Did a shelved anti-disaster scheme lead to Philippines’ corrupted flood control projects?

The Philippines is reviving a popular disaster monitoring and simulation programme that was defunded nine years ago by then president Rodrigo Duterte – a move that some have blamed for resulting in a swathe of corrupted construction projects now plaguing the country.Last month, Congress said it would allot 1 billion pesos (US$16.9 million) in the 2026 General Appropriations Bill for the Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (NOAH) project, a clutch of programmes that identifies risk areas, monitors threats such as typhoons, and model simulations of disasters.NOAH also provides data to enable planners to decide where to effectively locate flood management projects.The project was launched in 2012 during the presidency of Benigno Aquino III, in the aftermath of typhoon Sendong (tropical storm Washi) in late 2011 – a calamity that killed up to 2,500 Filipinos.A town devastated by rampaging floodwaters in southern Mindanao, Philippines, on December 17, 2011, after tropical storm Washi slammed into the region. Photo: EPAOperating under the theme “Know your hazard”, NOAH ran a website where the public could access neighbourhood maps that could be zoomed down to specific streets, and identify threats such as flood levels and nearby earthquake zones.