For decades, communities in Eastern Visayas have lived with rain, rivers, and the seasonal rise of water.
Flooding was never alien to the region but it was largely predictable, manageable, and rarely as destructive as what residents are experiencing today.
Ironically, the most severe flooding in recent memory is happening at a time when multiple flood control projects now line our rivers and coastlines.
This raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: what flood did it control?
Homes that never flooded before are now submerged after a few hours of rain.
Roads turn into rivers. Livelihoods are disrupted repeatedly, not by typhoons alone, but by ordinary downpours.
These are not isolated incidents but recurring scenes across several provinces.
Logic dictates that flood control structures should reduce risk, not relocate or worsen it.
The problem may not be the idea of flood control, but how it is planned and executed.
Many projects focus on channeling water quickly in one area without fully considering where that water will go next.
Narrowed rivers, concrete embankments, and altered waterways can accelerate flow downstream, overwhelming communities that were previously safe.
Flood control for one town becomes flood creation for another.
There is also the issue of maintenance and transparency. Silted rivers, clogged drainage systems, and unfinished or poorly designed structures undermine any engineering intent.
When projects are rushed, politicized, or designed without meaningful local consultation, their effectiveness becomes questionable.
Climate change and stronger rainfall patterns are real factors, but they do not excuse flawed infrastructure.
In fact, they demand better planning, not cosmetic solutions.
Flood control should be comprehensive, science-based, and regionally coordinated, not piecemeal responses that look good on paper but fail on the ground.
Eastern Visayas deserves honest assessment, not defensive explanations.
If flooding has become worse despite massive investments, then accountability is not optional.
Public funds must lead to public safety.
Until the government fixed its flawed ways, the people are left asking, every time the waters rise as to what flood did it exactly control?
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