The flood control scandal has a lesson for homeowners

The flood control scandal has exposed something larger than corruption in public works: how difficult it can be to demand accountability from the government, and even harder from the person building your house.

In August 2025, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. disclosed that 15 contractors had secured roughly P100 billion worth of flood control contracts between July 2022 and May 2025. Of around 8,000 projects inspected, 421 were initially identified as "ghost" projects, promised yet non-existent. That count has since been contested, with only a fraction confirmed so far.

Contractors received payments for work that was never finished and for structures that were never built, leaving communities more vulnerable to flooding.

The government has since interrogated the projects and the people behind them. The Department of Public Works and Highways has filed cases against officials and contractors, while the Senate opened its own investigation. DPWH officials were ordered to submit courtesy resignations, with some dismissed, suspended, or relieved.

Contractors have been blacklisted or had their licenses revoked, arrest warrants have been issued, and billions of pesos worth of flood-control funding was stripped from the proposed 2026 budget.

If the Philippine government could not stop "ghost" projects, how can an ordinary family know whether its home is being built right?

Building on trust

For most families, building a home is more than a major financial decision; it is a deeply personal investment shaped by years of sacrifice and hope for the life they will build there.

Yet they enter the construction process with a peculiar disadvantage: the people paying for the work are usually the least equipped to determine if the work has actually been done correctly. They don't have an auditor, an independent engineer reviewing the project, a procurement board scrutinizing purchases, or even someone checking the contractor's work. What they have is their own judgment, and whatever they can learn in managing a construction project for the first time.

In the Philippines, that process begins with trust. Families often choose a contractor recommended by a relative, or an engineer that a friend has worked with before. These personal connections may be more reassuring than a license, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that.

But while trust is important in such significant life decisions, it is not the same as verification.

A homeowner can trust the person building the house and still have no way of knowing if the contractor inflated the Bills of Quantities, substituted materials, or collected payment for uncompleted milestones. By the time a family discovers the problem, much of the money may already be gone, and the work may be difficult or expensive to undo.

At that point, the homeowner faces a difficult choice: negotiate directly with the contractor who already has their money, or pursue the remedy in a court system where civil cases can take years to resolve.

The ghosts we cannot see

The flood control scandal has brought to light problems that, for years, remained hidden beneath completed projects and payments. The same can happen in homes being built by ordinary Filipino families.

When something is wrong in a house, it is not always something you can see. A wall, for instance, may look fine even when the materials behind it are poor and unstable. Unlike a broken window or a leaking roof, some of the most costly mistakes in construction can stay out of sight.

Using cheaper, poor-quality materials and collecting payment for incomplete or deficient work are longstanding problems in construction industries around the world. In the Philippines, these risks are particularly concerning in a country where people already face high levels of fraud.

TransUnion found that 74 percent of Filipinos surveyed had been targeted by fraud schemes in the previous three months, with 34 percent saying they had lost money as a result. The Philippines also recorded a 13.4 percent suspected digital fraud rate in 2024, second-highest among the markets included in the study.

For homeowners, this makes an already difficult problem harder. They spend large amounts of money on what they cannot always verify for themselves. They may trust the people they hire, but good intentions alone do not uncover buried problems.

Resilience isn't enough

Filipinos are often praised for being resilient when disaster strikes. But resilience should not mean absorbing the aftermath of problems that could have been prevented in the first place.

The flood control scandal has pushed Filipinos to demand answers: where did the money go, who was responsible, and how were these problems even allowed to happen? A family's home should not be less deserving of the same scrutiny.

Homeowners need a way to know what they are paying for and whether the work is being done properly. That means making it easier to check a contractor's qualifications and track record, keep clear records of payments and progress, and bring in qualified professionals who can independently check the work on the homeowner's behalf.

In the end, the goal should be to give families the means to see and address problems before they become another burden they are simply expected to endure.