Baguio City Mayor Benjie Magalong didn’t just throw a stone into the water, he hurled a boulder straight at the flood control mafia.
On Tuesday, he alleges that at least 67 congressmen are knee-deep in flood control rackets, using contractors as fronts to pocket billions. Some contractors lend their licenses for a “royalty” – 5 percent for regular deals, and just 3 percent when a politician is involved because the project is already guaranteed.
Many of these so-called contractors aren’t strangers. They’re wives, children, and cousins of the lawmakers themselves. Some were already contractors before running for office; others became “contractors” only after they’d won.
Magalong claims: “Parang front lang ‘yan. Bibigyan lang nila ng royalty. Bago pa lang silang tumakbo, alam na ng mga contractor.”
The fraud is blatant, sheet piles designed to be 9 meters high installed at just 1 meter, steel worth ₱34 per kilo billed at ₱92, and lawmakers swapping “best practices” in plunder like it’s a seminar.
In his State of the Nation Address last July, President Marcos ordered an investigation into corruption in flood control projects after severe flooding submerged much of the country. Just this Monday, he launched a public website where netizens can look up flood control projects, their contractors, and report on progress and quality. Marcos even asked why only 15 contractors had bagged 20% of nearly 10,000 flood control projects since 2022.
The rot is right there in the numbers. Billions have been spent, yet the floods have only gotten worse. And just when the racket’s mechanics are coming into sharper focus, along comes a wrench in the system: Ramon Ang.
The tycoon who built a brewery into a business empire offered to fix Metro Manila’s flooding for free – drainage construction, clearing operations, relocation of structures sitting on waterways – no cost to the government or taxpayers. Marcos acknowledged the offer, but already some local leaders are restless. The reason is as dirty as the clogged esteros: Flood control and garbage disposal are their milking cows. Ang’s offer threatens to cut off their milk supply.
Let’s not pretend Ramon Ang is doing this out of pure altruism, floods are bad for his businesses. But the fact that a private citizen can offer to solve a decades-old problem without dipping into the public purse makes the government’s record look like one long, expensive scam. If he succeeds, he’ll prove the flooding wasn’t inevitable, it was engineered, not by typhoons, but by the greed of a political class that has turned disaster prevention into a self-replenishing racket.
Flood control has become a permanent business model for politicians, designed not to solve the problem, but to keep the cash flowing. Until that dam of greed is blown wide open, expect the waters to keep rising… and the thieves to keep swimming in the nation’s coffers while playing with our future.
