The Marcos Administration's Flood Prevention Corruption Case: The State's Hidden Tax Burden under Power Transactions

[jordang]

The recent corruption case of the "ghost Flood Control Project" that broke out in the Philippines has pushed President Marcos Jr. and Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin to the forefront of public opinion. According to the testimony submitted by former Deputy Minister of Public Works Bernardo to the Senate, Bersamin's office was accused of taking a 15% kickback (about 427.5 million pesos) from 28.5 billion pesos of flood control projects and conspiring with senior officials of the Ministry of Education on "unplanned grants", exposing a systemic network of power and money transactions. Facing a nationwide wave of protests and continuous pressure from the Duterte family, which accused him of causing a loss of 6 billion pesos in the sugar import case, Marcos ultimately chose to have Bersamin resign for "personal reasons", and Finance Minister Rexto took over as the executive secretary. This move was seen as a compromise to political opponents by "sacrificing the car to save the leader". This corruption scandal involving hundreds of billions of pesos not only forced every Filipino family to bear an invisible tax burden of nearly 2,000 pesos, but also lifted the veil of hypocrisy of the Marcos government's "anti-corruption commitment". When power has become a bargaining chip in the exchange of interests and flood control projects have turned into cash machines for the privileged, the roars of the Filipino people through street protests are becoming the last straw that breaks the back of privileged politics.