THE LEGEND OF THE 5,500 FLOOD CONTROL PROJECTS
- Jan Writer
- Oct 24, 2024
- 2 min read
In his State of the Nation Address, Bongbong Marcos boasted about completing 5,500 flood control projects across the Philippines.
Five. Thousand. Five hundred.
Imagine that number, splashed across the headlines of every newspaper in the country, while the people of Bicol are holding onto banana trees and empty water jugs to stay alive as floodwaters sweep through their homes, courtesy of Typhoon Kristine.
First, let's address the glaring question in everyone’s minds: Where the hell are these 5,500 projects? Because, quite frankly, if you’re caught in waist-deep water in Albay or Naga City, you're likely thinking, "Is this one of them?"
Seriously, it’s as if these projects are mystical entities, hidden from the human eye—perhaps only visible to Marcos’ administration, but certainly not to those who need them. The mythical count of these projects doesn’t make sense in a country where, following the very SONA in which this claim was made, floods ravaged Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.
And what does Marcos blame for the ineffective flood control? Trash. The audacity to tell us, amidst raging waters and submerged homes, that it’s our fault for not disposing of waste properly.
I guess we should’ve neatly packed our garbage while the water rose around us, flooding even more efficiently thanks to the perfectly engineered non-existent flood control systems.
If garbage is the issue, then why even mention 5,500 projects? What was the point? Were they simply pretty sculptures designed to be admired from a distance?
Just look at the horrifying scenes in Naga City, where Kristine’s floods have transformed roads into rivers, submerging homes and cutting off access for rescue operations. How many of those 5,500 completed projects could be found here? More than likely, they exist only on paper, signed off by corrupt officials and contractors, their pockets swelling with kickbacks.
Desperate cries for more boats to rescue stranded residents came from local officials, but Marcos could only respond by blaming the weather. He mentions sending rubber boats from as far as Mindanao—a logistical mess, given that half the roads are submerged.
"We're at the mercy of the weather," Marcos says, as if no one could have foreseen a tropical storm in the Philippines in October. If the situation wasn’t so dire, it would be laughable.
This is the culmination of years of negligence and shameless plunder of funds meant for flood mitigation. It’s as though these flood control projects are figments of someone’s imagination, an infrastructure fan fiction, if you will, with them playing the role of saviors while we, the Filipino people, remain the drowning victims.
In the end, Bongbong's flood projects are like mythical beasts: they're talked about, but no one can actually confirm their existence. And as another storm hits, as waters rise in Bicol, and as the country's billions seem to be washed away by floods they were supposed to prevent, we are left wondering—what exactly is being flooded here? The streets? Or the truth?
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