If you live on the other side of the planet — or here in the Philippines but haven’t been following the news — you may have missed the scandal now surrounding the country’s flood-control projects. It centers on billions of pesos in alleged misuse and mismanagement of public funds.1
In response, the President announced the launch of Sumbong sa Pangulo, a site where citizens can report irregularities in their area.2 It already includes a map — but around the same time I’d been experimenting with custom map viewers, and I wanted one I could actually understand and shape myself. So I built my own visualization of the projects in my hometown. (Here’s the original version I first put together in Google Data Studio.)
I’ll keep the commentary brief. It’s hard to watch money meant for infrastructure that should serve people — flood control among it — apparently end up anywhere but the work, in a country where the divide between rich and poor is already this stark.3
This is a small step to help anyone who might stumble upon this site looking for a clearer way to see what was supposedly built, by whom, and at what cost. I’ll probably write something up about why working on things like this matters to me — what drives it, and what I’m working toward.
Sources:
1Cleo Anne A. Calimbahin, “Accountability Washed Away in Philippine Flood Control Corruption,” East Asia Forum, 2 December 2025, https://eastasiaforum.org/2025/12/02/accountability-washed-away-in-philippine-flood-control-corruption/.
2“PBBM Launches ‘Sumbong sa Pangulo’ Website for Citizen Reports on Anomalous Flood Control Projects,” Presidential Communications Office, 11 August 2025, https://pco.gov.ph/news_releases/pbbm-launches-sumbong-sa-pangulo-website-for-citizen-reports-on-anomalous-flood-control-projects/.
3“In PH, Stubborn Gaps Persist in Income, Gender, Economic Status,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, 31 October 2024, https://globalnation.inquirer.net/254037/in-ph-stubborn-gaps-persist-in-income-gender-economic-status/.