The mark of the devil
While we’re being flooded with news (pun intended) about the alleged collusion between contractors and politicians/public officials in order to skim off of flood control project funds, I couldn’t help but recall the houses carried away by swollen, angry rivers, families in evacuation centers, and submerged vehicles during previous typhoons and monsoon seasons.
Oh, the irony, I thought, as today, TV news personalities are featuring the lavish lifestyles of devious contractors who flaunt their nauseously excessive fleet of luxury and sports cars. Yes, these same TV news personalities who obviously got a first-hand experience of the destruction wrought by typhoons such as Ondoy and Yolanda just a few years ago, would now have the gall to show their online followers how being just “masikap,” “matiyaga,” or “madiskarte” could bring them so far in life. Well, these madiskarte contractors took that skill so many notches up, but in a very shady direction.
I’m not going to go further into details of this sordid affair. But by now, I guess being a contractor in the Philippines must now come with a stigma. Too bad for the honest ones (are there, really?), but the rotten eggs are actually making the entire basket stink to high heavens.
No surprises here, though. We’ve all known for the longest time that public works is like the holy grail for contractors. We just haven’t dug deep enough to discover how far this rabbit hole goes. Of course, the current President would have to order a “thorough” investigation into this matter. What else can he do? After boasting in his 2024 SONA that his administration has completed over 5,500 flood control projects, the devastation that Habagat 2025 has wrought so far (remember, we’re still in the middle of that season) strongly hints that those so-called flood control projects seem to have gone down the storm drain.
An initial review has found that P100 billion worth, or 18 percent, of all flood control projects in the past three years were undertaken by just 15 contractors, according to the report of the Presidential Communications Office. Citing the preliminary report of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Marcos said P545 billion in public funds went to flood control projects nationwide since July 2022. The DPWH identified a total of 2,409 contractors for both local and national flood control projects.
Okay, let’s crunch the numbers here a bit. If the total budget for flood control projects in three years was P545 billion, and P100 billion was secured by only 15 contractors, then that means P445 billion went to the remaining 2,394 contractors. Those 2,394 contractors would be given an average of just P185,881,370 in funds, while the favored 15 contractors would be swimming in P6,666,666,666.666. The work of the devil, indeed!
While some “favored” groups wallow in their dirty billions, their fellow countrymen are left holding on to shattered dreams, properties drowned into uselessness. In particular, vehicles that were essential to their livelihoods, their only means to make ends meet, now rendered nearly worthless.
I appreciate insurance people like Ernesto Echauz of Standard Insurance, whom I interviewed recently. His group paid off all the 1,600 vehicles insured by Standard Insurance and deemed unsalvageable after being flooded during Typhoon Yolanda. “We weren’t able to recover them because of the salt water. We paid all of them, P1.7 billion, assuming per car was signed in for P1 million,” he said.
I do hope that all those who lost properties—cars, houses, things—have been able to somehow recover and recoup their losses, and have gotten back on track with their lives and their dreams. And I can only commiserate with those who lost loved ones. You lose things, you replace them, and move on. But you lose someone, there is no moving on. There is no replacement.
But in every loss, there must be accountability. Who will be held accountable for the damage to property, the losses of lives—damages and losses that are now being revealed to be largely avoidable if certain people and groups only did their jobs?
We certainly can’t blame the lack of funds. P545 billion in three years isn’t exactly loose change. Planning? We can’t point a finger in that direction, either. Those hundreds of billions had been allocated for numerous master plans drafted over the decades. We also can’t blame just one individual. A dubious contractor is merely a symptom of a systemic cause.
The core of the crisis lies in a legacy of political and institutional failures that have prevented the effective implementation of these plans and the proper allocation of these funds. A fragmented governance structure, a preference for piecemeal projects over systemic solutions, and a chronic lack of accountability have created a situation where even well-conceived strategies are doomed to fail.
The saddest part about all of this is that, all these plans that we Filipinos need the most to succeed, are where all the catastrophic failures have happened. Our country lies squarely in the crosshairs of extreme weather and geological phenomenon. We have experienced enough typhoons, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions to prove this point.
And yet, what do these devils do? They sabotage the very means of survival of millions of Filipinos. Just so they can fill their garages with nice cars.
And they have the gall to boast in front of the camera that their fortunes turned when they started doing public works projects.
When they started doing the devil’s work, we should say.
