“We paid for infrastructure that does not exist, approved by officials who remember nothing, benefiting contractors who answer to no one.”
Before 2025 ends, take a moment to play Starship’s 1985 hit “We Built This City.” As the synths kick in and Grace Slick’s voice soars, replace “rock and roll” with “flood control.” Suddenly, the song transforms into an anthem of the scandal that sunk the Philippines underwater this year.
The lyrics fall eerily into place.
“Say you don’t know me or recognize my face; Say you don’t care who goes to that kind of place” captures the amnesia that gripped congressional hearings, where officials claimed ignorance about trillions of pesos in ghost projects. The parade of “Hindi ko po alam, your honor” and “Wala po akong maalala, your honor” became a national punchline, if only the joke were not at our expense.
“Knee deep in the hoopla, sinking in your fight” hits differently when you have watched Filipinos wade through chest-high floods in Bulacan, Pampanga, and Metro Manila, their homes submerged by waters that should have been controlled by projects worth P545 billion. The Department of Finance estimates P118.5 billion may have been lost to corruption since 2023. That is the money that should have built seawalls, dredged rivers, and installed pumping stations. Instead, it bought Chanel bags, fleets of jet planes, and luxury condominiums.
“Too many runaways eating up the night.” Suspects scatter like roaches when the lights come on. Some flee to the United States, others to New Zealand and Jordan. Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla warns: “No matter where you are in the world, we will find you.” The nights grow restless for those who plundered public funds.
And then there is Marconi. In the original song, he plays the mamba, a nod to radio’s power to unite people. In our scandal, Marconi represents the shadowy personas everyone knows but no one names in official records. The fixers. The bag men. The district engineers who testified under oath about hierarchies of kickbacks ranging from 25 to 30 percent, flowing from DPWH officials up to legislators. Filipinos already know who their Marconi is. The question is whether the justice system will finally play its tune.
“Someone’s always playing corporation games; Who cares, they’re always changing corporation names.” describes the contractor carousel: construction firms that multiply like amoebas, winning bid after bid through shell companies. The Discayas cornered over P31 billion in flood control projects during the Marcos administration’s first three years. The Cos secured P15.7 billion through Sunwest Corporation. These are corporations playing games indeed, with our taxes as their chips.
“We just want to dance here; someone stole the stage.” Perhaps this is what the corrupt whisper among themselves now. They were all enjoying the party until someone from within broke ranks. Whistleblowers came afront. District engineers sang. The music stopped, and suddenly everyone scrambled for the exits.
“They call us irresponsible, write us off the page.” This one stings because it describes us, the Filipino people, the taxpayers. For years, we shrugged. We accepted that corruption was simply how things worked. We wrote ourselves off the page of accountability, too tired or too cynical to demand better.
“Who counts the money underneath the bar?” the song asks. In our version, the counting happens in hotels, offshore accounts, hideouts, and cryptocurrency exchanges. Investigators recently uncovered links between flood control funds and Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators, with stolen pesos converted to USDT and laundered through the same networks that ran online scam syndicates. The bar has become a blockchain.
“Looking for America, coming through your schools” evokes the nepo babies who flaunt wealth on social media, children of contractors and politicians whose lifestyles cannot be explained by declared income. They attend elite schools, post luxury vacations, and inherit empires built on public funds meant for public safety.
This scandal matters beyond accountability. It speaks directly to SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. The 2025 World Risk Report again named the Philippines the most disaster-prone country in the world. Climate change intensifies our typhoons. Sea levels rise. And yet the infrastructure that was meant to protect us exists only on paper or crumbles at first contact with floodwaters. Many wondered: where did the money go?
So, as we close 2025, play the song. Let the chorus loop in your head. We built this city on flood control. We paid for infrastructure that does not exist, approved by officials who remember nothing, benefiting contractors who answer to no one. Until accountability flows as freely as floodwaters through our streets, the song remains our national anthem of corruption.
The chorus repeats. So do the scandals.
Adrian A. Mabalay is a faculty member of the Department of Management and Organization of De La Salle University. He can be reached at adrian.mabalay@dlsu.edu.ph.
The views expressed above are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official position of DLSU, its faculty, and its administrators.
