by Diego Morra
On Aug. 31, the anti-corruption alliance Kilos Bulacan mounted a protest rally in flooded Malolos City to denounce graft-ridden flood control projects that lined the pockets of corrupt politicians, public works officials and private contractors that built substandard dikes or profited from ghost projects.
Kilos Bulacan leaders and members were befuddled why, despite years of monsoon rains that never caused severe flooding in Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac and Zambales, it is only now practically the entire Central Luzon was transformed into a vast lake. Spearheaded by the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya), Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and Anakpawis Party-list, the protest dramatized the negligence of the government in crafting a comprehensive program to control flooding.
On Sept. 20, 2025, more than 2,000 people in Hagonoy, Bulacan organized under Tindig Hagonoy also staged a rally and a motorcade to denounce the failure of government to stop the flooding, which has affected 22 of the town’s 26 barangays. This year, Tarlac and Pampanga have also been inundated, despite Pampanga taking a lion’s share of the budget for flood control. People in Zambales are also swimming in floodwaters while hydrologists, urban planners and scientists rack their brains in explaining why flooding has defied solution. Tindig Hagonoy may soon end up as Langoy Hagonoy unless something is done. Surely, government doesn’t contemplate a rebellion in the town, which sent its warriors in 1578 along with the people of Macabebe to battle the Spanish conquerors in Manila.
Kilos Bulacan blamed systemic corruption, failing flood control projects and large-scale reclamation projects, particularly in the 2,500-hectare reclaimed Ramon Ang airport and San Miguel Corp. (SMC) fiefdom for preventing floodwaters from draining into Manila Bay. Other observers believe that sustained heavy rains caused by the southwest monsoon might have forced the operators of several dams in Bulacan, Pangasinan and Benguet to release water. Bulacan hosts the Angat, Ipo and Bustos dams, with the Angat hydroelectric dam as the biggest, while Ipo is a diversion dam that brings water to the La Mesa reservoir and Balara filtration areas in Metro Manila. Bustos is an irrigation dam that impounds and diverts water from the Angat River.
Pamalakaya tagged Ramon Ang’s 2,500-hectare New Manila International Airport (NMIA) project in Bulakan town, which President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. initially questioned, as responsible for preventing the quick discharge of floodwaters from the rivers and their tributaries Bulacan. Using blandishments and promises, Ang’s project displaced 1,000 fishing families, destroyed over 600 mangrove trees and exacerbated flood risks. Ang touted SMC’s mangrove “reforestation” in Bulakan, only to be ordered by the Department of Environment and National Resources (DENR) for planting the mangrove species.
This is the same Ang who claimed that his NMIA has nothing to do with reclamation but could not explain why he contracted the Dutch firm Boskalis to undertake two seabed quarrying ventures covering 5,000 hectares off several Cavite towns. Ang also bragged about his river dredging projects in Laguna but the same materials retrieved eventually ended up in the poldered areas of the NMIA. Ang, who has acquired an island off Navotas for yet another expressway to link his NMIA with Metro Manila, was so silent when the landfill in that island was razed in April 2026, with blame for the controlling the environmentally deleterious fire on the former landfill operator, another notorious rentier.
In buttressing their claim that Ang has become too much of a favored businessman like Enrique Razon, Pamalakaya cited the investigation of the NMIA conducted by the London-based international non-government organization (NGO) Global Witness in February 2023 that the residents of Taliptip, Bulakan were told by SMC that their P735-billion project was for an unspecified “land development” rather than the massive airport. “This blatant lack of transparency robbed communities of their right to assess the project’s impacts and challenge any resulting harm,” environmental defense advocates Jonila Castro and Jhed Tamano argued. Worse, soldiers were deployed to harass fishing families opposing the venture, forcing them to leave.
Pamalakaya Vice Chairperson Ronnel Arambulo, Anakpawis coordinator Glo Fernandez and KMP chairperson Danilo Ramos, said Ramon Ang’s NMIA should be placed in the freezer for exacerbating flooding and subsidence and threatening its long-term viability. Ang is already counting the chicks even before the eggs are hatched. Rising sea levels and storm surges could render the airport unusable within decades. With the NAIA operating and the possible construction of Sangley Point in Cavite as another airport, Metro Manila, Central Luzon and Southern Luzon would have at least four international airports, with Clark under Gokongwei control included in the mix. This is truly a glut in a country that cannot register a decent percentage of the foreign tourist market.
