Heads, they win. Tails, they still win. Coin lands on its edge? They need a bigger budget to investigate the coin.
THE Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) said it will retrofit the structurally weakened Calbiga Bridge using leftover materials from the San Juanico Bridge upgrade despite the lack of a specific 2026 budget allocation.
Photo courtesy of DPWH Official Website.
Bongbong wants more money for the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). P643.95 billion for 2027. Up P113 billion. Twenty-one percent.
Flood control is back in there, too: P83.84 billion for flood mitigation, plus P19 billion for ongoing foreign projects.
Beautiful. You fail bigger, you get funded bigger. If Manila completely disappears underwater, these people are getting a trillion pesos.
Have you seen Vince Dizon? Every week he finds another reason not to give DPWH money.
And somehow — somehow — those reasons become reasons to give DPWH more money.
Incredible. If there is no flood, “See? Flood control works.” If there is a flood, “See? We desperately need flood control.”
Heads, they win. Tails, they still win. Coin lands on its edge? They need a bigger budget to investigate the coin.
But before we hand over more billions, can somebody tell us what we’re actually buying?
Because every time we say “flood control,” somehow it immediately means construction. Why?
You know a place floods. Everybody knows. City hall knows. The developer. It flooded last year. It flooded five years ago. Then somebody wants to put 2,000 houses there. And we say, “Approved!”
Build, build, build.
Two thousand houses. Then it rains. It floods. Surprise. Now government comes running: “We need flood control!”
You need flood control? You needed a pen, that’s what you needed.
Developer walks in: “I’d like to build 2,000 houses in the place that floods.”
“No.”
Finished. The cheapest wall is occasionally the condo you never approved.
But we couldn’t afford that. So we said yes for free. And now we’re going to spend billions fixing the yes.
And if a developer covers 20 hectares with roofs, roads and parking lots, where does the rain go?
It used to hit the dirt. Now it hits concrete. So the water runs out of the development, into the public drain. The public drain can’t handle it. Taxpayers are told they need a bigger drain.
Why? The developer created the runoff. Make him keep some of it. Leave some ground. Give the rain somewhere to go.
“Oh, but that takes valuable land!”
Correct. Water also requires land. Water is very unreasonable that way. Very selfish.
You cover everything with concrete, then act offended when the water goes into your living room?
Maybe some land should just be left alone. Nothing there, not a condo, a mall. “Someone’s Residences” sitting where the river used to be.
Empty land. In Metro Manila. Radical. I know.
A businessman could be making money there; instead, there’s a tree. Tax-free. Rent-free. Very sad.
Maybe the government buys some of it, puts up a park. Normal day, kids play there, people jog, old people sit. Big rain comes, let the park flood. Who cares? It’s a park. Better a flooded bench than a flooded bedroom.
Flood control is not always about building something. It can also mean having the intelligence and the funds to leave something be.
