The Philippine government awarded more than ?5.72 trillion in contracts from 2000 to 2021 across its top 10 procurement categories. An overwhelming ?4 trillion – or 81 percent – went to construction projects, yet floods continue to cripple communities nationwide.
This is according to an analysis of PhilGEPS procurement data by Dr. Rogelio Alicor Panao, INQUIRER Metrics data scientist and associate professor at the University of the Philippines.
‘Trillions have already sunk into concrete, yet the waters keep rising,’ Panao wrote. ‘[D]espite this torrent of spending, floods continue to paralyze communities, exposing how concrete often serves politics as much as public need.’
Construction dwarfs other spending
The data shows how construction has dominated government spending, dwarfing other vital sectors. Construction projects accounted for ?4.65 trillion, while an additional ?96.4 billion went to construction materials – together making up the vast bulk of procurement across two decades.
By comparison, Information Technology (?152.2 billion) ranked third in procurement, a figure that Panao noted ‘sits unusually high,’ reflecting both modernization efforts and ‘suspicions of overpriced, fragmented systems.’
Spending on health fell far behind. Drugs and medicines (?132.4 billion) and medical supplies and laboratory instruments (?74.2 billion) combined barely reached four percent of construction’s total.
The numbers, Panao explained, stress how ‘health spending, though vital, has struggled to compete with the politics of infrastructure,’ Panao said.
Other procurement categories included services (?125.3 billion), vehicles (?113.1 billion), lease and rental of property or building (?89.9 billion), and food stuff (?84.2 billion) – underscoring the heavy bias for physical infrastructure.
A recurring flood of spending
Despite the torrent of funds, floods remain one of the country’s most persistent and destructive disasters. The International Disaster Database earlier reported that storms and floods accounted for nearly two-thirds of all Philippine calamities from 2000 to 2024.
Panao warned that infrastructure-driven policies risk being ‘rich in contracts, poor in integrity’ if accountability and transparency are not strengthened.
The release of the PhilGEPS data comes as the Commission on Audit (COA) has filed a series of fraud audit reports on flood-control projects. Just in September, COA flagged multiple projects in Bulacan and Bicol as either nonexistent, duplicated, or built on mismatched sites – raising concerns over how billions in flood infrastructure are spent.
At the same time, public anger has mounted over revelations that just 15 contractors cornered more than ?100 billion worth of flood-control funds since 2022. Protesters have linked this concentration of spending to the ‘ghost projects’ scandal, which continues to fuel calls for accountability.
According to Panao, the figures show that even with trillions of pesos poured into construction projects, flooding has continued to affect communities nationwide. His analysis noted that this pattern reflects the limits of infrastructure spending when it comes to addressing recurring climate-related risks.