October 15, 2025
by James Leonard M. Bautista, AMT
The “Trillion Peso March” shook the world recently as Filipinos across the country protested the Department of Public Works and Highways’ (DPWH) widespread corruption in flood control projects. This is not a protest; it is a national reckoning against the ghost projects and unsafe infrastructure that have, for years, put billions of pesos into the pockets of corrupt officials and favored contractors.
People are frustrated because it’s so cruelly ironic that even though the national budget for flood protection is huge—over ₱545 billion set aside from July 2022 to May 2025 alone—communities are still drowning. They are the “ghosted” taxpayers who paid for protection that didn’t exist. Investigations have shown that the theft was huge, with losses to the economy from strange projects estimated to be between ₱42 billion and ₱118.5 billion between 2023 and 2025 alone. Further investigation shows that after inspections across the country, as many as 252 confirmed ghost projects for flood control have been identified.
The main thing people all over the archipelago want is to be clear and accountable right away. People want officials and contractors who caused climate injustice to be prosecuted, even those at the highest levels. They want a flood management plan that is quick, real, and long-lasting, and that is based on facts and not on political favors. The current uprising shows that the time for quick fixes and getting away with things is officially over. The people of the Philippines will not allow stolen money to compromise their safety.