CHICKENPIE.A river wall in Bulacan collapsed two months after it was finished. Two months. That's not infrastructure, that's a subscription.
Somewhere in a Senate hearing room, officials are being asked where the money went. Nobody knows. Everybody's cousin does construction now. The projects exist on paper the way ghosts exist in horror movies — fully documented, thoroughly invoiced, never actually seen. Ask for the ribbon-cutting photo and someone will find one. Ask to see the actual wall and the signal suddenly drops.
Here's the part that should stop you mid-scroll: next year's budget already has over a hundred billion pesos lined up for more flood control, before this year's ghost projects have even been fully accounted for. A senator is out here demanding a full audit of where the last batch went. That audit doesn't have a due date. The next budget already does. We are funding the sequel before we've watched the first movie's credits roll. Nobody's even returned the popcorn money from part one.
Manila doesn't flood because it rains. Manila floods because somewhere between the budget hearing and the riverbank, a number got smaller and a pocket got bigger. The water is just doing what water does. It finds the gap. Turns out so does the money. Gravity, in this country, has a favorite bank account.
Picture the chicken wading through it — not center stage, just another commuter, pants rolled up, watching a "Flood Control Project — Completed 2026" sign float past like a punchline nobody wrote on purpose. Somewhere behind it, a half-finished river wall keeps not-finishing. A jeepney idles axle-deep. Nobody's shocked. Everybody's late for work anyway.
We keep asking who's responsible. Wrong question. The right question is why the answer never costs anyone anything. A senator gets a hearing. A contractor gets a new project, somewhere else, next quarter. A commuter gets waist-deep water and a good tweet.
Fifteen years of "outrage." The outrage never floods anyone's basement. Only the water does that. Stamina isn't a virtue here. It's a business model, and we're the ones supplying it, one flood season at a time.
So here's to 2027's budget — brand new pesos, same old drain. Build back better, they said. Nobody said better than what. Nobody ever does.
