When the floods unmasked the corrupt
SOMETIMES, it takes a force of nature to unearth the rotten systems made by man.
It took flood disasters to expose the rotten foundations laid by unscrupulous contractors under the watch of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
Were it not for these floods, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. would not have been compelled to speak out so forcefully in his State of the Nation Address, shaming the culprits with the piercing words, “Mahiya naman kayo.”
That presidential rebuke sparked a chain reaction. The DPWH released a list of the top 20 contractors who had allegedly cornered billions of pesos in flood control projects— some of which turned out to be either substandard or completely non-existent.
The deluge, in all its destruction, also served as a revelation. It exposed not just poor construction, but a systemic rot—one where lawmakers had allegedly made dubious budget insertions to favor certain contractors, inflating allocations for flood control at the expense of other crucial public services.
Had the rains not fallen as they did, there would have been no outrage. No accountability. No action.
Senator Panfilo Lacson’s blistering privilege speech exposing ghost projects and shoddy infrastructure might never have happened. Public Works Secretary Manuel Bonoan might not have resigned, and Secretary Vince Dizon of the Department of Transportation would not have been pulled in to assume his place at the DPWH.
Now, with Dizon at the helm, a purge is underway. His first move: demanding courtesy resignations from all top officials in the DPWH, from the central office down to district engineers. The goal is clear—weed out the unfit, unmask the corrupt, and restore integrity to an agency long plagued by controversy.
Marcos has also announced the formation of an independent commission to investigate all flood control projects and their respective contractors.
This could be a defining moment—a chance to set a precedent where negligence and corruption are met with justice, not impunity.
Enough is enough.
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