Corruption Kills: The Flood Control Ghost Projects
The Philippines faces around 20 typhoons a year. Flood control isn't a luxury — it's survival. That's what makes the flood control scandal so devastating.
What happened
In 2025, investigations into the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) revealed that a large share of flood control funds had gone to projects that were substandard, duplicated or never built at all — so-called ghost projects. River walls and drainage systems existed on paper and in payments, but not on the ground.
How big
Finance Secretary Ralph Recto told the Senate that the government may have lost as much as ₱118.5 billion to anomalous flood control projects from 2023 to 2025. Inspections turned up hundreds of ghost or questionable projects, and a small number of contractors were found to have won a huge share of the contracts. Bank accounts and assets linked to the scheme were frozen, and an independent commission was formed to investigate.
People drowned
Every peso stolen from flood control is a wall that wasn't built and a drain that doesn't work. When the floods come, the poor are hit first and hardest — in low-lying neighborhoods, informal settlements and farming communities. Corruption here isn't abstract. It's measured in lives.
The people responded
On September 21, 2025 — the anniversary of Marcos Sr.'s declaration of martial law — tens of thousands of Filipinos rallied in Manila in the "Baha sa Luneta" protest and the Trillion Peso March, demanding accountability. Officials and contractors have since faced charges, and the investigation continues.
Why it matters
The scandal is the latest chapter in a long pattern. Knowing it, naming it and remembering it on election day is how that pattern gets broken.
Sources
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