Since taking office in 2022, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has spent about half a trillion dollars to address persistent flooding from extreme weather in the Philippines. But despite the significant spending, cities continue to be inundated in a country that typically sees about 20 typhoons a year.
During a speech in July, Marcos Jr boasted about his administration completing more than 5,000 flood control projects, of which 656 were in Metro Manila.
Days later, Super Typhoon Gaemi deposited a month’s worth of rain on the area within 24 hours, killing dozens and leaving parts of the sprawling city submerged.
Earlier this month, it was followed by Tropical Storm Yagi. Officials put the cost of the damage at 4.7 billion Philippine pesos ($84.3m) with nearly seven million people affected.
At least a dozen more typhoons are expected before the end of the year.
The Philippines has topped the World Risk Index‘s list of countries struggling to cope with natural hazards for 16 years in a row. According to the international engineering group GHD, floods and storms will cost the nation $124bn between 2022 and 2050.
Currently, the government has nine “flagship” flood control projects in the pipeline. Each involves building concrete or “grey” infrastructure to drain or trap excess water. Government data shows that just one of the smaller “flagship” projects was completed this year, while the rest have languished in their preparatory stages since at least 2018.
The 60-kilometre (37-mile) Central Luzon-Pampanga floodway, meant to drain stormwater from Metro Manila, was supposed to begin construction in 2024. However, last month, Bonoan conceded that delays had set the project back by three years.
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) also reported that 70 percent of Metro Manila’s “antiquated drainage system” was clogged with rubbish and silt, hampering flood management. It also reported that the country lacks a national flood control master plan, with only 18 scattered plans for major river basins which are “still being currently updated”.
Since 2015, the Philippine government has allocated 1.14 trillion Philippine pesos ($20.3bn) for flood control, with 48 percent of it during the Marcos Jr administration.
Independent public budget analyst Zy-za Nadine Suzara says probable “patronage politics” was involved after noticing that flood control was often a last-minute insertion by legislators into the national spending plan.
Despite a lack of discussion about the designs and methods to address floods, “suddenly a huge amount of the flood control projects are added during the last week of budget legislation”, she noted.
Congress has currently earmarked 779.38 billion Philippine pesos ($13.9bn) for the DPWH flood control efforts in 2025, approximately 12 percent of the proposed national budget.
Suzara says that flood control projects have always been considered corruption-prone because they lack mechanisms for external monitoring and often escape any rigorous scrutiny before the budget is finalised.