The floods won’t stop till we learn to vote right

Many parts of Luzon were submerged last week due to torrential rains brought by the enhanced habagat. The scenes were painfully reminiscent of last year’s flooding just before President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s State of the Nation Address (SONA), when he uttered, “Mahiya naman kayo!” – a pointed rebuke of those behind the multibillion-peso flood control corruption scandal.

A year later, the rains have returned, and so have the floods. Homes and vehicles were again submerged, lives were lost, thousands were evacuated, classes and work were suspended and livelihoods were disrupted. Here we go again.

Some of the areas hardest hit by this week’s habagat floods are the same places that figured prominently in the flood control controversy. Bulacan, the home province of Sen. Joel Villanueva, whose name was dragged into the flood control scandal, is underwater yet again. Cavite, the political turf of former senator Bong Revilla, who was recently granted bail in his supposedly non-bailable malversation case, has likewise been inundated. The irony is hard to miss.

Then there is Parañaque, which was among the areas badly hit by last week’s floods, particularly Sucat Road and its nearby communities. The flooding was exacerbated by a massive accumulation of garbage in the Redemptorist Water Channel near Baclaran Church. It was reported that almost 750 metric tons of waste and debris, equivalent to around 203 truckloads of garbage, were removed. A damaged trash trap reportedly allowed the garbage to accumulate and obstruct the flow of water, raising serious questions about the maintenance and readiness of flood-management infrastructure.

Even parts of EDSA, which had only recently undergone rehabilitation by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), were flooded and developed fresh potholes following the heavy rains. DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon personally inspected the damage and expressed anger over the condition of the recently rehabilitated road. While he has since pledged to make the contractors repair the damage at no additional cost to the government, this remains a black eye for an administration that promised to do better in the wake of the infrastructure corruption scandal.

And then there is Marilao, Bulacan. It was reported that on Aug. 10, 2026, a river wall in Barangay Prenza II collapsed only about two months after it was completed. The collapse occurred amid the rains and flooding brought by the enhanced habagat, opening a floodgate of questions.

And the problem is not confined to Luzon. Davao City, the bailiwick of twice-impeached Vice President Sara Duterte, who is currently at the center of corruption allegations, was also hit by severe flooding in late July, when torrential habagat rains, enhanced by Typhoon Kiyapo, inundated communities in Tugbok and Talomo. The flooding is difficult to dismiss simply as an “act of God,” as billions of pesos were infused into its flood control projects, particularly to the district of Congressman Paolo “Pulong” Duterte, during the presidency of his father.

So, where, exactly, did all of Davao City’s flood-control money go? Down the drain? The floodwater certainly didn’t. Secretary Dizon inspected the Talomo River and discovered that a gabion flood control wall had been left unrepaired for seven years after it was damaged by a 2019 flood. He estimated that the repair would have cost less than P100 million. Angry and exasperated, he remarked that billions of pesos had been poured into the place, yet a relatively inexpensive repair had been left unattended for years.

Here lies the painful truth. Yes, typhoons and climate change are real. The habagat is real, and extreme rainfall can overwhelm even well-designed infrastructure. But after the flood-control corruption was laid bare before the public, followed by promises of justice and accountability, investigations and several high-profile arrests and detentions, the question is – why has so little changed?

The damage inflicted by corruption on our public infrastructure is extremely deep, and overturning this requires a complete overhaul. Corruption has weakened the very systems that are supposed to protect communities and support economic life. Roads, bridges, drainage systems, flood-control structures and other public works are consistently compromised by corruption, neglect, poor planning and construction, with ordinary Filipinos paying for them again and again.

We are confronting an infrastructure system plagued by decades of questionable priorities, weak enforcement, inadequate maintenance, fraudulent procurement and political patronage. This is why flooding cannot be treated simply as a problem of too much rain. Rain is inevitable. Disasters, however, are often made worse by corruption and bad governance. A city without proper urban planning, a road without adequate drainage, a river without regular maintenance, a community without an effective waste-management system and flood control funds that were ransacked are not acts of God. They are acts of plunder and misgovernance.

And corruption is only part of the problem. It is compounded by our long-standing failure to pursue coherent, long-term development planning. We don’t have a coherent long-term vision for how cities, industries, public transport, housing, agriculture and the environment should work together. We don’t lack the technology. We can look into Tokyo, Copenhagen and other cities for best practices. We also don’t lack money for infrastructure. What we lack is the political will from capable leaders to make every peso work toward a coherent national development vision.

Last Friday, I came across a viral Facebook post that said: “Hindi matitigil ang baha hangga’t hindi tayo bumoboto ng tama.” I agree. But with an important addition: patuloy ang pagbaha hangga’t hindi binabago ang sistema. When corruption, bad governance and lack of a development vision turn heavy rains into disasters, that is not beyond our power to change.

We may not be able to stop the rain. But we can jail all the plunderers. We can learn to vote right. And yes, we can change the system.