“In the Philippines, the floodwaters rise every year, but the only thing that ever stays high is the water level of corruption”
FEW spectacles are as obscene as watching the Philippines drown—not just in floodwater, but in political hypocrisy.
Every rainy season, children paddle through sewage in plastic tubs, while the country’s elites paddle through pork.
This week’s zarzuela was particularly rich.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., heir to a kleptocratic dynasty, announced he was “open” to the Dutertes’ “sensible” flood-control advice.
That’s like an arsonist asking another arsonist for fire-safety tips.
His spokesperson, Claire Castro, wagged her finger at Davao City Mayor Baste Duterte for criticizing without offering solutions.
Yet in the same breath, she demanded the Dutertes explain the 13,917 flood projects they supposedly built. That number is so absurd I half-expect they included Noah’s Ark.
Baste shot back that Marcos is all talk, no concrete. He’s right – except the Dutertes, when in power, poured more ghost concrete than any séance ever conjured.
Marcos and the Audit Mirage
Marcos loves an audit. It makes him look furious, righteous, presidential.
He gets to channel the outrage of flood victims – without actually preventing floods.
But let’s not mistake moral theater for moral courage.
His administration approved billions in questionable infrastructure, funneled contracts to cronies, and now feigns shock – shocked! – that corruption exists in the flood-control budget.
It’s Casablanca on the Pasig River: the man shouting “Round up the usual suspects!” while drinking with them afterward.
Duterte’s Ghost Infrastructure
The Dutertes, for their part, perfected ribbon-cutting politics.
Bulldozers at photo-ops, billboards of bridges that never stood, projects as real as a mirage on EDSA.
Rodrigo Duterte’s government boasted of 13,917 flood-control works.
If that were true, the Philippines would be Venice by now – with gondolas gliding along pristine canals. Instead, Davao still drowns and Manila still chokes.
Their defense? Don’t ask about the past, look at Marcos now! It’s the burglar’s alibi: “Sure, I stole last week, but have you checked your neighbor?”
A Flood of False Solutions
Audits here, accusations there – this is not governance.
This is a cockfight staged on a sandbag wall.
What’s missing? Actual drainage that works. Transparent project portals. Engineers and hydrologists empowered over dynasties. Prosecutors with handcuffs instead of politicians with microphones.
Marcos’s “open to advice” is political tai chi – he absorbs criticism by pretending to welcome it. The Dutertes’ counterattacks are political karaoke – loud, off-key, and always on repeat. Neither keeps a barangay from going under water.
What If Marcos Listens?
Best case, we get a photo-op: Marcos and the Dutertes in rubber boots, pointing at a sandbag wall.
Worst case, Marcos validates their claim that only they can build. Most likely, nothing changes. The floods remain biblical, the politics medieval.
The Human Toll
Every “ghost project” is a real coffin. Every peso stolen from flood control is a child drowned in a swollen creek, a farmer bankrupted, a family displaced.
Dynasties argue over who wasted billions while the poor die in waist-deep water. This isn’t flood control; it’s population control – just not the kind anyone will admit.
The Philippines doesn’t need another round of “I’m angrier than you” politics. It needs:
- Radical transparency: GPS maps, project costs, photos. No data, no budget.
- Technical leadership: Let engineers, not heirs, design the system.
- Real accountability: Contractors and politicians in jail, not in press conferences.
The real floods are natural; the drowning is man-made.
Until the country treats corruption as a greater disaster than typhoons, it will keep burying coffins under concrete that was never poured.
For now, Filipinos brace for the next storm. When the rains come, the poor will be bailing out their homes – while Marcos and Duterte bail out their reputations.
In the Philippines, the floodwaters rise every year, but the only thing that ever stays high is the water level of corruption.
