Bicol: In the Eye of the (Corruption) Storm

We, the six million people of Bicol, are no strangers to storms. Typhoons lash the region up to 20 times a year, leaving broken homes, flooded fields, and scarred lives. But today, Bicol is battered by a storm of another kind—one not of wind and rain, but of corruption and betrayal.

In ongoing Congressional hearings, Bicol has become a constant reference point, not for resilience but for receiving some of the country’s largest slices of the public works budget. These are not millions but hundreds of billions of pesos, carved up by bureaucrat-capitalists and their contractor allies. Testimonies reveal a sickening litany of unimplemented, delayed, defective, or ghost projects. The deception is as visible as the cracks and potholes that scar DPWH roads. Every mention of Bicol in these hearings makes me squirm—disaster-prone, corruption-ridden, betrayed by the very institutions meant to protect it.

At least ₱13 billion in Bicol projects was flagged by the 2023 Commission on Audit report as wasted or mishandled. Beyond this, ₱132 billion supposedly allocated for flood control between 2018 and 2024 has barely reduced risks in vulnerable communities. For 2023–2024 alone, Bicol received ₱61.42 billion—₱29.4 billion in 2023 and ₱31.9 billion in 2024—for flood control. Yet residents endure the same flooding year after year. Where did all these billions go?

The DPWH itself admitted that between July 2022 and May 2025, 6,021 out of 9,855 flood control projects nationwide—worth over ₱350 billion—had “no clear records of what was built, where, or when.” The Department of Finance added that ₱42.3 to ₱118.5 billion may have been lost to ghost projects from 2023 to 2025, again citing Bicol as a hotspot. What makes this scandal worse is the human cost: every peso lost to corruption translates to a family left vulnerable, a farm submerged, a student stranded because the road is impassable.

Instead of vanishing into opaque contracts and shoddy works, these billions should have gone into community-centered, climate-smart infrastructure and services. Properly spent, they could have reduced flooding, saved lives, protected livelihoods, and nurtured sustainable regional growth. In a region on the frontlines of climate change, such investments were not luxuries but necessities. The failure is not only financial; it is moral.

I cannot help but recall my late brother, Dante Jimenez, founder of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption. His legacy, honored in a public forum on good governance on the occasion of VACC’s 27th Founding Anniversary, featuring Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, emphasized that justice and development must go hand in hand. Dante was relentless in exposing abuse of public trust. For him, the fight against corruption was not abstract; it was about people’s dignity and right to development.

In 2018, as chair of the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission, he personally inspected delayed projects in Bicol and warned against rampant DPWH corruption. He believed Bicol could be a model region for clean governance and effective service delivery. His advocacy framed infrastructure, healthcare, and governance reforms as inseparable, with anti-corruption measures ensuring projects truly benefited communities. Among the initiatives he supported were the Bicol International Airport and the modernization of the Bicol Medical Center—examples of how development should be pursued when shielded from corruption. For him, good governance meant that ordinary citizens felt the impact of public funds in their daily lives.

Yet today, corruption has become the storm within the storm. A man-made disaster traps Bicol in a cycle of vulnerability. The fiercest tempest is not nature’s doing but human greed—billions meant to protect the vulnerable tainted by kickbacks and substandard work. The betrayal cuts deeper than any flood, leaving Bicolanos not only unprotected but also disillusioned. Unlike typhoons, this storm does not pass. It lingers in broken systems and broken trust.

Accountability must be demanded. The law is clear: up to ₱50 million stolen constitutes graft and corruption; in the billions, it becomes plunder. If ₱61.42 billion in just two years—or ₱132 billion in six—has been spent without visible improvement in flood resilience, then someone must answer. The rage expressed in rallies, exposés, and even satire is justified. Tama na, sobra na! Beyond identifying ghost projects, government must recover the stolen billions and hold the guilty accountable. Otherwise, every new allocation simply feeds another cycle of plunder.

For dragging Bicol once again to the centerstage of corruption, the culprits deserve no less than the galleys of lifetime punishment. But accountability is not only about punishment; it is about rebuilding trust. Bicolanos deserve proof that taxes can translate into safe roads, reliable flood defenses, and opportunities for growth. Public office is a public trust, not a license for plunder.

Only then can the region rise above storms—both natural and man-made—and find justice in governance that truly serves its people. Until that day comes, Bicol remains trapped in the eye of a storm not of nature’s making but of the nation’s tolerance for corruption.