Manila, Philippines – Except a number of items of hanging laundry, the primary two flooring of 65-year-old Veronica Castillo’s three-storey dwelling are virtually empty.
“Our belongings are up prime. We construct our homes upwards right here. Yearly the floods will scrape the ceilings of the second flooring,” Castillo instructed Al Jazeera, surveying her dwelling in one in every of Marikina metropolis’s slums, among the many most flood-prone areas of Metro Manila.
However whereas the federal government is constructing a pumping station to deal with the issue simply 5 minutes away, building has been occurring so lengthy that Castillo wonders whether or not it is going to ever be completed. “It’s been eight years,” she stated.
Since taking workplace in 2022, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has spent about half a trillion {dollars} to deal with persistent flooding from excessive climate within the Philippines. However regardless of the numerous spending, cities proceed to be inundated in a rustic that sometimes sees about 20 typhoons a yr.
Throughout a speech in July, Marcos Jr boasted about his administration finishing greater than 5,000 flood management tasks, of which 656 had been in Metro Manila.
Days later, Tremendous Storm Gaemi deposited a month’s value of rain on the world inside 24 hours, killing dozens and leaving components of the sprawling metropolis submerged.
Earlier this month, it was adopted by Tropical Storm Yagi. Officers put the price of the injury at 4.7 billion Philippine pesos ($84.3m) with practically seven million individuals affected.
At the least a dozen extra typhoons are anticipated earlier than the top of the yr.
The Philippines has topped the World Risk Index‘s checklist of nations struggling to deal with pure hazards for 16 years in a row. In line with the worldwide engineering group GHD, floods and storms will value the nation $124bn by 2050.
Some analysts say the federal government’s strategy is failing.
“No quantity of engineering can utterly management floods,” stated environmental geographer Timothy Cipriano from the scientist group AGHAM and the Philippine Regular College. “We would be capable to management street-level flooding, however we now have uncared for the overflow from rivers and coastal areas.”
Cipriano notes that Metro Manila and its 12 close by provinces are “one massive basin surrounded with the coasts on some sides and the mountains on the opposite plus the numerous man-made actions means floor runoffs rapidly enhance, and thus, rivers overflow.”
At the moment, the federal government has 9 “flagship” flood management tasks within the pipeline. Every includes constructing concrete or “gray” infrastructure to empty or lure extra water.
At a public inquiry final August, the Division of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) chief, Manuel Bonoan, stated Marcos Jr’s accomplishments had been just for “quick aid” and admitted many big-ticket tasks had encountered delays.
Authorities information exhibits that simply one of many smaller “flagship” tasks was accomplished this yr, whereas the remainder have languished of their preparatory levels since no less than 2018.
This contains the Metro Manila Flood Administration Undertaking, which goals to rehabilitate 36 pumping stations and construct 20 new ones by this yr. Regardless of a $415m World Financial institution mortgage, solely two stations have been rehabilitated and not one of the new ones have been accomplished.
The 60-kilometre (37-mile) Central Luzon-Pampanga floodway, meant to empty stormwater from Metro Manila, was supposed to start building in 2024. Nonetheless, final month, Bonoan conceded that delays had set the undertaking again by three years.
The DPWH additionally reported that 70 % of Metro Manila’s “antiquated drainage system” was clogged with garbage and silt, hampering flood administration. It additionally reported that the nation lacks a nationwide flood management grasp plan, with solely 18 scattered plans for main river basins that are “nonetheless being at present up to date”.
Perspective shift
Most flood management efforts steer stormwater west to Manila Bay or Laguna Lake within the southeast. Nonetheless, civil engineering professional Guillermo Tabios III says this strategy has been ineffective for a few years, and typically simply transfers flood dangers to coastal communities.
“We divert round 2,500 cubic metres of water to Laguna Lake,” he stated, including that water additionally means “quite a lot of the encircling cities will likely be submerged”.
Cipriano blames fast urbanisation and close by quarrying for strangling Metro Manila’s 31 rivers and their tributaries.
Throughout Gaemi, Merjelda Toralba, 70, spent practically 24 hours on the roof of her makeshift creek-side dwelling. She needed to tie a rope from her picket doorframe to a coconut tree to cease the rising present from carrying all the home downstream.
“The flooding is worse annually. And I’m extra afraid every time it rains arduous. In only a few hours, I’d be trapped and the waters simply received’t go away,” she instructed Al Jazeera.
Environmental and sanitation professional Jose Antonio Montalban of Professional-Folks Engineers and Leaders (Propel) says a lot of the brand new infrastructure is expensive to take care of.
In Yagi’s heavy downpours, sections of the Molino Riverdrive Undertaking collapsed as floodwaters spilled onto the roads. Montalban blames unavoidable erosion to the cement and doable substandard supplies, however “it was clearly over its most carrying capability. Now repairs will value taxpayers but once more”.
Montalban says what is required is a “holistic strategy” that considers “all components financial, ecological, hydrological and social. Sadly for us, rudimentary engineering purposes are the norm”.
Throughout Gaemi, the federal government admitted that 71 of the Metro Manila pumping stations had been unable to deal with the rainfall, which was greater than double the system’s 30mm/hour capability.
Cipriano says the authorities want to take a look at flood-prone areas as a “sponge metropolis. As an alternative of controlling water, you design areas to accommodate water. Make it much less of a concrete jungle, permit waters to seep or move with out constricting rivers.”
Massive spender
Since 2015, the Philippine authorities has allotted 1.14 trillion Philippine pesos ($20.3bn) for flood management, with 48 % of it through the Marcos Jr administration.
Unbiased public finances analyst Zy-za Nadine Suzara says possible “patronage politics” was concerned after noticing that flood management was usually a last-minute insertion by legislators into the nationwide spending plan.
Regardless of an absence of debate concerning the designs and strategies to deal with floods, “out of the blue an enormous quantity of the flood management tasks are added over the last week of finances laws”, she famous.
Congress has at present earmarked 779.38 billion Philippine pesos ($13.9bn) for the DPWH flood management efforts in 2025, roughly 12 % of the proposed nationwide finances.
Suzara says that flood management tasks have at all times been thought of corruption-prone as a result of they lack mechanisms for exterior monitoring and sometimes escape any rigorous scrutiny earlier than the finances is finalised.
She known as it a “waste of fiscal area. These funds may have been used for one thing with significantly better planning for local weather change adaptation”.
For 2025, the Marcos Jr administration has tagged 1.01 trillion Philippine pesos ($18.1bn) of the finances as “inexperienced spending” or Local weather Change Expenditures, a rise of 84 %. This features a local weather lump sum, which implies its particular use has not been recognized. The lump sum was multiple billion Philippine pesos greater than in 2024.
“Local weather change shouldn’t be used as an excuse to steal from the individuals’s coffers,” Congress Assistant Minority Chief Arlene Brosas instructed Al Jazeera.
Marcos Jr has acknowledged the taint of corruption and requested senators to look into the difficulty throughout final yr’s hurricane season.
Senator Joel Villanueva, a vocal advocate for higher flood administration, stated he’ll “file circumstances towards those that have to be held liable”. Thus far, no particular person has been prosecuted. Villanueva says he’s making ready to sort out the matter once more in upcoming senate proceedings.
Brosas added: “The individuals deserve transparency and accountability in local weather expenditures. Funds have to be channelled into professional local weather adaptation programmes reasonably than into the pockets of corrupt officers.”
Faculties usually double as evacuation centres for communities affected by floods. Classes are postponed in order that dozens of households can take shelter within the school rooms, surviving on meals donations.
“It’s arduous, mendacity on moist mats in crowded rooms, wishing for higher climate,” stated Castillo, who rushes her 5 grandchildren to the closest evacuation centre each time there’s a threat of floods.
Ought to the federal government fail to repair the issue of flooding, residents like Castillo face the prospect of many extra years crowding into evacuation centres as they watch for the floodwaters to subside.
