Resilience is not policy: Why Filipino grit can’t fix broken infrastructure

There is no shortage of stories celebrating Filipino resilience. After every storm, flood, or earthquake, we see familiar scenes: families wading through chest-deep waters while smiling for the cameras, neighbors sharing rice and coffee in candlelight, and children turning evacuation centers into playgrounds. It is a powerful image of courage and optimism, a cultural badge of honor.

- RON F. JABAL

But over the years, that badge has become dangerously convenient for those who should be held accountable. “Resilience” has become the language of survival in a country where too many public works projects fail the people they were meant to protect. It has become a convenient narrative that praises endurance while excusing negligence.

Resilience, in its purest form, is a virtue. It reflects the Filipino’s ability to adapt, recover, and rebuild. But when used by policymakers and corporate actors as a shield against accountability, resilience turns toxic. It becomes an institutional comfort zone that normalizes substandard performance and diverts public outrage.

The truth is, Filipinos should not have to be resilient all the time. A truly resilient nation is one that does not need to test its citizens’ endurance every year. Real resilience lies not in how quickly people recover from disaster but in how well the system prevents avoidable suffering in the first place.

The current flood control scandal exposes the cracks, literal and figurative, in our public infrastructure system. Senate hearings have revealed that several flood control projects, worth billions in public funds, were implemented using substandard materials, questionable procurement processes, and in some cases, were never completed at all.

According to testimony before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, contractors allegedly colluded with public officials to pad budgets and deliver half-baked work. Auditors also flagged numerous projects that lacked completion reports or were nonexistent despite full disbursement of funds.

The consequences are real. When torrential rains hit Bulacan, Pampanga, and parts of Metro Manila last month, several newly built dikes and drainage systems failed to hold. Entire barangays went underwater again. People lost homes, livelihoods, and loved ones. Yet government officials were quick to praise communities for their “resilience.”