File photo of Senator ‘Bam’ Aquino from the Senate Social Media Unit.
Senate Committee on Finance chairperson Senator Paolo Benigno ‘Bam’ Aquino IV has filed a resolution urging the appropriate Senate committees to review how the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and other implementing agencies have spent the more than PhP360-billion flood control budget for the current year.
According to Aquino, who also chairs the Senate Committee on Science and Technology, “there is a need to review the flood control strategies being implemented by the DPWH and other concerned agencies to be more cost-effective, suitable, innovative, and efficient to address the worsening conditions during the typhoon season in the Philippines.”
“Despite the PhP1.47 trillion allocated for flood control from 2009 to 2024, the country still suffers from poor drainage systems, ineffective flood measures, outdated pumping stations, and a lack of community-based flood risk management,” the senator noted.
Aquino also called on the government to tap Filipino scientists in crafting science-based flood control measures while investing on an integrated and scientific solution—from infrastructure to the effects of climate change—to address flooding in the country.
“It’s time to use a different strategy. Let’s tap our world-class Filipino scientists and other experts in preventing flooding. They have much to contribute in solving this problem,” he pointed out.
“Instead of spending hundreds of billions of pesos on flood control projects that are often failures and even sources of corruption, let us fund programs that will truly provide protection for the people and for our future,” he added.