The disaster-prone Philippines invested billions in flood control. Then officials looted the funds

Ace Aguirre had barely taken two bites of his oatmeal on the morning of November 4 when he noticed something strange: Mud had seeped into the living room floor of his bungalow in Cotcot, a village in the Philippines’ Cebu province.

The moments that followed will forever be etched in Aguirre’s memory. Living room furniture is floating; a few terrifying moments when he wasn’t sure if he could open the front door; His son was praying to God as the water rose up to his chest; Her daughter, who couldn’t swim, was perched on a pole as water and cars gushed inches from her feet.

“I don’t know how we survived. One detail that didn’t help us and most of us could have died,” Aguirre told CNN.

that morning Typhoon Kalmaegi A month of rain caused rivers and waterways in Cebu to swell, leading to catastrophic flash floods that killed more than 230 people across the country.

One of the dead was Aguirre’s neighbor, a mother of two, who drowned when she became trapped in the kitchen. He had tried to save her but couldn’t get her out in time.

Torrential downpours and deadly floods are nothing new in the tropical, disaster-prone Philippines. But revelations in recent months that politicians, officials and contractors had plundered billions of dollars from the nationwide program that was supposed to cushion their impact have shaken the country.

According to local media reports, before the deadly flood, a citizens’ group in Cebu had called for an inspection of flood control projects along the Cotcot River upstream from where Aguirre lives.

The scandal has embroiled dozens of senior MPs and officials who allegedly received kickbacks to award tenders. These statements led to massive youth-led anti-government protests against corruption and wealthy elites, similar to those seen in Indonesia and Nepal this year.

Aguirre had been following the political drama unfolding in the capital Manila for months, but he did not expect this incident to come to his doorstep.

“All of a sudden you become a direct victim,” he said. “It feels different.”

The November floods led Cebu governor Pamela Baricuatro to demand an investigation into the province’s 26 billion pesos ($443 million) flood control projects, which authorities in Manila acknowledged “should have been working” by the time the disaster struck.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. He later visited the area and promised to clear and clean the waterways and unblock the drainage systems when the rainy season came next year.

Last July, he said the government’s flood control program, worth more than 545 billion pesos ($9.2 billion), was plagued by corruption.

He said that most of the 10,000 projects his government has inspected since coming to power in 2022 were found by internal audits to have been built using substandard materials or not used at all, and referred to the projects as “ghost projects”.

CNN has reached out to the Philippine government for comment.

Sol Iglesias, Marcos Jr., associate professor of Political Science at the University of the Philippines. When he exposed the fraud, he “opened a can of worms” and it has spiraled out of his control ever since, he said.

Iglesias said testimony in the House and Senate revealed “a whole system of plunder and corruption facilitated by the institutions responsible for budgeting, planning, implementing, monitoring and checking the financial soundness of these infrastructures.”

In September, Finance Minister Raph Recto told a Senate hearing that up to 118.5 billion pesos ($2 billion) in funds for flood control may have been lost due to corruption in the past two years. According to the Associated Press news agency.

Marcos Jr. has promised to jail at least 37 congressmen and other officials responsible for the scams by Christmas, and seven people have been put behind bars so far. The government also approximately 12 billion pesos were frozen ($204 million) in assets of people connected to the scandal were seized.

The scandal galvanized ordinary Filipinos who took to the streets to protest decades of unchecked corruption.

“This was the final straw for the Filipino people,” said Tiffany Faith Brillante, president of Youth Rage Against Corruption in the Philippines, who attended the protests.

“Today’s corruption is no longer just a symptom of poor governance,” he said. “This is deeply tied to how power is held in government, how budgets are allocated, and how accountability is consistently evaded.”

Marcos Jr. insisted he had no knowledge of the fraud. He positioned himself as a corruption warrior by shaming those responsible for corruption and inciting protesters.

But as more senior officials became involved in the scandal, some pointed the finger at the president.

One of those people is Zaldy Co., a onetime Marcos Jr. ally and former House appropriations committee chairman who became one of the main figures charged in the scandal. He fled the country and is currently on the run.

While he was hiding, Marcos Jr. was posted on his social media account. and released a series of explosive videos accusing family members of profiting from corruption; these accusations were denied by the president.

Marcos’ family members were also caught in the middle of this drama. Marcos’ cousin, Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, resigned as Speaker of the House of Representatives in September, although he denied any involvement in the scandal.

Beyond the magnitude of the alleged theft, what makes this scandal hit so hard is that many Filipinos feel like history is repeating itself, said Aries Arugay, a Filipino political scientist and visiting senior fellow at Singapore-based think tank ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

“Corruption and the Marcoses are almost synonymous in Philippine politics,” Arugay said.

Marcos Jr’s father dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.He ruled the Philippines with an iron fist from 1965 until his ouster in 1986, and for about half of that time the country lived under martial law. His regime committed systematic human rights violations and engaged in widespread corruption, stealing an estimated $10 billion from public coffers.

Flood control scandal reminds Filipinos of Marcos Sr. It reminded me of the dark days that many people experienced during his time. One of the largest anti-corruption protests was held on a key date, September 21, when Marcos Sr. declared martial law in 1972.

Marcos Jr.’s landslide victory in 2022 marked a remarkable comeback for the notorious political family; Critics have argued that this was made possible in part by disinformation campaigns that whitewashed the history of the Marcos era.

The disparity between the lifestyles of the elite and ordinary Filipinos has been a source of anger under the current president, although officials have warned that the plunder of the flood mitigation program may have begun under Marcos’ predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte.

Arugay said social media videos shared by the children of wealthy politicians and contractors showcasing their lavish lifestyles were adding salt to the wounds of angry citizens.

“Politicians are boarding their private jets in Paris while people are drowning in floodwaters,” he said.

This backlash against so-called “nepo boys” echoes similar anti-corruption protests across Asia this year, including in Indonesia and Nepal. Generation Z led the protests to overthrow the government.

As in these protests, young people have become some of the loudest voices calling for accountability in the Philippines.

“If the government continues to steal, oppress and ignore the people, we will inherit the consequences of corruption and systemic abuse in our country,” Brillante said.

“We really want to hold every single corrupt official accountable and put them in jail,” Brillante said.

“President Marcos cannot be spared because after all, he is the one who signs and approves the national budget every year.”

Although public confidence in Marcos Jr. has been shaken, it is unlikely that he will suffer the same fate as his father, who was unseated in the popular uprising.

Marcos Jr. He is more than halfway through his six-year term and Philippine presidents have single-term limits, so he will not be eligible for re-election in 2028.

“We haven’t seen the equivalent of a smoking gun,” Iglesias said.

“But if we get evidence that, for example, he directly benefits financially from this corruption, then I think that will push the administration to its limits. The situation is shaky right now.”

Last opinion poll A study by the firm WR Numero found that Marcos Jr.’s satisfaction rate was 21% in November, a 14% decrease from August.

For someone who came so close to losing everything, Aguirre is optimistic and grateful. But he is not optimistic that this wave of public momentum will create meaningful change in the Philippines.

“We can still move forward with our resilience, but our quality of life will remain the same.”

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