‘She died because of the flood’: Filipinos rise up as outrage over corruption scandal grows | Philippines
P.Filipino health worker Christina Padora waded through July floodwaters to check on vaccines and life-saving medicines stored in the village clinic, something she had routinely done during previous typhoons.
But this time, she didn’t succeed. Grabbing a metal pole that she didn’t see connected to a live wire, the 49-year-old woman was fatally electrocuted in the water.
Padora’s death in Bulacan province is one of dozens of recent flood-related deaths in the Philippines, where allegations of corruption linked to flood control projects have sparked widespread anger and street protests. Lawmakers, contractors and public works officials are accused of siphoning off billions allocated for flood mitigation through “ghost projects,” overbilling and kickbacks.
“She died because of the floods,” says Hajji Padora of his late wife. “It’s not just money being wasted, but lives too. »
Flooding is an ongoing problem in the Philippines, a country deeply vulnerable to climate change and hit by about 20 typhoons a year. Since President Ferdinand Marcos Jr took office in 2022, 545 billion pesos (£7 billion) has been invested in more than 9,855 flood control projects across the country.
Padora province received about P4.4 billion in flood relief funds – more than any other region. But a former district engineer recently testified at a Senate inquiry that all flood control projects in the province were “substandard” because 20 per cent or more of project funds went toward bribes to lawmakers alone.
Newly installed ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla said the anti-corruption agency was completing evidence to file complaints against at least a dozen lawmakers.
On October 9, government investigators announced that ongoing investigations had identified at least 421 “ghost projects” across the country – reported as completed but later discovered to be non-existent. Similar projects are surfacing in other sectors, including large-scale infrastructure and healthcare facility projects.
Anger first erupted on social media and then spread to the streets, with thousands of people – including many young people – coming out in unprecedented numbers in recent years. A major demonstration on September 21 was followed by smaller street actions, with another large demonstration planned for November.
“We have seen how corruption has cost people’s lives in the form of shoddy flood control projects, and we will not let corrupt officials walk away like nothing happened,” says Dexter Yang, a law student who founded GoodGovPH, a youth-led movement for good governance.
Experts say climate change will continue to worsen flooding in the Southeast Asian country.
“What’s really sad is that the issues of disasters and climate change have been exploited,” says Mahar Lagmay of the University of the Philippines’ Resilience Institute, which maps flood-prone areas and recommends data-driven interventions.
Flood control projects in the Philippines, he said, consist mainly of sea walls and other concrete infrastructure and are not the best solution to the country’s flooding problem. Lagmay says interventions such as planting trees and moving development away from floodplains are preferable.
The flooding scandal sparked political unrest, leading to the replacement of the Senate president and House speaker and the resignation of the House appropriations official. All have denied any involvement in flood relief scams.
New Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon has pledged to recover the stolen money, while the anti-money laundering board has frozen at least P4.6 billion in assets belonging to officials allegedly linked to the scam.
This has not satisfied the demonstrators who are flooding social networks with calls for the imprisonment of those responsible for these scams. “We need the corrupt to be convicted and truly held accountable,” Yang says.
Senator Panfilo Lacson, who until recently chaired the Senate committee investigating corruption, warns that the list of implicated politicians will only grow. He believes that P1tn may have been lost due to corruption over the past 15 years.
“As I reviewed piles of classified documents, my team and I wondered if the better question was: ‘Who isn’t?’ rather than “Who is guilty?” » says Lacson.
