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The health worker from Bulacan, a Filipino health worker, walked through July's waist-high flood water to verify the condition of vaccines and vital medications stored in the local health center, a duty she had consistently carried out during earlier typhoons.

Unfortunately during this instance she didn't make it. Taking hold of a metal pole that she overlooked was connected to a live wire, the 49-year-old was fatally electrocuted in the inundated area.

The fatal incident in the province of Bulacan is one of scores of recent flood-related fatalities in the Philippines, where claims of corruption related to flood control projects have triggered widespread anger and mass rallies. Politicians, project implementers and public works officials are suspected of diverting massive amounts allocated for flood mitigation through nonexistent schemes, excessive pricing and illegal commissions.

“She died because of the flood,” states the widower of his late wife. “It’s not only money that’s being wasted, lives are too.”

Inundation is a ongoing problem across the Philippines, a country highly susceptible to a changing climate and one that is hit by about numerous storms a year. Since president Ferdinand Marcos Jr took office in 2022, P545bn has been directed toward more than nine thousand eight hundred fifty-five flood-control projects nationwide.

Padora’s province received about a substantial funding amount in disaster mitigation resources – more than any other region. But a previous official recently provided evidence during a legislative investigation that every anti-flooding initiative in the province were “substandard” because a significant portion of project funds went to kickbacks for politicians alone.

Freshly designated ombudsman the lead prosecutor says the anti-corruption agency is gathering documentation to bring charges against at least a multiple elected officials.

On October 9, official probes announced that active examinations had identified at least 421 “ghost projects” across the country – reported as completed but later revealed as fraudulent. Similar schemes are emerging in different areas, including major construction and health facility projects.

Anger first erupted on social media and has since spilled into the streets, with thousands of people – many of them youths – appearing in quantities not witnessed in recent years. A major protest on the twenty-first of September was followed by further gatherings, with an upcoming significant rally planned for November.

“We’ve seen how corruption has taken people’s lives in the form of poorly implemented water management systems, and we refuse to allow unscrupulous leaders just evade accountability as if it was insignificant,” says the youth movement founder, a law student who established GoodGovPH, a youth-led movement for good governance.

Experts say global warming will continue to intensify flooding in the south-east Asian nation.

“The most heartbreaking reality is the issues of disasters and environmental crisis have been taken advantage of,” says an academic expert of the academic study group, which charts inundation risks and suggests evidence-driven solutions.

Water management schemes in the Philippines, he says, are mostly dykes and other structural measures and are not the best solution to the country’s inundation challenge. The expert says measures such as reforestation and shifting constructions out of flood plains are preferable.

The flood scandal has caused political turmoil, resulting in the replacement of the upper house leader and house speaker and the stepping down of the budget committee head. All have rejected accusations in anti-flooding fraud.

Recently appointed public works secretary the administration representative has vowed to recoup illicit gains, while the anti-money laundering council has seized at least P4.6bn in holdings owned by government personnel suspected of involvement in the scam.

This has failed to appease activists who are saturating digital spaces with appeals to prosecute the responsible parties. “It is essential that the dishonest be sentenced and truly held accountable,” says Yang.

The political figure, who previously led the legislative panel examining the corruption, advises the list of involved officials would only increase. He calculates one trillion pesos may have been misappropriated via corruption in the recent period.

“Going through heaps of restricted papers, our team questioned if the more relevant query is, ‘Who is not?’ rather than, ‘Who committed the crime?’,” Lacson says.