Flood-control appropriations under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. have more than doubled the annual average recorded during the Duterte administration, according to a budget comparison covering fiscal year 2017 through the proposed 2027 National Expenditure Program.

The figures show that the government’s budgetary commitment to flood management rose sharply beginning in 2023, even as questions continue to be raised over how public-works funds were distributed among congressional districts.

Under the Duterte administration, flood-management appropriations totaled approximately ₱612 billion across six General Appropriations Acts from 2017 to 2022, or an average of about ₱102 billion annually.

Under Marcos, the comparable figure for the 2023 GAA through the proposed 2027 NEP is approximately ₱1.13 trillion, or an average of roughly ₱227 billion annually. The yearly figures show the sharpest increase at the beginning of the Marcos administration.

Flood-control appropriations stood at approximately ₱146 billion in 2022, the final budget year of the Duterte administration. The amount rose to around ₱287 billion in 2023, followed by ₱347 billion in 2024 and ₱373 billion in 2025.

The trend was dramatically reversed in 2026. The enacted 2026 General Appropriations Act contains only about ₱18 billion in flood-management appropriations after Marcos ordered the zeroing out of new locally funded flood-control projects.

What remained were maintenance items and foreign-assisted capital outlays.

The proposed 2027 NEP would raise flood-management appropriations again to approximately ₱111 billion. But the 2027 figure is not yet final. The NEP was submitted by the Department of Budget and Management on August 12, 2026, and remains subject to congressional deliberations and possible amendments.

The Romualdez district figure

The broader DPWH funding picture also provides important context to the flood-control budget numbers. In a report published Aug. 25, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) reported that the 1st District of Leyte, represented by then-House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, received approximately ₱57 billion in DPWH funds from 2023 to 2025.

The figure should not, however, be conflated with national flood-control appropriations. The ₱57 billion refers to DPWH funding for the district as a whole, not necessarily ₱57 billion exclusively for flood-control projects.

That distinction is important because DPWH appropriations cover a broad range of infrastructure, including roads, bridges, flood-control structures and other public works. Still, the size of the allocation raises legitimate questions about how DPWH resources were distributed among congressional districts during the same period when national flood-control appropriations reached record levels.

PCIJ has also reported that from 2023 to 2025, Romualdez and Ilocos Norte 1st District Rep. Ferdinand Alexander “Sandro” Marcos received the largest shares of so-called “allocable” DPWH funds.

A separate PCIJ investigation found that the government funded 9,855 flood-control projects worth more than ₱545 billion between July 2022 and May 2025.

The same standard should apply to Davao

Meanwhile, the controversy over the reported ₱51 billion in infrastructure allocations for Davao City’s 1st District from 2020 to 2022 deserves the same careful distinction. The ₱51 billion figure should not be presented as ₱51 billion in flood-control funds.

DPWH project records show that flood management represented only a portion of the infrastructure program. The Davao City Flood Management Program allocations for 2020, 2021 and 2022 totaled approximately ₱7.62 billion—₱2.21 billion, ₱2.44 billion and ₱2.97 billion, respectively.

In other words, the much larger ₱51-billion figure covers a broader universe of public-works projects and cannot fairly be used to suggest that ₱51 billion was intended for flood control. More importantly, there are project records against which the Davao allocation can be checked.

DPWH XI has furnished a list of completed projects for the 2020–2022 period, providing a documentary basis for examining what projects were actually implemented, where they were located and what infrastructure was delivered.

That is the proper way to test the ₱51-billion figure, not by equating the entire allocation with flood control, but by matching the budget against the project’s actual implementation and accomplishment records.

The difference is that in Davao, there are DPWH XI accomplishment and project records that can be used to trace the money to actual infrastructure. That record should be examined before anyone declares the entire ₱51 billion a flood-control budget—or, conversely, dismisses it as money that simply disappeared.

The fair question is not whether a large number looks politically convenient. The fair question is whether the money can be traced to projects, the projects can be traced to accomplishments, and the accomplishments can be verified on the ground.

If the ₱51 billion funded roads, bridges, buildings, flood-control structures and other legitimate public infrastructure, then those projects should be identified, documented and credited accordingly. And if there are projects that cannot be accounted for, were not completed, were overpriced or failed to deliver, then those too should be identified and investigated.

That is what accountability should look like— follow the peso, check the records, inspect the project—not simply attach the biggest number to the biggest accusation.