Abolish flood control

VIRTUAL REALITY

- TONY LOPEZ

His State of the Nation Address (SONA) of July 28, 2025 showed President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.'s mettle to do a major house cleaning in his governance, tackle corruption, deliver basic services and improve meaningfully the life of a majority of 115 million Filipinos, between now and 2028.

BBM showed that boldness on Aug. 18, 2025 when he called a press conference, demonstrated how to use his new website, sumbongsapangulo.ph (to expose and run after bad contractors and grafters in government) and narrated with remarkable candidness that his administration had allotted P545.64 billion for 9,855 flood control projects from July 2022 to May 2025, his first three years as president.

Twenty percent (18 percent actually), or P100 billion went to just 15 contractors, out of 2,409 accredited contractors. BBM said 6,021 projects worth P350 billion do not specify the exact type of flood control being built.

Many projects, in different locations, have exactly the same contract cost; 50 projects have the same P150-million cost. "It's impossible for one barangay, even if they are next to each other, to have the same exact project, the same exact amount, with exactly the same contractor!" BBM protested.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson explains that having flood control projects with remarkably uniform project cost—like P72 million, P96 million, P144 million, or P150 million—despite their intrinsic differences in actual cost, location, and engineering is a code word for who the contractor should be and who is the funder congressman or senator. The same coded amount is the money to be shared or stolen.

The top contractors and their owners/managers: