Drowning in plastics, buried in corruption

The recent episodes of flooding in many regions of the country reveal a brutal truth: corruption and governance failure lie at the heart of this crisis. The Philippines, a nation long battered by typhoons, did not suffer from some faceless act of nature alone. The heavy downpours were amplified by plastic choking our canals and by a patchy flood-control program plagued by subpar projects, opacity, and rampant corruption—the very misgovernance that President Marcos has condemned in his most recent State of the Nation Address. Far from climate related weather “aberrations,” these events are the foreseeable outcomes of policies and programs that ignore root causes.

Promises of better flood control and waste management have been repeatedly derailed by delays, bungled implementation, and decisions steered to favor certain interests. For example, the prohibition on non-environmentally acceptable packaging (NEAP) such as single-use plastics, long-promised since the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act (RA 9003) was enacted in 2001, remains only partially realized if not ignored. The oft-repeated excuses of complexity, implementation and political reluctance mask a harsher reality: vested interests that are postponing or blocking needed reforms – leaving communities vulnerable to overflow, contamination, and disease.

The plastic crisis has both global and local consequences. Globally, it exacerbates climate change, harms oceans and biodiversity; locally, it contaminates water, infiltrates the food chain, and imperils the health and survival of people living in areas that are prone to flooding. In a country with countless households situated along waterways, coastlines and riverbanks, the stakes are immediate and existential, touching on their very survival. Band-aid fixes and politically convenient “solutions” do not address the underlying drivers of waste and flood risk. Instead, they entrench a system that masquerades as progress while corruption undermines proper planning, oversight, and public trust.

What’s needed is a genuine, comprehensive policy shift that tackles the root causes of flood risk and plastic pollution. Expanding and enforcing a robust ban on single-use plastics in line with RA 9003 is essential, since it targets disposable and single use products and packaging that are inherently wasteful and harmful. Specifically, the National Solid Waste Management Commission must immediately issue a non-environmentally acceptable products list to curb dangerous plastics at the source. Investments must go into comprehensive waste management reforms, which truly prioritize reduction, reuse, and other waste avoidance strategies over dangerous and costly waste disposal options. This also requires better waste segregation and collection to minimize leakage into waterways and drainage systems. Disaster risk reduction will be strengthened by ensuring that public funds go toward upstream prevention rather than downstream remediation.

Meanwhile, the seductive lure of waste-to-energy incinerators as a supposed quick fix to the waste and flooding crises persists. These schemes will entrench and normalize increasing plastic consumption, while releasing toxic emissions and siphoning away funds that should go toward prevention, safer disposal, and ecological waste-management solutions. Rather than solving the problem, such an approach institutionalizes a broken system, wastes public money, and exposes citizens to new health hazards. We cannot solve a disaster with another disaster.

Instead of frittering away billions of taxpayer money on such projects, why not reallocate some of these funds toward prevention and resilience? This brings public money to communities implementing upstream waste management and disaster risk reduction initiatives, which also create much needed jobs, rather than anomalous projects or flawed “solutions” that create new hazards.

To break away from the vicious cycle of floods, the government needs to get serious in curbing the culture of corruption in public spending and infrastructure. We also need to break free from plastic, and most urgently the types that usually end up in our canals, waterways and oceans, like the ubiquitous plastic bags, bottles, cutlery, straws, styrofoam, sachets and other disposable packaging. This is not merely an environmental imperative; it is essential for disaster risk reduction and the protection of communities in vulnerable areas.

Corruption has no place in this effort—transparency, accountability, and public oversight must guide every step of policy and implementation. Because is there is one clear takeaway from the recent flooding scandals, it is this: the more corrupt our officials are, the deeper the environmental damage—and the higher the price paid by ordinary Filipinos every time the skies open.

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Von Hernandez is currently Oceana’s Vice President and leading the campaigns of this international non-government organization on ocean conservation in the Philippines.