On August 19, 2025, heavy rains lashed Davao City, triggering floods in several areas that left roads submerged, traffic snarled, and commuters facing safety risks.
Davao City is sinking — and so is the Duterte clan’s defense.
Acting Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte has boldly declared there is “no anomaly” in Davao’s flood control projects. Yet the irony is impossible to miss: the city pocketed a jaw-dropping P51 billion for flood control from 2019 to 2022, more than triple what it originally asked for, but hundreds of areas across Davao are still submerged after heavy rains this week.
Critics are calling it the ultimate case of “billions down the drain.”
Documents show how Davao’s flood budgets swelled like a raging river during Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency. In 2020, the city requested P4.7 billion — but somehow walked away with P13.7 billion. In 2021, a P9.7-billion proposal ballooned to P25 billion. By the end of 2022, over P51 billion had flowed into the Dutertes’ hometown, dwarfing allocations for even the most flood-prone provinces.
And yet, Davaoeños are still treading water.
House lawmakers are now demanding answers. Rep. Terry Ridon, who leads the “infracomm” probe into questionable DPWH projects, pointedly asked: “Why is Davao still flooded when the funds there were so massive? Were these projects real, or were they ghost projects?”
Instead of directly addressing the elephant in the room, the Duterte siblings—Vice President Sara Duterte, Davao City Rep. Paolo “Polong” Duterte, and Acting Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte—have brushed off the inquiry as a circus and “political theatrics.” Baste Duterte, speaking from The Hague where he and his siblings are accompanying their father ahead of his International Criminal Court hearing, snapped at Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante Jr. for even bringing up the issue.
“My brother already answered him. The projects are transparent. The DPWH has the records if they want to see them. We don’t have a problem there—you’re the ones with the problem,” Baste declared, turning the criticism back on Manila lawmakers.
Polong Duterte, for his part, insisted that “every peso allocated was implemented,” claiming there are no ghost or collapsing flood control projects in his district. He has since directed the DPWH regional office to release the official records.
Still, the images from the ground tell a different story: knee-deep floods across Davao, residents evacuating from submerged homes, and commuters stranded in waterlogged streets — all in a city that supposedly enjoyed one of the biggest flood control windfalls in the nation’s history.
Billions poured in. Billions spent. And still, the waters rise.
With the House inquiry set to begin September 2, the Duterte stronghold faces its own reckoning: if there’s truly “no anomaly,” why does Davao, with its P51-billion flood budget, remain drowning?