Sacking an official is easy. Fixing the system that allowed the problem to happen is not.
The removal of BARMM Education Minister Mohagher Iqbal may appear, at first glance, as a strong and necessary response to a troubling audit. With P2.2 billion in procurement funds under scrutiny and a trail of irregularities laid bare by the Commission on Audit (COA), Chief Minister Abdulraof Macacua’s decision sends a clear message: there are consequences.
But accountability, while essential, is only the beginning. Because what the audit reveals is far more unsettling than the fate of one official.
It exposes how deeply embedded the weaknesses are within the system itself. A 520-day delay in the delivery of school armchairs—without penalties. Contracts worth nearly P2 billion approved despite glaring defects in the bidding process.
Safeguards like performance securities are treated as afterthoughts rather than requirements.
Payments released even when documents were incomplete. These are not isolated errors. They are symptoms of a system that has grown too comfortable bending its own rules. And that is where the real danger lies.
When procedures are seen as flexible, when compliance becomes negotiable, and when oversight mechanisms fail to assert themselves, governance stops being a matter of standards and becomes a matter of discretion.
In such an environment, irregularities are not the exception—they become the norm. This is why focusing solely on the removal of Iqbal risks missing the bigger picture.
Leadership decisions matter, yes. But systems outlast leaders. Macacua himself acknowledged that public trust in the BARMM has been “seriously eroded.” Trust, once lost, cannot be restored by a single decisive act. It demands consistency. It demands reform that goes beyond personalities and reaches the very processes that govern decision-making.
The BARMM carries a unique burden. It was created not just as an administrative region, but as a promise—of better governance, of inclusive development, of a break from the failures of the past. Every misstep, therefore, carries more weight. Every lapse is magnified. And every reform must go deeper. The question now is not whether accountability has been served.
The question is whether the system will change. Will procurement rules finally be enforced with rigor? Will oversight bodies act independently and decisively? Will documentation, compliance, and transparency become non-negotiable? Or will this moment fade into a familiar cycle—where outrage leads to action, action leads to replacement, and replacement leads back to the same vulnerabilities? Accountability is not enough if it ends with one name crossed out. It must evolve into discipline—an institutional habit of doing things right, even when no one is watching. Otherwise, the next audit will come. And when it does, it may tell the same story all over again.
