PROJECT NOAH Executive Director Mahar Lagmay is consistently diplomatic at the mention of the organization’s defunding eight years ago by the previous administration.
“Let’s move on,” he has said at multiple interviews, adding he prefers not to dwell on the past.
This weekend, Project NOAH — Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards – seems to have been given the wherewithal, or at least the acknowledgment of the need, to move forward. The bicameral conference committee approved the allocation of P1 billion to the project in the 2026 budget. That is, if we do not have to make do with a reenacted appropriations bill.
In recent years, despite the lack of official funding, NOAH — now housed under the University of the Philippines Resilience Institute — has been instrumental in providing crucial information in the event of typhoons. Over social media and other means, it has sought to offer information to researchers and policy makers to aid them in their work.
Project NOAH’s website says it “seeks to address the country in disaster risk reduction and management, climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts and related activities through research, development, and extension services.”
Should deliberations go as intended and the 2026 budget hurdles the bicam, Project NOAH is expected to work closely with the Department of Public Works and Highways in “refining the way flood-control projects are designed and monitored.”
Of course, we know the tragic depths to which these flood-control projects have brought the country. There is actual damage suffered by residents in flooded communities, losses in lives and livelihood. These have also eroded the public’s trust in their officials and institutions. While we had been aware of corruption as a bane in our society, it was because of the flood-control scandal that we came to terms with the magnitude of corruption, not only in Bulacan or Mindoro, and not only by public works engineers or district representatives.
In hindsight and using plain common sense, how have we not relied on scientific data in deciding where to build flood control projects, and what kind they must be? Why have our supposedly smart public officials approved billions of pesos in projects without ensuring if they would truly address the problem of flooding?
Then again, the answer is obvious – and infuriating.
As we scramble to introduce reforms that we hope would arrest the damage from the corruption surrounding flood-control projects, may we never forget that only science-based information will yield good results. It is unthinkable how NOAH was sidelined before, and unacceptable how its good intention was frustrated. We should never let this happen again.
Now that lawmakers themselves have institutionally acknowledged Project NOAH’s contribution to a vulnerable country like ours, it is time to move forward indeed – scientifically, ethically, and transparently.
