural reform is forced, anti-dynasty laws, airtight procurement, real accountability, the fairy tale will repeat, each generation more shameless than the last.
So yes, call them nepo babies. Call them Disney princesses if you must. Laugh at the memes. But never lose sight of the bigger plot: their crowns are bought with our taxes, their castles are built on the floodwater, and unless this House of Nepo is dismantled, this kingdom of plunder will keep drowning us all.