At the “Trillion Peso March” on 21 September, which seeks to protest entrenched corruption in the country, don’t be surprised to see ecology warriors in the throng, as they also have an ax to grind with the syndicate that robbed the nation blind through shameful flood control projects.
Billions of pesos intended to fund projects that would shield Filipinos from floods and typhoons have instead lined the pockets of corrupt officials and contractors.
Environment group Greenpeace reported up to P1.089 trillion in climate-tagged funds may have been lost to corruption and anomalous flood control projects since 2023, a staggering misuse of resources that critics say leaves communities defenseless against intensifying climate disasters.
In 2025 alone, some P560 billion may have been misappropriated into “ghost projects” or substandard infrastructure, the environmental group warned. The estimate is based on data from the National Integrated Climate Change Database and Information Exchange System.
Based on revelations in congressional investigations, corruption cuts leave only 30 to 40 percent of budgets for the actual implementation of climate mitigation projects, while up to 70 percent of government funds may have been lost to corruption and substandard construction work.
Crooks in government and their cohorts are not just plundering government coffers, they’re also crippling the ability of millions of Filipinos to survive in the face of an escalating climate crisis.
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) oversees a majority of the Philippine government’s climate spending, controlling P800 billion of the P1 trillion climate budget in 2025, based on Greenpeace estimates.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had earlier revealed that at least 20 percent of all flood control projects in the last three years were undertaken by just 15 contractors, prompting an inquiry into the anomalies by the House of Representatives. Between July 2022 and May 2025, the administration poured P545 billion (US$9.2 billion) into 9,855 flood control initiatives nationwide.
For communities already battered by climate impacts, the consequences are tangible. Last Saturday, Quezon City was inundated after a record 141 millimeters of rain—five days’ worth—fell in just one hour, surpassing the peak intensity of Typhoon Ondoy in 2009. The floods laid bare how billions spent on defenses have failed to shield vulnerable urban populations.
As much as 8 percent of the country’s critical infrastructure could be exposed to severe flooding in the next decade, with primary healthcare facilities among the most at risk, most of which, the commissioner noted, are “not designed to withstand extreme climate events.”
Greenpeace called the misuse of climate funds a crime against the public. “The greed we’re seeing in this corruption scandal mirrors the greed of fossil fuel corporations that have put us in this climate crisis in the first place,” Greenpeace said.