Philippines ‘ghost’ flood projects leave residents stranded

PLARIDEL, Philippines – A dyke meant to protect a Philippine town cost taxpayers nearly US$2 million (S$2.57 million), but when a minister visited in September, he found little more than dirt hastily dumped along the river’s banks.

Residents of Plaridel, north of the capital Manila, could have told him what happened – contractors had only just begun work on a project that government officials had marked “completed” more than a year earlier.

The dyke is one of more than 100 flood-control projects at the centre of one of the country’s biggest corruption scandals in decades.

It has already sparked leadership changes in both houses of Congress, but the real impact is among communities left without protection, many of them strung along rivers in the Bulacan region.

“We carry our children to school when the water is high,” Mr Leo Francisco, a construction worker and father of two, told AFP in the village of Bulusan.

“Inside our house, the water is up to our thighs,” the 35-year-old said.

“On the road... (the water is) sometimes knee-high, sometimes ankle-high. These are ordinary days – not typhoons.”

A flood control project intended to remedy the issue, like so many identified in recent weeks, has never been finished.

“The dyke is incomplete, so the water washes in. Even in the built-up sections, the water still gets through from underneath because the pilings are shallow,” Mr Francisco said.

In nearby Plaridel, AFP saw a pair of masons bathing themselves near a half-built dyke with exposed metal rods.

The taxpayer money paid for the dyke “was clearly stolen”, Public Works Minister Vince Dizon said after visiting the site.

He called it an obvious “ghost project” and said he had fired the district’s chief engineer and two others.

‘The dyke is worthless’

Anger has been growing over so-called ghost infrastructure since

Philippine

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr put the issue centre stage

in a State of the Union address after weeks of deadly flooding.

Greenpeace estimated that some US$17.6 billion in funds may have been bilked

from climate-related projects since 2023, much of it meant for communities that are slowly sinking due to groundwater over-extraction and rising sea levels.

Mr Marcos has visited sites caught up in the scandal and slammed the poor quality of a dyke in the village of Frances.

“You can crush the cement mix used with your bare hands. They short-changed the cement,” he said, pledging to hold those responsible to account.

Residents said they were pleased to see Mr Marcos but were “waiting for him to deliver”.

“The dyke is worthless. It’s full of holes,” said Ms Nelia de los Reyes Bernal, a health worker.

Schoolchildren now wear rubber boots to class after a spike in cases of the bacterial disease leptospirosis and athlete’s foot, she said.

“Construction began last year, but it has not been completed, supposedly because funds ran out,” the 51-year-old added.

“There’s no storm, and yet the water is rising... We can no longer use the downstairs rooms of our houses. We’ve moved our kitchens to the second floors.”

In Plaridel, 81-year-old Elizabeth Abanilla said she had not followed hearings on the scandal because she does not own a television, but felt contractors were not the only ones to blame.

“It’s the fault of those who gave them money,” she said.

“They should not have handed it over before the job is completed. Both of them are guilty.”

The Philippines has a long history of scandals involving public funds, and high-ranking politicians have typically escaped serious jail time even if convicted of graft.

Thousands are expected to turn out for a protest in the capital on Sept 21 to demand justice, including prison for those found guilty of involvement in the bogus infrastructure projects.

But for Mr Francisco, the construction worker, who says the floods are killing his livelihood, that kind of outcome is barely worth dreaming about.

“For me, what’s important is that they return the money,” he said.

“It’s up to God what is to be done with them.” AFP