New Report Confirms P500 Billion in Projects, Significant Flooding, and One Outstanding Question
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
Philippines Flood Control Scandal: The Projects Were Funded, the Flooding Continued, the Math Is Complicated
MANILA — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced in his 2025 State of the Nation Address that his administration had implemented over 5,500 flood control projects and planned at least ten large-scale projects totalling more than P500 billion over the next thirteen years. Metro Manila flooded anyway. This sequence of events has prompted inquiries.
According to the Philippines’ documented flood control scandal, flood control project allocations in some provinces increased by six to eight times during the Marcos administration. In Marcos’s home province of Ilocos Norte, flood control budgets jumped from P463 million in 2022 to P8.72 billion in 2025 — a nineteen-fold increase that Ilocos Norte residents may or may not have noticed in the form of reduced flooding. In House Speaker Romualdez’s home province of Leyte, allocations rose from P2.17 billion to P10.06 billion. The pattern of project allocation was described by investigators as the “BBM Parametric Formula,” which is a technical term for directing infrastructure funds to politically preferred locations, also known as “how budgets have worked since the invention of budgets.”
The Senate Hearings
The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearings produced testimony from a security aide who stated that he regularly delivered luggage filled with cash to the former House Speaker’s residence. The estimated amount delivered was P1.68 billion, which is a significant amount of cash to transport by luggage and which raises questions about the logistical challenges of carrying kickbacks that no Senate hearing has yet addressed. Romualdez resigned as speaker. The luggage testimony remains on record. The floods continue seasonally.
Britain has an official department of grim laughter; the Philippines has a Senate Blue Ribbon Committee that serves a similar function with more dramatic testimony. Managing institutional accountability requires that the accountability mechanism actually produce accountability, which is the step the Philippines is currently negotiating. P500 billion in flood control. Five thousand five hundred projects. Ongoing flooding. One outstanding question.