Marcos: Flood control corruption probe far from done

VANCOUVER, Canada — Almost a year after calling out politicians and contractors who profited from substandard or non-existent infrastructure projects, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. conceded that his administration still had much work to do, while insisting he had nothing to hide because he initiated the crackdown himself.

“I cannot say that we have done enough because we are not done yet. Unfortunately, the more we look, the more we find,” said Marcos on Saturday, July 4, in a press conference to wrap up a four-day official visit to Canada.

During his State of the Nation Address in 2025, Marcos capped his speech by vowing accountability for politicians and contractors who had profited from defective or ghost flood control projects.

His pronouncements led to the administration making public a centralized list of flood control projects around the country, including the contractors awarded the projects. The list included several politicians including allies.

Much has happened since. The corruption scandal has led to the resignation of several officials, including Cabinet members, over alleged links to anomalous projects or alleged discrepancies in the budget process.

The scandal also led to the resignation of Marcos’ cousin, Leyte Representative Martin Romualdez, as House speaker. Former appropriations committee chair Zaldy Co, himself a contractor, fled the country nearly a year ago and is now a fugitive after courts issued warrants for his arrest over cases linked to flood control projects.

Speaking to reporters in Vancouver, Marcos noted that the problem persisted long before his term started in 2022, and was “acknowledged” by former president Rodrigo Duterte “pero wala namang nangyari (but nothing happened).”

“So I guess that was left up to me to do. And so we are still doing it. We’re still working on it,” he said.

“Kasi ang sinabi mahina naman kayo, pag tinanong mo sa akin, nahiya ba sila? Yung iba hindi. Akala nila karapatan nila yung ginagawa nila, ‘wala kami ginagawang mali, ganyan talaga.’ That’s the hardest part to change,” he added.

(When I said, ‘have you no shame.’ If you ask me if they felt shame, well many of them did not. They think they’re entitled to the corruption, they didn’t do anything wrong, that’s just how things work. That’s the hardest part to change.)

A handful of former and current Senators have been jailed over cases related to flood control projects. In December 2025, Marcos said the corrupt would be jailed before Christmas time — a promise that went unfulfilled.

Marcos did not directly answer a question about critics calling on him to resign over what they described as failures in his anti-corruption campaign.

“Kung hindi ko sinabi yung sinabi ko sa SONA, wala tayong pinag-uusapan na ganito. I’m the one who exposed all of this,” he told reporters.

(If I didn’t say what I said during SONA, then we wouldn’t be talking about this now.)

“And I’m the only one that has started to do anything about this. Bakit ang mga nakaraan na Pangulo, [may] nakita ba kayong ginawang gano’n…. Tapos sasabihin, ako daw ang may kagagawan. Eh kung talagang racket ko yun, ba’t ko sisiraan yung racket ko? Diba? That makes absolutely no sense,” he said.

(Did past presidents do something like this? And they said this is all my doing. If this is my racket when why would I destroy it?) – Rappler.com