Floods, kickbacks, moro-moro
The blueprint for saving lives was available, but it was set aside so a mafia of contractors and their patrons in government could carve up the budget like a roasted pig at a fiesta.
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The blueprint for saving lives was available, but it was set aside so a mafia of contractors and their patrons in government could carve up the budget like a roasted pig at a fiesta.
In the Philippines, nothing is certain except floods and kickbacks, a lethal combination.
Every year, the clouds gather, the habagat rolls in, and the country is reminded that it has no flood control system worthy of the name. Metro Manila, along with much of the country, drowns on schedule.
It is a recurring reminder of what some might call divine justice. Last year, ahead of his fifth State of the Nation Address (SoNA), President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. scolded the crooks on live television: “Mahiya naman kayo” — shame on you. It was a charade.
It was a good line, and it made the papers. Then the rains returned, and so did the floods, swallowing the very communities that structures built to protect them were supposed to keep safe.
Bulacan, the province that anchored the scandal, is the same region frequently underwater.
An estimated P118 billion in economic losses resulted from ghost flood control projects between 2023 and 2025.
Translate the amount into 250,000 potential jobs that should have been created. In human terms, the pilferage meant families standing on their own roofs waiting for a rescue boat that may or may not come.
The government spent a year promising accountability, but the public got little of substance. Instead, cover-ups took center stage.
Henry Alcantara, the dismissed chief of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Bulacan 1st District Engineering Office, returned P110 million to the government out of a total of P300 million in kickbacks that he admitted to accumulating by signing completion papers for flood control projects that were never built.
He is now a state witness under government protection.
Then there is the case nobody has closed. Maria Catalina “Cathy” Cabral, a former DPWH undersecretary for Planning and Public-Private Partnership, was found dead at the bottom of a ravine along Kennon Road in Tuba, Benguet, last December.
The Independent Commission for Infrastructure had just subpoenaed her. She had just been named in sworn testimony as the official who steered the flood control funds. Police called it a fall, consistent with suicide.
The site where she died sat beside a DPWH project already flagged for overpricing. The public drew their own conclusions about Cabral’s tragic fate, particularly after the surfacing of the Cabral files, a ledger listing the recipients of the distributed loot.
The exacting reminder from heaven is not complete without mentioning the main thoroughfare EDSA, freshly repaved, cracked open again under the first hard rain and growing new potholes, proving nothing had been learned at all.
The government has multiple flood management master plans, but they sit in binders.
The blueprint for saving lives was available, but it was set aside so a mafia of contractors and their patrons in government could carve up the budget like a roasted pig at a fiesta.
And the taxpayer foots the bill twice. Once when the money vanishes into a contractor’s pocket, again when the flood arrives, because the wall that money was supposed to buy was never built, was built badly or collapsed two months after the ribbon-cutting photo.
Public protests demanding real accountability were met with Malacañang’s claim that the rallyists had not looked closely enough at the “progress” being made. No big fish yet, protesters said. The Palace disagreed, pointing to the usual suspects, Bong Revilla and Jinggoy Estrada, who were detained.
Revilla is now free on P1-million bail after roughly six months in jail. His malversation case is headed to trial, while a separate plunder complaint tied to the same scandal remains under review by the Department of Justice. Talk of retribution.
Floods are nature’s invoice. The rain never forgets. It returns every year, right on time, as faithful as a debt collector.
Until the money is recovered and those responsible are held accountable, the water will keep haunting the Maleta mafia.
