Flood funds embezzlement leaves Filipinos at mercy of climate crisis • FRANCE 24 English

[Music] After Indonesia and Nepal, it’s now the turn of people in the Philippines to take a stand against corruption. This scandal is closely linked to the fight against climate change. Billions of euros earmarked for flood prevention have been stolen by officials. This summer, severe floods and storms cause widespread damage in the Philippines. This angry campaigner has covered herself in mud to highlight the struggles of the victims. All layers of society have come to protest, especially the working class. We want to draw attention to the corruption happening right now. Corrupt officials and deputies live in luxury with big cars and huge villas paid for by the money they stole from us. But poor Filipinos like us have to endure typhoons, floods, and evacuations, as well as the diseases they cause. People are struggling to survive. According to Greenpeace, 16 billion euros of public money meant for the fight against climate change have been embezzled since 2023, including 8 billion in 2025 alone. We visit Hagenoi, 3 hours from the capital, Manila, where flooding is a major problem. Life in this town has been severely disrupted. These two girls face a struggle just to go to high school. When you walk, your shoes will get wet and it’s hard to go to school while walking cuz you may got late at when I was a kid. We live so happy because before the water is not so high. This filthy water contains gasoline, mud and plastic, leaving residents vulnerable to fungal skin infections and other illnesses. Shops have been moved to higher ground and walls of sandbags stand outside houses. This school has had to close its ground floor classrooms. The water level rarely goes down. It’s low right now, but later it will rise higher. Even when there’s no typhoon or rain, the water never goes away. Keeping the water level stable is a near impossible task. Look at the state of my house. The water levels are never subsiding. Be careful. It’s slippery. The home of this 75year-old woman is flooded with water that reaches up to her ankles. In August, she slipped and cut her head. Her floor, like the streets outside, is covered in slippery algae. What can we say? Our lives are miserable. I hope the corrupt politicians have mercy on us. We can’t take it anymore. There’s water everywhere. Meanwhile, the people in the government are living lavishly while we continue to suffer. Please have mercy on us. Well, honestly, I’m going crazy. The water levels in our house rise by about 10 cm with every heavy storm. Some villages in Manila Bay are now underwater. But it didn’t have to be like this. And that’s what makes residents furious. Dikes were planned but never built. As this activist explains, here is the ghost project and it it was exposed in the Senate. Nothing happens. Not even a single hollow blocks or stone was put. It is uh a shame because the people are paying taxes every day. They deserve a better government. They deserve a better life. The project was supposed to be completed by 2024. There are thousands of ghost projects like this in the Philippines. 70% of flood aid has been misappropriated. President Marcos Jr. has come clean about the scandal, but it could yet hurt him politically. [Music] In terms of allegations, um they have reached as far as the Senate President uh and and the House Speaker uh both have both of whom have already been replaced uh because of the controversy. Some are saying that it might go up to the president and to the vice president because some of the top contractors uh were campaign donors to them. Uh it’s a systemic problem. Basically, um politics and business are intertwined in the Philippines. Um, a lot of politicians also have their own construction firms um that got these projects. The need for flood defenses is critical in a country made up of thousands of islands and which is regularly battered by typhoons. Sea levels in the Philippines are rising twice as fast as the global average. Yet, for its 116 million inhabitants, the wait for protection goes on.

It’s one of the biggest corruption scandals the Philippines has seen since the final years of dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The government has admitted that 70 percent of the funds allocated for flood control measures have been embezzled since 2023, including a staggering eight billion euros in 2025 alone. Chloe Borgnon, Constantin Simon, Justin McCurry, and Aruna Popuri report from Manila Bay.
#floods #corruption #Philippines

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50 comments

  3. It's been like that since time memoriam. Payoff is the way to get out of legal impediments. Cancerous society. Cure will be to eliminate or take out the bad cell (corrupt people). Place with good honest ones and impose lifetime imprisonment and no possibility of running any public position/office again.

  5. yeah, and the same politicians are using their dirty money boosting your economy, traveling and buying luxury shites. you should thank them instead good for you

  10. We should just invade the Philippines and kill all the politician and turn it into a protectorate. It's basically that already, might as well make it official. Pretty sure at this point the people wouldn't bat an eye at the takeover if we hang all their politician

  13. These are the PLUNDERERS of the country. We call them CROCODILES! They are Jose Pimentel Ejercito Estrada, Joel Villanueva, Ramon Revilla Jr., Zaldy Co family, ATAYDE family, Martin Romualdez, VILLAR family, DPWH officials and their engineers (Bryce Hernandez, Henry Alcantara, etc.), Chiz Escudero, Sara Duterte (her siblings and her father), Martin Romualdez, Harry Roque, Lito Lapid, Bong Go, Rodrigo Duterte, VILLAR family, Gloria Arroyo, contractors Discaya family & etc. They stole 13BILLION PESOS from the country!!!

  14. Just about every project I've seen is substandard. Ghost projects are the norm. It's such a tragedy but the voters are to blame for consistently accepting money for votes. Anti-dynasty laws have to be enacted but that's never gonna happen.

  15. Don’t blame Marcos…he doesn’t know anything…even with his billions of confidential funds 😅

  18. We need to kidnap all the politicians and tor ture them to dea th to speak out who's the leech. It's like a pesticides on your garden

  28. The current form of government does not serve all of the people and needs to change. Filipinos who do not deserve to be in power can easily gain wealth in this style of governance.

  31. If corruption is the issue, so to is morality should be an issue, as corruption and morality are very much linked together, because corruption happens when morality is weak, so what makes morality weak?

  38. Shame on the EU for not putting more safeguards in place. What in the hell is wrong with governments these days?? Such BS. Other governments can’t even ensure their funds are being spent correctly. We’re talking BILLIONS! Go find the goddamn money!

  39. THANK YOU FOR SHARING THIS SCANDAL. Hoping true people who are willing to help investigate this properly and fast will see this and offer their help.

  40. Not true fake news got spread all over the Philippines. Someone is trying to damage philippines reputation. Foreign source have something to do with it.

  44. please spare the vice president, congresse even slashed her budget to just 733M pesos and she does not control the budget, she was the one who exposed last year that the philippine budget is only controlled by the house speaker and his cohorts, this is the reason why they want her impeached.

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