LAST June 2, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pag-asa) declared the start of the rainy season. For many residents of Metro Manila, the declaration signals the beginning of a new round of floods and relentless rain.
Flooding has been a recurring problem in the National Capital Region, which is a natural basin that catches rainwater flowing from the Sierra Madre mountains and Laguna Lake, and spillover floodwaters from Bulacan and Pampanga.
The challenge is to drain the basin fast enough to keep flooding to a minimum. It is a challenge that the government has not fully resolved.
Every year, the metropolis struggles to cope with floods that force the cancellation of classes and the disruption of business.
It was a periodic inconvenience that Metro Manilans had learned to take in stride. Until Typhoon Ondoy came along.
When the superstorm slammed into Metro Manila in September 2009, it released 455 millimeters of rain in just 24 hours, equivalent to the average monthly rainfall in the metropolis.
Almost 900,000 people were affected. The death toll reached 241, and floodwaters destroyed or damaged more than 65,000 buildings.
The swollen Marikina River breached its banks, engulfing entire communities.
Creeks turned into raging waterways, destroying shanties and leaving thousands of residents homeless.
In response, the government embarked on flood control projects costing billions of pesos, but the results were far from satisfactory.
The most ambitious is the Metro Manila Flood Management Master Plan. In 2017, the World Bank allocated $207.6 million — with a counterpart $84.79 million provided by the government — to repair and upgrade Metro Manila’s 36 pumping stations and build 20 new ones.
To prevent garbage from clogging the pumps, the plan called for improving solid waste management in barangays along esteros and rivers and the resettlement of informal settlers that encroached on them.
The project has been moving in fits and starts. In 2022, the Commission on Audit (COA) flagged the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for unfinished projects, including the modernization of three Metro Manila pumping stations.
COA said the projects had a 40 percent slippage or delay, which inflated their cost.
The World Bank itself faulted Oplan Likas, the national government program to relocate 104,000 informal settlers living in flood-prone areas in Metro Manila. The bank noted that the program has been “subject to criticism, mostly for lack of consideration for adverse socioeconomic impacts on the affected households, such as loss of economic livelihood opportunities, lack of adequate access to basic services, and disruption of social networks.”
It also highlighted the fact that the plan overlooked people with disabilities. PWDs were not counted in the census of those who were displaced. The result is “compounded marginalization and exclusion for people with disabilities who are involuntarily resettled.”
That’s not all: The DPWH disclosed that 70 percent of Metro Manila’s drainage system was clogged up by garbage and silt, preventing floodwaters from draining into the sea.
Other than the usual clean-up drive of esteros just before the start of the rainy season, there was no sustained effort to clear the waterways of household and industrial waste or to dredge them to reduce siltage.
Four years ago, garbage that included discarded tires and bits of lumber shut down a pumping station and caused massive flooding in Quezon City.
In its assessment report last May, the World Bank said the MMDA and the DPWH need to carry out “important actions” if they are to meet the program’s November 2026 deadline.
With the deadline approaching, the Philippine government has yet to spend the remaining loan proceeds of $97.95 million.
Had the project been implemented as scheduled, “flooding experienced in the aftermath of last year’s strong typhoons that battered Metro Manila could have been avoided,” the World Bank said.
It also noted that “frequent changes” in the leadership of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority — five chairmen in five years — “further impacted procurement and disbursements.”
Given a “moderate” risk rating by the World Bank for its sluggish handling of Metro Manila’s flood-control efforts, the government needs to step up, big time.
