Can the Philippines handle disasters? Typhoons spark criticism of Marcos, ‘ghost projects’

Two successive cyclones that recently battered the Philippine island of Luzon have exposed weaknesses in President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr’s disaster response management and raised questions over potential corruption linked to flood-control projects nationwide.

On October 23, two days after Typhoon Trami – locally called Kristine – first flooded the Bicol region in northeastern Luzon, Marcos Jnr told the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, headed by Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro: “The worst is yet to come, I’m afraid. So, let’s all prepare.”

“We can’t do anything. I’m feeling a little helpless here because we cannot. All we can do is sit tight, wait, hope, pray that there’s not too much damage, that there are no casualties,” he said.

As of October 24, the death toll from the Bicol floods stood at 20.

Marcos Jnr’s candid comments on live television have sparked public outrage, including at other officials over grievances related to flood-control projects. Senator Imee Marcos, the president’s sister, has demanded an explanation of the money spent on flood control in Bicol in recent years.

The president announced during his State of the Nation Address in July that his administration had “finished over 5,500 flood control projects and more were about to be completed”. The government had been spending massively on such projects, he added.