This piece is writtten by Jennifer Guste of the Council for People’s Development and Governance (CPDG), a member of Reality of Aid – Asia Pacific.
On 2 September 2025, international reports documented President Marcos Jr.’s visit to Bulacan, where he grew visibly angry after inspecting flood-control projects under the watch of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) that were listed as completed but were either substandard or altogether missing.
Just weeks earlier, on 20 August, Marcos Jr. flagged a ₱55-million, 220-meter revetment in Baliwag as a “ghost project”—finished on record, but nonexistent on the ground. The district engineer admitted to certifying the structure based solely on paperwork, without a proper site visit.
These incidents reveal the widening gap between official claims and lived reality: a system where projects are declared complete on paper while whole communities with their livelihoods and properties are left to drown in floods each year.
A Ballooning Budget
Flood-control spending has surged under both Duterte and Marcos Jr. administrations—rising from ₱90 billion in 2020 to around ₱244 billion in 2024, making up approximately 20-25% of DPWH’s annual budget—solidifying its status as one of the agency’s top priorities, alongside road construction. The justification is straightforward: the Philippines, one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, desperately needs flood protection. But the sheer size of the allocations has made flood control a lucrative arena for contractors, rife with abuse.
Audit findings for 2023 show deep systemic weaknesses: of 905 flood mitigation structures and drainage systems planned under DPWH, only 450 were completed—highlighting widespread delays and oversight failures.
Media investigations and Senate hearings have since shown how the contracts are concentrated among a small set of firms. At least 15 companies cornered a fifth of the DPWH’s flood-control budget, raising suspicions of collusive practices and cartel-like behavior. Among them are contractors such as QM Builders, Wawao Builders, St. Timothy Construction, and Alpha & Omega Builders—firms that have faced questions about their actual capacity to deliver, alleged dummy ownership, and links to officials with regulatory influence. A Senate inquiry also pointed out possible conflicts of interest within the Philippine Contractors Accreditation Board (PCAB), where some members were tied to companies repeatedly winning contracts.
While the Discaya family has become the most visible face of these controversies—largely due to Senate testimonies and media focus on their ostentatious lifestyle—they are far from being alone. Other contractors with political ties to sitting lawmakers or regulatory agencies remain shielded from scrutiny, their influence protecting them from accountability even as substandard or ghost projects persist.
Citizens Step In
The government has attempted to present itself as responsive by launching platforms like “Sumbong sa Pangulo,” which allows citizens to directly file complaints about defective infrastructure. Some residents of Bulacan and Pampanga have turned to the site to report substandard flood control projects.
But while these mechanisms create an illusion of accountability, they have yet to produce meaningful results. The same defective projects remain, no high-ranking official has been charged, and no contractor with political ties has been jailed. To present citizen reporting as a solution is to ignore the long history of impunity that has defined infrastructure corruption. The Marcos Jr. administration, despite claiming to act on complaints, has done little to dismantle the networks of patronage that enable ghost projects and shoddy work. Indeed, the family’s own history is a reminder that nepotism and corruption are not aberrations but foundations of their rule.
When ODA Meets Local Corruption
Flood control in the Philippines is not funded solely by domestic taxpayers. Official Development Assistance (ODA) from foreign donors, facilitated through the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) now the Department of Economy, Planning, and Development of DepDEV, also bankrolls major infrastructure projects. According to the DepDEV’s ODA Portfolio Review, development partners like Japan, South Korea, and multilateral lenders such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have provided substantial loans and grants for flood management, particularly in Metro Manila and Central Luzon.
While these funds are intended to strengthen climate resilience, they often enter the same leaky systems of governance. Once contracts are handed to politically connected firms, international funds risk being siphoned off just like domestic ones. The consequence is twofold: local communities remain unprotected, while the Philippines becomes further indebted in foreign donors.
Critics argue that this cycle entrenches dependence. By continuing to channel money into a system known for corruption, donors tolerate—if not indirectly encourage—its persistence. Instead of empowering local communities, ODA often reinforces the power of central governments and their cronies.
Lessons from Across the Asia-Pacific
The Philippines is not alone in this crisis of infrastructure, corruption, and climate risk. Across the Asia Pacific, flawed flood-control and disaster projects reveal how vulnerable communities bear the brunt of mismanagement.
In Indonesia, the long-delayed Jakarta Giant Sea Wall project—part of a multibillion-dollar effort to protect the capital from sinking—has been criticized for corruption, delays, and failure to consider the needs of poor communities along the coast. Civil society groups warn that despite massive spending, the project risks worsening inequality while doing little to stop flooding.
Despite receiving substantial support from Japan International Cooperation Agency for flood control projects, the Thai government has failed to ensure their long-term effectiveness due to weak post-project management and lack of sustained commitment. A 2022 evaluation found that key initiatives, including community-based disaster risk management plans, were abandoned after implementation, particularly in rural areas. This pattern of neglect raises concerns about the government’s ability to manage new large-scale efforts like the US$9.4 billion “Chao Phraya 9 Plans,” especially amid growing criticism over controversial projects such as the Pak Beng Dam, which may worsen regional flooding and has triggered a parliamentary investigation.
The Bangladeshi government’s ongoing reliance on structural flood control has come under renewed criticism with the implementation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-funded Flood Reconstruction Emergency Assistance Project (FREAP), approved in 2024 with a $230 million loan. While FREAP addresses urgent post-flood recovery in nine northeastern districts through embankment repairs, road rehabilitation, and riverbank protection, it reflects the same top-down approach that has long plagued Bangladesh’s flood management. Despite decades of controversy surrounding embankments—linked to ecological damage, waterlogging, and community displacement—the government continues to marginalize local knowledge systems like tidal river management. With contracts awarded since late 2024, concerns persist that FREAP, like past projects, will suffer from weak community engagement, poor long-term maintenance, and unsustainable outcomes.
These examples show that corruption and poor governance in disaster projects are regional challenges, undermining both public trust and international commitments to climate resilience.
The Human Cost of Corruption
The devastating human cost of corruption in the Philippines’ flood control projects is a direct consequence of the government’s failure to ensure accountability and proper project implementation. The government’s inaction and complicity have created a system where the lives and livelihoods of ordinary Filipinos are sacrificed for the enrichment of a select few.
In a single weather event in July 2025, the country reported at least 26 deaths and the displacement of over 300,000 people, with nearly 3,000 houses damaged—a direct result of failed projects. The government’s inability to provide safe and reliable infrastructure exposes its profound neglect of public welfare.
The Department of Finance (DOF) has revealed that corruption has cost the Philippine economy an estimated ₱42.3 to ₱118.5 billion from 2023 to 2025. This staggering amount could have created between 95,000 and 266,000 jobs, a potential boon for a country struggling with unemployment. The government’s lack of oversight and willingness to tolerate these anomalies means that funds which could have been used for essential services like healthcare and education were instead stolen, leaving the populace to bear the brunt of both the flooding and the missed economic opportunities.
The government’s response to this crisis, marked by finger-pointing and promises of investigations, does little to assuage the public’s anger and frustration. The repeated occurrence of these disasters, despite massive annual budgets for flood control, proves a systemic failure of governance. With revelations that a small number of favored contractors cornered billions of pesos in contracts, many view the government as a partner in this grand scheme of robbery.
Aid, Accountability, and Climate Resilience
Flood control is at the intersection of infrastructure, disaster risk reduction, and climate adaptation. Its corruption is therefore not only a failure of governance but also a betrayal of climate commitments. The Philippines has pledged to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 9 on resilient infrastructure, SDG 11 on sustainable cities, SDG 13 on climate action, and SDG 17 on partnership for the goals. Yet the persistence of ghost projects and substandard works shows how far the country is from achieving them.
Instead of reinforcing dependency on foreign loans and tolerating elite capture of contracts, genuine resilience demands people-centered approaches. Communities must be involved in planning and monitoring, independent oversight must be strengthened, and donors must stop turning a blind eye to corruption in the name of expediency.
Toward People-Centered Governance
The Council for People’s Development and Governance (CPDG) has long argued that disasters in the Philippines are not purely natural—they are aggravated by political choices. The case of anomalous flood control projects proves this once again. Corruption transforms heavy rains into humanitarian crises. Nepotism ensures that contractors grow rich while farmers and fisherfolk sink deeper into poverty.
True resilience requires dismantling the structures of impunity that allow infrastructure corruption to thrive. It requires putting people, not profits, at the center of disaster response and climate action. Until then, every embankment with cracks, every dike that collapses, and every community that floods will stand as a testament to how corruption drowns the future of the nation.