P115B allocated for 'shadow' flood control projects in 2025 GAA —UP-NCPAG

Over P115 billion was found to have been allocated for “shadow” flood control projects this year, according to a study by the University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration and Governance (UP-NCPAG). 

It found that the “shadow” flood control budget, which covers projects outside the official Flood Management Program (FMP), had substantially and “consistently grown over the years," from P81.552 billion in 2022 to P115.262 billion in 2025.

“This means that in the 2025 GAA, the budget for flood control projects outside the FMP is nearly 50% as large as the FMP’s own allocation,” the UP-NCPAG said in a policy note released on Friday.

“To further illustrate, the majority of the P115-billion budget in 2025 was allocated for the construction or maintenance of general structures like walls, revetments, dikes, slope/riverbank protection, drainage systems, and coastal protection infrastructure. This shows that a large part of flood control spending happens outside the main program,” it added.

The UP-NCPAG said that while expenditure under flood management is often highlighted in public discourse, other aspects of the GAA in relation to Disaster Risk Reduction Management (DRRM) allocation “deserve the same level of scrutiny.”

These include Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) allocations for other hazards like earthquake, landslide, fire, and storm surge embedded within other program areas of the agency’s budget. These are not explicitly labeled as “disaster” expenditures, but nevertheless infrastructure investments crucial to decreasing multi-hazard vulnerability.

The academic institution also noted the “immense” scale of road infrastructure spending, with funding for the construction, repair, and rehabilitation of roads reaching P541.98 billion in the 2025 GAA.

It added that the single-year allocation for roads is approximately half of the department’s total allocation in 2011, and more than double the combined budget of the official and non-official flood control programs in 2024 (P115.26 billion + P248 billion FMP).

But even though the DPWH has received substantial funding over the years, "our disaster woes have worsened," according to the UP-NCPAG.

"Albay alone invested a staggering P16.2 billion in taxpayers’ money for flood mitigation, boasting 273 different flood control projects since 2018. Yet even with this investment, the province lost as much P7.3 billion in infrastructure damage across a 6-year period (2017-2023), the highest in the country," it said.

"Even still, this pattern repeats across the entirety of the Philippines. Oriental Mindoro’s allotment of P11.3 billion across 138 flood control projects failed to avert P4.1-billion infrastructure-specific damage; not counting other losses in agriculture, human lives, and livelihood."

DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon said he will recommend to the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) to look into this. The DPWH will also investigate and share its findings with the ICI, he said.

"I will recommend to the ICI to look into this as well and we will also look into it in our own internal investigation and will refer our findings to the ICI," Dizon told GMA News Online.

Recommendations

Congress and the Palace-created ICI are investigating government officials and contractors who might have stolen public funds intended for flood control projects. 

In its recommendations, the UP-NCPAG asked the ICI to also probe projects outside the FMP that are tagged as flood control structures and disaster-related structures like roads, bridges, evacuation and operations centers.

"Considering that projects are also implemented by various District Engineering Offices (DEOs) around the country, identifying patterns that might be common between and among DEOs can be a viable framework in reviewing other projects of the DPWH and identifying possible gaps where corruption may arise," it said.

The UP-NCPAG also urged the government to implement "systemic reforms" and asked lawmakers to transfer the DPWH's disaster risk reduction functions to a "dedicated agency."

"The DPWH cannot perform its DRR functions if it continues to be hampered by legacy structures that are not risk-sensitive and highly susceptible to corruption," it said.

The UP-NCPAG also called on oversight agencies to strengthen budget accountability mechanisms "to avoid incurrence and recurrence of improper and illegal disbursements."

"Aided by technology, infrastructure projects may be tagged starting from the planning and design, funding and procurement, to implementation and delivery phase," it said.

"Information on past repair and maintenance activities can also be tagged to provide historical investments made on specific projects, which can also be used for future programming and prioritization." —VBL/KG, GMA Integrated News