By Joy Aceron
A flood control plunder erupted in the Philippines this 2025. A huge portion of over a trillion pesos accounted for as budget allocations for flood control in the 8-10 years is said to have been designed for plunder, a huge portion of which could be lost to corruption involving government officials from the top to accountability institutions, such as the Commission on Audit (COA). Such huge loss that could even be higher affects all sectors. While only a few names of politicians have come out in the investigations, likely most are involved, given the prevalence of dynasties and ‘politicontractors.’ The government estimates that the Philippine economy lost up to Php118.5 billion (US$2 billion) from 2023 to 2025 due to corruption in flood-control projects. Greenpeace pegged it higher at closer to US$18 billion.
After President Bongbong Marcos called out corrupt contractors and politicians in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July, the Office of the President launched a website called Sumbong sa Pangulo in August 11, announcing alongside the list of the top 15 contractors that cornered 20% of all flood control projects from 2022 to 2025.
The controversy, however, only peaked and caught the attention of the greater public when Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto called out big media personalities on a Facebook post for featuring corrupt contractors in a positive light through a rags-to-riches story. It underscores the systemic nature of corruption and the extent that it has been normalized in Philippine society.
Responses and actions
Since then, the heads of the Senate and the House of Representatives, both of whom got implicated, have been removed; numerous protest actions continue to be staged; several contractors have been delisted; a number of officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) have been suspended; the bank accounts of those under investigation have been frozen; and a new Ombudsman has been appointed.
A newly-formed body, the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), is spearheading the investigations. The DPWH with Department of Economic Planning and Development (DEPDev) are doing inspections, while COA is doing fraud audits, and their reports have already been turned over to the ICI and the Ombudsman. In Congress, where the 2026 budget is being deliberated, a few progressive politicians tried to block the inclusion of Unprogrammed Appropriations that have been pointed as most vulnerable to corruption.
In the meantime, aside from protest actions and sending leads to government and media, civil society and ordinary citizens have yet to have substantive and proactive involvement in coming up with solutions to infrastructure corruption. While corruption has been common in Philippine government, this flood control plunder could be the worst case of corruption yet, with an entire multi-level machinery in government and the private sector in place for the purpose solely of amassing public funds. Infrastructure projects have been inaccessible to public scrutiny due to the general lack of openness in its governance—from budgeting to procurement to implementation and accountability. Infrastructure projects are also highly technical, with flood control being one of the hardest to monitor.
How can citizens be part of the solution
Yet, the flood control controversy reveals the need for the public to take part. Given the extent of corruption in government, especially in infrastructure, civil society and citizens must be involved meaningfully for transparency and accountability to make a dent.
In this light that Government Watch (G-Watch), a citizen movement for accountability, explored whether and how citizens can monitor flood control projects in partnership with the Pasig City local government. G-Watch has had experience in infrastructure monitoring, but not yet on flood control projects. The aim was to develop tools and processes that will make it easier for citizens and civil society to scrutinize flood control projects and help address the collapse in state accountability that allowed the flood control plunder to happen.
The G-Watch report that includes a spot-checking monitoring tool, a documents review checklist and a technical monitoring tool concludes that “citizens can do spot-checking of flood control projects. Its findings will be limited and nuanced, but it can point to what needs to be further investigated and audited.” The report also presents the findings of its spot-checking of 19 flood control projects in Pasig and sets of recommendations to make flood control programs more transparent, participatory and accountable.
A follow-up report based on the spot-checking in La Union broadens the coverage to include the provincial setting and the perspective of the engineers inside government, enriching the recommendations on how to sharpen which projects to prioritize for checking and how to ensure the reforms in response to the flood control plunder do not cause harm.
Imperative for political reform
Ultimately, corruption happens because our accountability checks are weak or have been weakened. One reason for this is the concentration of power in the hands of a few. This huge flood control plunder underscores the imperative of political reform. There is a need to bring back the agenda to democratize power front and center of the national discourse. While the political elites, especially in Congress, are on the defensive, and while the slow wheels of justice and state accountability turn, this moment can be taken advantage of by progressives to push for legislation that reforms the structure of power.
The following are key political reform agenda that can help prevent another flood control plunder:
- Passage of the anti-political dynasty law. Political dynasties are anathema to democracy, and they undermine state accountability mechanisms. A lot of the politicians implicated now in infrastructure corruption are from political dynasties.
- Shift to parliamentary form of government or limiting the powers of the presidency. The flood control plunder shows that majority of the legislators want to be involved in the implementation of projects, which is not allowed in the presidential system where checks and balances are enabled through the separation of powers between the executive and the legislative. If this country’s legislators want to be involved in performing executive functions, better for the country to shift to a parliamentary form where there is a fusion of powers of the executive and the legislature. If we are sticking to the presidential form, the powers of the president need to be clipped. It’s been a long-standing reform agenda to remove the power of the president to appoint members of constitutional bodies like the Commission on Audit (COA). With the involvement of a COA Commissioner in the flood control plunder, the vulnerability of COA to political capture has once again become clear. There are a variety of ways by which members of constitutional bodies are selected that ensure their independence.
- Passage of political party development and campaign finance legislations. Parties can be an additional mechanism for accountability to check the actions and performance of politicians. Patronage-based politics - that perpetuates corruption - persists because there are no programmatic options, which political parties are meant to provide. It is also clear that there are gaps in our campaign finance regulations that allow corruption money to fuel campaigns of politicians. We need to support the development of political parties and ensure that campaign finance rules regulate the role of money in elections and governance.
The flood control plunder will likely come down as the worst case of corruption in our country. Yet, we are presented with an opportunity today to make a real difference in public management and politics. We need to seize this moment by enabling citizens to be part of the solution and passing needed political reform measures.
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