Flood control mess dwarfed scandals post-EDSA revolt

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January 5, 2026 | 12:00am

Yearender

MANILA, Philippines — The year 2025 was a record-breaking one for corruption, with the flood control mess making all other government scandals post-EDSA revolt in 1986 look like a drop in the bucket.

Despite P142 billion in alleged flood control fund insertions in what was touted as the “most corrupt budget ever” in Philippine history – P3 billion of which was vetoed by President Marcos – nothing prevented flooding across the entire archipelago.

The bicameral conference committee-approved P1 trillion budget for 2025 for the Department of Public Works and Highways was trimmed to a little over P900 billion, ostensibly because it cannot – and should not – be bigger than funds earmarked for education.

The amount of public funds stolen, which can be visualized through the billions of pesos in P1,000 denominations shown by the sacked Bulacan district engineers – beats even the so-called grandmother of all scams in the mid-90s by a long shot.

The PEA-Amari scandal that the late Senate president and The STAR columnist Ernesto Maceda exposed in 1996 was worth P1.6 billion and only reached as high as P31 billion, only because the amount largely depended on the “valuation” of the property located in commercial areas in Pasay.

Another scandal during the administration of the late president Fidel Ramos was the “white elephant” built in 1998 for the Philippines’ Centennial Expo (located inside the Clark Special Economic Zone) which reportedly amounted to P9 billion, despite its original cost being approximately P73 million only.

The two-year short-lived administration (1998-2001) of former president and movie star Joseph Estrada also had its share of multibillion anomalies, one of which led to his plunder conviction in September 2007 to the tune of P4.1 billion.

As testified to by his estranged buddy and former Ilocos Sur governor Chavit Singson, and as shown in voluminous bank records that included Estrada’s “Jose Velarde” bank alias, the amount included P545 million in alleged ill-gotten wealth sourced from illegal jueteng operations.

Fast forward to the nine-year administration of former president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo – the second longest-serving Chief Executive after Marcos Sr. Despite the numerous scandals under her watch, they still pale in comparison to the flood control mess of 2025.

The infamous NBN-ZTE deal with China in September 2007 was just $329 million, the exchange rate of which during that time was about P47 to a $1, making it just about P15.4 billion when whistleblower Jun Lozada exposed it in early 2008.

Meanwhile, the botched NorthRail project in 2009 worth $900 million, or P39 billion ($1=P44) was only crumbs compared to the DPWH scandal. The North Luzon Railway Project deal was eventually scrapped in 2011 by the late president Noynoy Aquino.

Not even the Philippine International Air Terminals Co. or PIATCO scandal that spanned three administrations – from Estrada to Arroyo to Aquino – beat the flood control saga, as it only involved $350 million, or an average of P18.2 billion that started sometime in 2002 or 2003.

NAIA Terminal 3 was first conceptualized during the Estrada administration before 2000.

Then, there was the “fertilizer scam” that took place in 2004 and was only exposed in 2007, which only involved a total of P728 million. This anomaly that overpriced the prices of fertilizers included among its recipient the “concrete jungle” of Makati City.

In 2013, during the Aquino government, the so-called pork barrel scam that allegedly involved three senators and facilitated by “pork barrel queen” Janet Lim-Napoles, only involved around P10 billion or so.

Lastly, the Pharmally scandal during the reign of now-detained former president Rodrigo Duterte, whereby a small, relatively unknown company bagged massive government contracts, only involved P41 billion.

This was part of the Department of Health’s P47 billion that was transferred to the Procurement Service office of the Department of Budget and Management for the purchase of supplies for COVID-19 response in 2020.

Pharmally, whose officials include Duterte’s financial adviser Michael Yang, only had a paid-up capital of P625,000.