Philippine Flood Scandal Exposes Billions Lost To Corruption

The Philippines is once again in the grip of a political storm, as a sprawling corruption scandal centered on flood-control projects has rocked the nation and sent shockwaves through its government. On September 9, 2025, the controversy reached a fever pitch when Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson, in a privilege speech, revealed that several former officials from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) had lost more than P950 million in casinos, with their total transactions exceeding P1 billion between 2023 and 2025. But the story, as it turns out, goes much deeper than just gambling losses.

According to Philippine Daily Inquirer, Lacson identified the officials as DPWH 1st District Engineer Henry Alcantara, Assistant Engineers Brice Hernandez, Jaypee Mendoza, Arjay Domasig, and Edrick San Diego. These men, collectively dubbed the "BGC Boys" (Bulacan Group of Contractors), allegedly posed as contractors during their casino dealings. Lacson detailed, "Based on the documents we obtained from Pagcor, the casino losses of these five individuals are staggering — totaling P950 million in gross losses." These losses, he explained, were validated by records from thirteen casinos across Metro Manila, Cebu, and Pampanga.

Brice Hernandez, who used the alias Marvin Santos de Guzman, suffered the highest losses at P435 million. Jaypee Mendoza, under the name Peejay Castro Asuncion, trailed closely with P418 million. Henry Alcantara, playing as Joseph Castro Villegas, lost P36.7 million, though only P68,000 was under his real name. Arjay Domasig, alias Sandro Bernardo Park, lost P16.9 million, while Edrick San Diego lost P42.4 million as himself. The numbers are mind-boggling, but perhaps even more astonishing are the total casino transactions: Alcantara converted a whopping P1.43 billion in cash to chips and P997 million back to cash from 2023 to 2025; Hernandez converted P659 million to chips and P1.38 billion from chips to cash. De Guzman, meanwhile, showed P26.5 million in cash-to-chips and P280 million in chips-to-cash conversions.

Lacson was unequivocal in his assessment: "Yes, you heard it right, B as in billion." He confirmed that his office had submitted the names and aliases of the BGC Boys to the Anti-Money Laundering Council, since casinos are now covered entities under the amended Anti-Money Laundering Act. Perhaps most brazenly, some of these officials continued frequenting casinos even after the government had begun investigating the kickback scandal. Hernandez, for example, was last seen in a casino on September 1, 2025, while the Senate Blue Ribbon panel was actively conducting its probe.

Yet, the gambling is only part of the scandal. Lacson’s office also uncovered hundreds of documents that point to rigged bidding, impossible project timelines, manipulated progress reports, and falsified public documents. "These are not clerical errors; these are fingerprints of a system perfected over the years to pocket billions of funds," Lacson asserted. He cited a P92.58 million project along the Maycapiz–Taliptip River in Bulacan as a prime example. Awarded on December 17, 2024, the project received a Notice to Proceed the next day. Astonishingly, just two days later, the contractor SYMS Construction billed the government for nearly half the project cost and claimed 46.05 percent completion. But when Lacson’s staff inspected the site in March 2025, they found no change since December. The contractor also allegedly overcharged P3.9 million beyond the original contract amount in its final payment. Other contractors, including IM Construction Corporation and Wawao Builders, were implicated in overcharging and even having advance knowledge of contract awards, with suspiciously rapid claims of project completion.

But the scandal didn’t stop with engineers and contractors. In a dramatic turn, former DPWH engineer Brice Ericson Hernandez testified before Congress, accusing two sitting senators—Jinggoy Estrada and Joel Villanueva—of receiving substantial kickbacks from flood-control projects. According to Associated Press, Hernandez claimed Estrada received a 30% kickback from P355 million worth of flood-control projects and Villanueva got 30% from P600 million worth of such projects in 2023, all in Bulacan province. The alleged kickbacks were reportedly delivered by government drivers, though Hernandez provided no further details or evidence. Both senators vehemently denied the accusations. Estrada called them a "big lie" and challenged Hernandez to a lie-detector test, while Villanueva declared, "I will never ever destroy the name that was given to me by my parents because it is priceless."

The fallout was swift and severe. The scandal led to the resignation of the public works secretary, as reported by Rappler and AP. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., describing the anomalies as "horrible," announced the formation of an independent commission to investigate and made the extraordinary decision to withhold funding for all upcoming flood control projects. Marcos’s move was a direct response to the scale of the alleged corruption and the public’s growing outrage, especially as the country reels from deadly storms and flooding. The Philippines, after all, is battered by about 20 typhoons each year, and in July 2025 alone, back-to-back storms and monsoon rains caused massive floods that affected millions, displaced more than 300,000 people, and left dozens dead—mostly poor villagers swept away by flash floods.

The government has spent an estimated P545 billion on flood mitigation projects over the past three years, but with so many projects now under review for being substandard or even non-existent, the public’s anger is palpable. President Marcos himself has found evidence of shoddy or missing infrastructure during recent inspections in flood-prone provinces. A website he launched for citizens to report anomalies has been swamped by thousands of complaints—a testament to the widespread frustration and mistrust.

The legislative inquiries have now reached the stage of naming names: contractors have identified congressmen and their alleged bagmen, DPWH engineers have implicated senators, and senators are pointing fingers at ex-DPWH secretaries. As Rappler columnist John Nery put it, the political class, from President Marcos Jr. on down, is implicated in a "culture of corruption"—and the flood-control mess is just the latest, and perhaps most brazen, example. The question now is whether these investigations will actually resolve the issue or simply serve to defuse public anger without meaningful reform. The outcome remains uncertain, but one thing is clear: the Filipino public is watching closely and demanding accountability.

As the country faces the dual threats of climate change and institutional corruption, the stakes could hardly be higher. The coming months will test whether the Philippines can turn this crisis into an opportunity for real change—or whether, as so often before, the floodwaters of scandal will simply recede, leaving the same old problems behind.