Photo credit: DPWH

The streets are swelling — not just with floodwaters, but with anger.

Crowds are pouring into public plazas, demanding accountability over yet another corruption scandal — this time, involving flood control projects.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. first hinted at the problem during his State of the Nation Address last July, but few expected the scale of what’s now being revealed. After months of Senate hearings, the ugly truth has surfaced: hundreds of billions of pesos allegedly lost to overpriced, substandard, or even ghost projects.

Every level of government seems to have been touched — from district engineers to national officials, even reaching Congress and the Senate’s upper ranks.

It’s no wonder frustration is boiling over. The Philippines currently sits at 114th out of 180 countries in the 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index — a ranking that’s bad enough to sting, but familiar enough that many have grown numb. Yet this time, the scandal feels personal.

It’s one thing to scroll past “nepo baby” posts online. It’s another to wade through floodwaters every monsoon season, knowing billions meant to prevent those floods may have vanished into thin air.

Now, scrutiny is spreading beyond flood control. People are asking: if corruption is this deep, where else has the money gone? Schools? Hospitals? Highways?

This story isn’t just about outrage — it’s about understanding. Because while corruption has long been blamed for holding the country back, the truth might be more complicated than the familiar slogan “Kung walang kurap, walang mahirap.”