Statement of Rep. Paolo Duterte — Memory, Diversion, and the Political Economy of the Flood Control Anomaly
Statement of Rep. Paolo Duterte — Memory, Diversion, and the Political Economy of the Flood Control Anomaly
February 10, 2026
Introduction
Rep. Paolo Duterte’s rhetorical intervention—part lament, part indictment—poses a question that is at once moral and methodological: have we really forgotten the trillion-peso flood control anomaly—or are we being made to forget? The question is not merely rhetorical. It demands an interrogation of how public attention is manufactured, how institutional inquiries are neutralized, and how fiscal footprints translate into political leverage. This essay reads Duterte’s statement as a prism through which to analyze the political economy of large-scale infrastructure anomalies in the Philippines, the macroeconomic consequences of sustained fiscal slippage, and the likely electoral ramifications as the country approaches 2028. The argument proceeds in three moves: first, reconstructing the factual and institutional context; second, diagnosing the mechanisms by which diversion operates and the economic pathways affected; third, projecting the electoral dynamics and offering a concluding synthesis.
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Context: The Flood Control Anomaly and the Fiscal Backdrop
From 2023 through 2025 the Department of Public Works and Highways and related agencies allocated an unusually large envelope for flood control projects, with investigative reporting and legislative probes flagging delays, “ghost” projects, and concentrated contractor relationships. Media reconstructions and public inquiries documented nearly P980.25 billion in flood-control appropriations across 2023–2025, raising questions about implementation, procurement, and oversight.
Concurrently, the national government’s outstanding debt reached record highs in late 2025, with official figures reporting an outstanding debt of P17.647 trillion by end-November 2025 and subsequent reporting placing end-2025 debt at roughly P17.71 trillion. These figures are not abstract; they are the macro-fiscal context within which any large anomalous spending must be read.
The scandal’s public life included an Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) probe, Senate Blue Ribbon hearings, and a flurry of media attention. Yet, as Duterte’s statement notes, the public drama was followed by a curious attenuation of the issue’s salience even as other political spectacles—impeachment maneuvers, diplomatic rows, and high-profile political reappearances—dominated headlines. A timeline of the scandal shows episodic bursts of scrutiny followed by institutional stasis and contested narratives about culpability and remediation.
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Diversion as Political Technique: Theory and Practice
Duterte’s claim that the flood control anomaly was being “made to forget” should be read through the lens of agenda-setting and manufactured consent. Political actors with incentives to blunt accountability can deploy a repertoire of diversionary tactics: (1) issue displacement—introducing new, emotionally salient topics to supplant an inconvenient inquiry; (2) procedural capture—slowing or fragmenting investigations through institutional maneuvers; (3) symbolic remediation—announcing partial audits or task forces that create the appearance of action without substantive resolution.
These tactics are not conspiratorial fantasies but empirically observable strategies in many polities where elite actors face reputational and legal risk. The sudden pivot to impeachment theatrics, maritime disputes, and the reappearance of political figures at critical junctures fits a pattern of attention substitution: the public’s finite cognitive bandwidth is reallocated to issues that are either less damaging to the implicated actors or more conducive to partisan mobilization. The result is a temporal displacement of accountability, where the procedural life of an inquiry is truncated even as the underlying fiscal anomalies remain unresolved.
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Macroeconomic Pathways: How the Anomaly Affects the Economy
The economic consequences of a large-scale infrastructure anomaly manifest through several interlocking channels: fiscal sustainability, investment confidence, resource misallocation, and disaster vulnerability.
- Fiscal sustainability. When large appropriations are misallocated or fail to produce public goods, the state still bears the debt service burden. The record-high debt stock in 2025 amplifies the fiscal risk associated with any unproductive spending. Higher debt servicing crowds out productive public investment and constrains fiscal space for countercyclical policy.
- Investment confidence. Perceptions of governance quality matter for both domestic and foreign investors. A pattern of procurement irregularities and “ghost” projects signals regulatory and contract enforcement weaknesses, raising the risk premium on public-private partnerships and deterring long-term capital commitments.
- Resource misallocation. Funds diverted into non-performing flood control projects represent opportunity costs. In a country where infrastructure deficits and climate vulnerability are acute, misallocated capital reduces the economy’s resilience and productive capacity.
- Disaster vulnerability and recurrent losses. Flood control is not a cosmetic sector; it is central to mitigating climate-exacerbated losses. Failed or incomplete projects increase the expected cost of disasters, which in turn depresses growth through repeated reconstruction cycles and insurance market distortions.
Taken together, these channels imply that the flood control anomaly is not a discrete scandal but a structural drag on growth and fiscal health. The macroeconomic effect is cumulative: each peso misapplied today increases the probability of tighter fiscal policy, higher borrowing costs, and constrained public investment tomorrow.
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Electoral Implications for 2028
The political economy of corruption scandals has a bifurcated effect on electoral outcomes. On one hand, salience matters: scandals that remain in public view can depress incumbents and catalyze opposition mobilization. On the other hand, narrative control and issue substitution can blunt electoral damage by reframing the political conversation.
For the 2028 electoral cycle the flood control anomaly’s impact will depend on three variables: memory retention, opposition capacity, and economic performance.
- Memory retention. Duterte’s central worry—that the public will forget—is empirically grounded. Voter memory is short when media cycles are saturated and when competing narratives are more emotionally resonant. If the anomaly is successfully displaced by other issues, its electoral potency will diminish.
- Opposition capacity. Even if the scandal remains technically unresolved, its electoral leverage depends on the opposition’s ability to translate forensic findings into a coherent political narrative and to sustain mobilization across electoral cycles. Fragmented opposition or co-opted civil society reduces the scandal’s electoral bite.
- Economic performance. Voters often prioritize pocketbook concerns. If macroeconomic indicators—employment, inflation, growth—remain favorable or are perceived as improving, the electorate may discount governance failures. Conversely, if the fiscal consequences of the anomaly contribute to austerity, higher borrowing costs, or visible service deterioration, the scandal can become a decisive electoral issue.
Thus, the flood control anomaly could either be a latent grievance that surfaces under adverse economic conditions or a dormant scandal that fails to shape voting behavior if effectively displaced.
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Mechanisms Linking Diversion to Electoral Outcomes
To move from generalities to mechanism, consider three plausible causal chains:
1. Diversion → Reduced Media Salience → Lower Voter Awareness → Limited Electoral Punishment. If the scandal is crowded out of news cycles, voters lack the information necessary to sanction implicated actors.
2. Diversion → Procedural Delay → No Legal Consequences → Elite Continuity. Institutional stalling prevents legal closure, allowing implicated actors to remain politically viable and to contest elections unencumbered.
3. Diversion → Short-Term Political Gains → Policy Continuity Favoring Incumbents → Electoral Advantage. By shifting attention to issues that mobilize core constituencies, incumbents can convert diversion into electoral capital.
Each chain is empirically testable and suggests different interventions for civil society and reform-minded actors.
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Comparative Table: Economic vs Electoral Effects
| Attribute | Economic Effect | Electoral Effect |
|---|---:|---|
| Primary mechanism | Fiscal strain; resource misallocation | Information asymmetry; narrative control |
| Timing | Medium to long term | Short to medium term |
| Magnitude | High if projects remain unproductive | Variable; depends on salience |
| Policy response needed | Audit, reallocation, debt management | Sustained public communication, legal action |
| Political risk | Higher borrowing costs; constrained investment | Incumbent vulnerability if scandal resurfaces |
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Policy and Civic Remedies
If Duterte’s diagnosis is correct, the remedy must be both institutional and civic. Institutional reforms should prioritize transparent procurement, real-time project monitoring, and independent forensic audits with public dashboards. Fiscal policy must incorporate contingent liabilities assessments and strengthen debt management to insulate macroeconomic stability from project-level failures.
Civic remedies require sustained attention: investigative journalism, coalition-building among reformist legislators, and strategic litigation can keep the anomaly in public view. Importantly, reformers must translate technical findings into narratives that resonate with everyday voters—linking misallocated flood-control funds to concrete harms such as unrepaired barangay drainage, repeated flood losses, and foregone social services.
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Conclusion
Rep. Paolo Duterte’s statement is more than a partisan provocation; it is a diagnosis of a democratic pathology in which attention is a scarce public good and where diversion can function as a governance technology. The flood control anomaly, when read against the backdrop of record sovereign debt, is not an isolated scandal but a structural risk to both economic resilience and democratic accountability. Economically, the misallocation of nearly a trillion pesos in flood-control appropriations and the broader debt accumulation amplify fiscal vulnerability and reduce the state’s capacity to respond to climate shocks. Politically, the anomaly’s electoral salience will hinge on whether civil society and opposition forces can sustain scrutiny and convert forensic evidence into a durable public narrative.
If the pattern Duterte describes persists—where spectacle substitutes for scrutiny—the likely outcome is a deferred accountability that compounds economic costs and narrows democratic choice. Conversely, if the anomaly is kept alive in public memory through transparent audits, prosecutorial follow-through, and civic engagement, it can become a catalyst for institutional reform and a corrective to the political incentives that enable diversion.
The stakes for 2028 are therefore existential for both governance and growth. A polity that allows the largest flood-control anomaly in recent memory to be buried under manufactured noise risks normalizing impunity and entrenching fiscal fragility. The alternative—sustained, evidence-based accountability—offers a path toward restoring both public trust and macroeconomic prudence. The choice between these futures will be made not only in committee rooms and court dockets but in the quieter arenas of memory, narrative, and civic will.
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A multidisciplinary Filipino artist, poet, researcher, and cultural worker whose practice spans painting, printmaking, photography, installation, and writing. He is deeply rooted in cultural memory, postcolonial critique, and in bridging creative practice with scholarly infrastructure—building counter-archives, annotating speculative poetry like Southeast Asian manuscripts, and fostering regional solidarity through ethical art collaboration.
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