By Manila Bulletin
Published Sep 17, 2025 12:05 am
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is proposing a nature-based strategy to address flooding. This is an approach that views floodwater or excess water not merely as a hazard but as a vital resource.
This sounds like a good idea for a nation relentlessly battered by storms and monsoon rains that oftentimes trigger flooding—a seasonal inconvenience and a crisis that redefines lives, erodes livelihoods, and tests the very legitimacy of public institutions. The Philippines, long vulnerable to climate extremes, faces a crucial decision in its approach to flood management. Will it continue investing in traditional gray infrastructure, considering the mounting economic, environmental, and ethical costs; or will it embrace a nature-based flood management that is more sustainable, transparent, and appears to be a more effective solution?
Recent revelations regarding massive corruption in flood control projects have ignited national outrage, and rightly so. Reports from multiple agencies indicate that up to 70 percent of flood-control budgets may have been lost to anomalous transactions, including “ghost projects,” identical costs across unrelated sites, and exorbitant kickbacks reportedly demanded by some public officials. According to various investigations, these irregularities may have cost the country as much as ₱118.5 billion over a two-year period alone, enough to drive the country’s economic growth by six percent.
Beyond these shocking figures lies a deeper tragedy. Public trust is once again betrayed, and the country’s ecosystems are once again ignored.
Nature-based flood management is not only economically prudent, it is also morally indispensable. It offers a dual solution—water security and institutional integrity. Rather than forcing rivers into ever-narrower concrete channels and “flushing” floodwaters toward the sea that often worsen downstream flooding, let nature-based solutions work with the landscape. Restored wetlands, reforested watersheds, protected floodplains, and permeable urban surfaces slow down runoff, absorb excess rainwater, and replenish groundwater aquifers.
Across the globe, nature-based approaches have been proven effective in addressing flooding and water resource woes. In the Netherlands, the “Room for the River” program deliberately reclaims floodplains, moves dikes inland to widen waterways, and restores natural overflow zones, significantly reducing flood risks while enhancing ecological integrity. Germany’s “Sponge City” initiatives use green roofs, vegetated swales, and permeable pavements to allow rainwater to be absorbed on-site rather than diverted into overburdened drainage systems. In the Philippines, the implementation of a Sponge City concept is being considered in Metro Manila and New Clark City. This could dramatically reduce flood risks and increase climate resilience in these areas.
Moreover, the shift toward nature-based solutions has tremendous implications for governance and public accountability. Gray infrastructure—canals, dams, dikes, and diversion tunnels—often entails enormous budgets, complex contracts, and opaque procurement processes. This makes them fertile ground for corruption. By contrast, nature-based approaches tend to be decentralized, community-driven, and transparent, with smaller-scale investments spread across wider areas and often managed in collaboration with local stakeholders. In doing so, they reduce opportunities for large-scale graft while empowering citizens and local governments to steward their environment responsibly.
Think about it. Every peso lost to corruption through anomalous gray infrastructures is a peso withheld from communities desperate for protection. Every tree cut, every wetland drained, and every river narrowed under the guise of “progress” is a step away from true resilience. Therefore, we must reframe our relationship with water—not as a destructive force to be diverted to the ocean, but as a valued resource.
Let us not perpetuate systems that have repeatedly failed both people and nature. Water will come, and that is certain. But if we manage it wisely, it need not bring devastation. It can bring life.
Now is the time for us to put floodwaters to good use.
