Tell me what your definition of scrubbing is that would allow a column of bleaching earth to count, but not a column of silica. The definition of chromatography allows any solid with any affinity for a compound to be used as the stationary phase. Furthermore, chromatography in chemistry is generally applied to a technique that elutes every compound through the media in bands. However in this case people do not want the color compounds to elute; they want them to be 100% retained by the media, which makes this decidedly more of a adsorption scrub than a chromatography run.
There is nothing magical about silica. Silica is a convenient adsorbent to use for normal phase chromatography. What you’re describing isn’t even normal phase. Normal phase uses a nonpolar solvent with a polar stationary phase (silica). You are suggesting using a polar solvent with a polar phase. If you knew how chromatography works you would see that’s not a winning combination.