Same racket, different strokes
The price tag, charged to the government, is six to eight times what the material actually costs.
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The price tag, charged to the government, is six to eight times what the material actually costs.
Filipinos already know about the flood-control fraud. Billions of pesos were poured into dikes and drainage systems that were not built right, some barely built at all, while contractors and their patrons in government split the take. The P1-trillion scandal exposed a system in which money, rather than public safety, was prioritized.
It has a sequel, and it is set on the mountainsides. Rock-netting, the wire mesh system meant to hold crumbling slopes together along highways nationwide, has quietly become the flood-control scandal’s twin. Different terrain, same rot.
A local official who was fed up with the substandard work that has been causing injuries and deaths during typhoons pointed out that proper rock-netting follows exacting standards: deep anchoring, snug-fitting mesh, quality steel that will not rust out after a few rainy seasons.
A contractor familiar with the German technology described the netting as hugging the slope the way a well-fitted garment hugs the body, thus keeping and holding the rocks and soil down.
But in this country, netting anchors that should run seven meters deep are going in at two or three. Materials are imported but cheap, and not tested for the terrain. And the price tag, charged to the government, is six to eight times what the material actually costs. To top it all, contractors often supply their own materials and pocket an additional cut.
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In one northern region alone, the contracts for the safety contraption were placed at roughly P46 billion. The practice is just as entrenched in Palawan, in Mindanao, in Region 2, everywhere the terrain demands this kind of protection.
This is the same racket as in flood control. In both cases, it was never really about the projects but about how much could be pocketed.
Flood-control contractors didn’t look at the kind of drains a barangay needed; they listed the type that would give them maximum kickbacks.
Rock-netting contractors did not run a proper slope analysis to determine whether a hillside needed netting or a retaining wall; they chose the method that would net them the biggest margin. Profits came before public safety.
And in both cases, nature is now sending the bill. Flood-control failures show up the moment heavy rains overwhelm a drainage system that was never built to specifications.
Rock-netting failures show up when a slope gives way because the mesh holding it together was installed at a third of the required depth. Substandard infrastructure sits quietly until a storm arrives to test it, and then it fails in the worst possible way — the backlash is counted in terms of limbs and lives lost.
Typhoons are getting wetter, rainfall more extreme, and slopes across the country are primed to give way faster than they used to. Infrastructure built not for the worsening climate but as an excuse to stuff suitcases with cash is now being tested by nature.
The crooked officials seemed to believe that the multibillion-peso heist carried out through rotten government deals would go on forever — until somebody dies.
That is how this country has worked for years: a tragedy, a funeral, a hearing, a promise, and then silence until the next collapse.
The flood-control and rock-netting scandals are not two separate failures. They are one failure wearing two different robes, one that indiscriminate storms do not distinguish between.
