Flooded Zapote Junction in Las Piñas City on Saturday afternoon, PNA Photo.
Seven provinces are in state of calamity: Bataan, Bulacan, Cavite, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Tarlac, Zambales. So are 178 cities and municipalities. Two weeks of heavy rains and floods toppled four bridges, demolished 3,200 homes and 2,100 schools and flooded even the elevated North Luzon Expressway.
More than nine million people suffered losses. About 43,500 adults and children evacuated to temporary shelters. At least 60,800 tons of crops were damaged in 62,730 hectares of farmland. Ruined national roads and flood control dikes totaled P6 billion. Sixty-seven health clinics were destroyed.
Leptospirosis from animal urine sickened 5,835; 358 have died. “Leptospirosis is not only a medical condition,” says health care advocate Dr. Tony Leachon. “It’s a condition born of bad governance, lack of accountability and absence of social justice.” Thousands more are down with fever and flu.
Such maladies devastate Filipinos year in and year out. Yet their leaders offer no long-term solutions.
Many of those leaders find no reason to improve. They just switch with spouses, parents, offspring and siblings for national and local positions. Eighty percent of 24 senators and 317 congressmen are political dynasts. Same with 81 percent of provincial governors, 75 percent of city and municipal mayors and 55 percent of 18,191 local officials.
Politicos blame everyone else but themselves for deadly floods. They point to slash-and-burn farmers (kaingeros) for worsening climate change, litterbugs for clogging up waterways and squatters for building shanty towns in hazard zones.
Yet it’s the politicos who plundered P1.7 trillion in flood controls in 2016-2025. None have been convicted nor compelled to restitute their loot. Only a few have been indicted.
If Filipinos should be blamed at all, it’s for electing those plunderers over and over again. Unschooled in basic Math, Science and Reading Comprehension, they have no critical thinking. They thus vote based on celebrity, bombast and political “ayuda.”
Filipinos find scientists unexciting. Technical talk bores them. They do not realize the difference: scientists aim for progress, politicos only desire profit.
Before spending any more billions on flood control, check first if it will work, geologist Mahar Lagmay advises. Malacañang is proposing P107.4-billion flood controls for 2027. Best to wait first for Lagmay’s Project NOAH (Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards) to check if those projects are needed to begin with.
Lagmay will use both artificial intelligence and historical data to pinpoint flood-prone areas. NOAH has received P1 billion for it. It has 12 years’ record of rainfall, terrain change and high-resolution hazard maps per locality. When compiled, these can form the bases for regional masterplans. Engineers can then design and execute solutions.
When speaking of engineers, Filipinos must consider only honest ones. Not the DPWH under and assistant secretaries, regional directors and district engineers behind the P1.7-trillion flood control scam, 2016-2025.
At least three masterplans had been drawn up for the national capital:
• The 1941 Frost-Arellano Masterplan aimed to develop a new Quezon City outside Manila. “It shows wide green easements along all original waterways,” says urban designer Paulo Alcazaren. “The planners understood the function of these easements, including stormwater management.” Those were American architect Harry Frost, landscape architect Louis Croft, Filipino architect Juan Arellano and engineer AD Williams of the Bureau of Public Works.
• The 1939 Parsons’ plan for Cebu had similar patterns as Paris, like spokes on a wheel with Arc de Triomphe at the center. The 1898 revolution and a 1903 fire had left a “Cebu Burnt Area.” American architect William Parsons designed six diagonal avenues leading to a central hub. But only three avenues eventually were paved towards Fuente Osmeña Rotunda.
• The World Bank funded in 1977 a Metro Manila Transport, Land Use and Development Plan. Urban planner Felino Palafox Jr. identified Marikina, Cainta and Pasig as the most flood-prone. A Manggahan Floodway was to direct flood waters onto Laguna de Bay. A Parañaque Spillway was to drain out to Manila Bay. Manggahan Floodway was finished in 1986. Parañaque Spillway was never dug. “It’s like having a toilet without a flush,” Palafox laments. In 2009 storm Ondoy deluged the metropolis up to rooftops.
Ex-secretary Manuel Bonoan testified last month that DPWH allotted P500-million “Leadership Fund” to each of 24 senators of the 19th Congress, 2022-2025. Sen. Bong Revilla supposedly got P1.5 billion as chairman of the Senate committee on public works. Congressmen got their own shares. None admit it.
In 2022-2025 then-Speaker Martin Romualdez bagged P57-billion infrastructure insertions, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism reports. PCIJ does not impute any corruption. But being President Bongbong Marcos’ first cousin helped Romualdez bag the Speakership and consequently the P57 billion.
Romualdez outdid the record of Davao city Rep. Paolo Duterte. The presidential son got P51.8 billion in DPWH allocations in Rody Duterte’s last three years in office, 2020-2022.
Presidential son Sandro Marcos got P39.2 billion, PCIJ adds. Even Marcos critic and Minority Rep. Leandro Leviste admits to getting billions more from DPWH after exposing new undersecretaries in 2025 to be linked to crooked contractors.
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