Where did all the money go?

There were cries of indignation from many quarters at what so obviously was the dismal failure of the flood control system in Metro Manila last 24 July. At the Senate, Francis Escudero, Imee Marcos, JV Ejercito, and Nancy Binay gave it their best shot.

The country is still reeling from the devastation wrought by typhoon “Carina” (Gaemi) and the enhanced torrential monsoon rains last Wednesday, with at least three Central Luzon provinces — Bataan, Bulacan and Pampanga — suffering an estimated half a billion pesos in agriculture damage.

Meanwhile, in the national capital, indignation was expressed by many over what was clearly a flood control system that failed to prevent much of Metro Manila from going under.

The drainage system in the metropolis, according to the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) could only take in some 30 millimeters of rainfall an hour. But last Wednesday, it was estimated that about 74 millimeters per hour poured on the metropolis for at least 10 hours.

At the Senate, the members were livid, with Senate President Francis Escudero asking, “Where did the money go? What happened to the hundreds of billions that went to the flood control projects of the DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways), MMDA and the local government units?”

He pointed out that some P255 billion of the P5.768 trillion national budget in 2024 was allocated for the flood control projects of the DPWH. That amount was more than the proposed budgets of entire agencies of government, including the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD, P209.9 billion) and Department of National Defense (DND, 232.2 billion).

“It’s hard to stomach that there is a P300-billion budget for flood control each year but apparently, flood control projects are not well planned and executed,” said Senator JV Ejercito.

For her part, the President’s sister, Senator Imee Marcos, fired her shot, “It’s maddening because Congress and the Senate were not remiss in allocating adequate funds for flood control, that is, some P1.4 billion a day if you sum it all up starting with the DPWH.”

Meanwhile, Senator Grace Poe, who heads the Senate Finance Committee, said she is demanding an answer from the DPWH — the department charged with implementing the government’s Flood Management Program — as to how could such a devastating event still happen despite the program’s budget steadily increasing over five years.

She has also filed Senate Resolution No. 1080 which seeks an explanation from the DPWH for the decreasing trend of the agency’s disbursement for flood control and management projects despite its being allocated budget increases in the last half-decade. The Senate finance committee head pointed to the DPWH getting over P90 billion in 2020; P101 billion in 2021; P128 billion in 2022; P182 billion in 2023; and P244 billion for the current year.

Why, despite substantial budgetary fund allocations over the past five years for flood control projects, is the country — Metro Manila in particular — still utterly ill-prepared for floods? Poe said she’d like to know.

“In contrast to the progressive increase in the DPWH’s budget for the Flood Management Program, the program’s actual budget utilization rate has been on an alarming downward trend,” observed Poe, pointing to DPWPH’s disbursing 68.26 percent of what it received in 2021; 73 percent in 2022; and 58 percent in 2023.

Last year, at the Senate committee hearing on the DPWH budget for fiscal year 2024, the department presented its budget to address flooding in the country which came to at least P1 billion a day.

For Poe, P565 billion “is too substantial a sum of money to permit anything less than optimal efficiency and effectiveness in our government programs. And yet, the current state of flood management in the country clearly demonstrates a dire need for a meticulous reassessment of where our hard-earned taxpayer money goes.”

The flooding of wide swaths of the metropolis after Carina struck last Wednesday is a particular point of embarrassment for President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. whose highlighted accomplishments in his last State of the Nation Address last 22 July included 5,521 flood control projects completed so far under his term.

Were any of these projects in Metro Manila effective in preventing the floods when Carina hit. Asked Escudero, “Shall it always be like this? Shall we accept that every time it rains hard it will flood and our lives will be at a standstill? What happened to building better?”

Indeed.