The government is looking at another $200 million in foreign financing to fight the flooding in Metro Manila, nearly a decade after the capital embarked on a separate $500-million flood management project backed by the World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chair Don Artes said Wednesday that AIIB had indicated it could initially allot $200 million for proposed catchments and nature-based “sponge city” projects across the metropolis.

“They have committed $200 million,” Artes said in a Palace press briefing on Wednesday.

He later clarified that the amount had not yet been earmarked for specific projects, saying the AIIB had indicated that up to $200 million could be made available as financing discussions continued.

The proposal comes as Metro Manila continues to grapple with serious flooding despite years of spending and foreign-assisted projects.

In 2017, the World Bank and AIIB approved a $500-million Metro Manila Flood Management Project. Each lender initially provided $207.6 million, while the Philippine government committed $84.8 million in counterpart funding.

That project was designed to modernize 36 pumping stations, construct 20 new ones, improve waterways and drainage, strengthen solid waste management, and reduce flooding in selected drainage areas covering millions of residents.

The AIIB’s current project page lists its approved financing for the program at $207.6 million, while a later implementation report reflected an AIIB loan amount of $184.94 million following project adjustments.

The earlier project has also faced implementation difficulties.

A World Bank mission reviewing the program in late 2025 downgraded its implementation progress rating from “satisfactory” to “moderately satisfactory,” citing delays involving pumping station works, resettlement, and changes in project scope. The closing date was set for November 2026.

That history adds another layer to the government’s latest borrowing plan.

Different flood strategy

The proposed $200-million financing would support a different type of intervention.

The MMDA has identified 39 execution-ready locations for its sponge-city program after nearly three years of study. The list was trimmed from 107 candidate sites submitted and evaluated by local governments, experts and landowners.

Rather than relying mainly on pumps to move water away, sponge-city projects will temporarily hold the rainwater where it falls.

Plans include underground cisterns, permeable pavements, lagoons, sunken gardens and other nature-based structures intended to keep large volumes of water from reaching already overwhelmed drainage systems all at once.

One proposed facility under Camp Aguinaldo would be around 10 meters deep and capable of holding 50,000 cubic meters of rainwater.

Artes said the new projects would supplement rather than replace conventional flood control works.

Still, he acknowledged that even the expanded infrastructure would not make Metro Manila completely flood-free.

“We cannot guarantee [that it will be] flood-free,” Artes said, citing the increasingly extreme rainfall.

The priority sponge-city projects are targeted for completion by June 2027, while the MMDA aims to complete the remaining 39 projects within the year, subject to financing and construction timelines.

And the borrowing may only cover part of a much larger program.

Artes said the 39 locations are merely the initial sites, with more proposals expected from local governments and implementation likely to continue beyond the Marcos administration.