MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s renewed warning that garbage is worsening Metro Manila’s flooding has reopened a much bigger and politically sensitive question: after billions of pesos spent on flood-control infrastructure, why do communities continue to go underwater?
The debate intensified after a Manila Times opinion column accused Marcos of “gaslighting” Filipinos by repeatedly emphasizing garbage clogging waterways while government agencies themselves remain responsible for waste management, drainage infrastructure and flood-control systems.
That description is an opinion rather than an established fact. But the criticism taps into a broader controversy surrounding the administration’s flood-control record — particularly after investigations uncovered allegedly defective, unfinished and even nonexistent projects.
During an August 12 inspection of the Diokno Pumping Station in Pasay City, Marcos described Metro Manila’s garbage situation as “critical,” saying huge volumes of waste entering waterways were clogging pumping stations and aggravating flooding caused by days of heavy monsoon rain. Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon went further, describing the situation as a “garbage crisis.”
But Marcos did not simply blame residents.
During the same round of inspections, he said authorities must provide people with adequate places to dispose of waste before imposing harsher penalties for improper garbage disposal. The President said punishing people would accomplish little if functioning disposal facilities were unavailable.
That distinction matters because flooding in Metro Manila is not caused by one factor alone.
Heavy rainfall, high tides, inadequate drainage capacity, garbage accumulation, malfunctioning pumping stations and poorly implemented infrastructure can all contribute to flooding.
Government officials themselves have acknowledged some of those infrastructure failures.
In June, DPWH Secretary Dizon disclosed that three pumping stations along Roxas Boulevard had been out of service. At the Padre Faura facility, officials found large amounts of garbage, but Dizon also revealed another major problem: despite being completed in 2024, the station had reportedly never been connected directly to Meralco electricity and depended on generators.
Another example is the Sunog Apog Pumping Station in Tondo.
The facility, intended to help drain floodwater from parts of Manila and neighboring areas, had been non-operational for years before rehabilitation efforts restored it to service in 2026. Reports on the project cited missing permits, power issues and questions surrounding previous funding allocations.
The 5,500-project question
The controversy carries even more political weight because of a statement Marcos made during his July 22, 2024 State of the Nation Address.
Standing before Congress, he announced that more than 5,500 flood-control projects had been completed nationwide, with additional projects still under construction.
Government records subsequently said DPWH had completed approximately 5,521 flood-control projects between July 2022 and May 2024.
The timing became politically damaging.
Just days after that SONA, Super Typhoon Carina and the enhanced southwest monsoon brought severe flooding to Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon, raising public questions about why areas remained highly vulnerable despite extensive spending on flood mitigation.
Those questions became even more serious after the government itself began uncovering irregularities in flood-control projects.
By his July 2025 SONA, Marcos had dramatically changed his tone. Instead of highlighting completed projects, he publicly condemned allegedly failed, substandard and “ghost” flood-control works and ordered an extensive review of government projects.
Since then, investigations have expanded.
Marcos has argued that his administration deserves credit for exposing the problem, saying in July 2026 that he was the one who brought the flood-control scandal into the national spotlight. He maintained that corruption extended beyond his administration and described it as a deeply rooted problem requiring changes not only in government structures but also in the way budgets are prepared.
The administration says its crackdown has produced tangible results.
In his July 27, 2026 SONA, Marcos said nearly ₱25 billion worth of assets had been recovered, frozen or preserved in connection with the flood-control corruption investigation, with more than ₱800 million already returned to the National Treasury.
The probe has also reached politically powerful figures. Reuters reported that Marcos used his 2026 SONA to stress that investigations would continue even when they involved people close to him, amid cases potentially involving his cousin, former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
Garbage is real — but so are infrastructure failures
There is substantial evidence that garbage genuinely worsens Metro Manila flooding.
The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority said earlier this year that it removes roughly 7,000 tons of garbage annually from waterways and another 5,000 tons from pumping stations, showing the enormous burden solid waste places on the capital’s drainage network.
But treating garbage as the entire explanation risks oversimplifying the problem.
The government’s own inspections have documented broken pumps, facilities left unused for years, inadequate power connections and projects now under investigation for alleged corruption or faulty implementation. Those problems exist independently of whether residents dispose of trash improperly.
That is why the controversy is increasingly becoming less about whether garbage contributes to flooding — it clearly does — and more about how responsibility should be divided.
Residents have a responsibility to dispose of waste properly.
Local governments have legal and operational responsibilities for solid-waste systems.
National agencies are responsible for major drainage, pumping and flood-control infrastructure.
And officials entrusted with public money are responsible for ensuring that multibillion-peso projects actually exist, function and protect the communities they were built to serve.
The Marcos administration has now made fighting flood-control corruption one of its signature campaigns. Whether that campaign ultimately restores public confidence may depend not on another inspection or another warning about garbage, but on whether investigations lead to convictions, stolen funds are recovered and defective infrastructure is permanently fixed.
Because after years of massive flood-control spending, Filipinos are no longer asking only what is blocking the drainage.
They are also asking what happened to the money meant to keep their communities from flooding in the first place.
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