Crissa Tolentino has long been resigned to floods as a way of life.
The 36-year-old public school teacher takes a paddle boat through the inundated streets nearly every day. It’s the only way to travel from her home in the suburbs to the heart of Apalit, a low-lying town near the Philippine capital Manila.
The boat takes her to work, and to the clinic where she is being treated for cancer. She says she only sees dry streets for about two months in the year.
But this year she is very angry.
An unusually fierce monsoon has derailed daily life more than ever in the South East Asian nation, and sparked anger and allegations about corruption in flood control projects.
The rains have stranded millions mid-commute, left cars floating in streets that have turned into rivers and caused outbreaks of leptospirosis, a liver ailment that spreads through the excrement of sewer rats.
“I feel betrayed,” Ms Tolentino says. “I work hard, I don’t spend too much and taxes are deducted from my salary every month. Then I learn that billions in our taxes are being enjoyed by corrupt politicians.”
It’s a charge that is resonating across the Philippines, where people are asking why the government cannot tame the floods with the billions of pesos it pours into infrastructure like roads, bridges and embankments.
Their anger is palpable on TikTok, Facebook and X, where they are venting against lawmakers and construction tycoons who they allege win contracts for “ghost” projects that never materialise.
President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr himself acknowledged this as a continuing challenge on a visit to inspect a flood control dam that he then found did not exist. The economic planning minister later said corruption had claimed 70% of public funds allotted for flood control.
The House Speaker, who has been implicated, has resigned, although he denies any wrongdoing. And the leader of the Senate has been ousted after it was found that a contractor who won a government bid was found to have donated money to his 2022 campaign, which is illegal.
Outraged Filipinos have been stitching together AI videos of lawmakers as crocodiles, a symbol of greed. A lot of the ire is also aimed at “nepo babies”, the children of wealthy politicians or contractors, whose extravagant lives are all over social media.
Scrolling through her feeds, Ms Tolentino says she relates most to a rap song from 2009 which has become the soundtrack to the public fury.
Upuan, by local artist Gloc-9, questions why politicians are unable to empathise with common folk. The song’s title means “seat” in Tagalog, a local language, and it channels the anger at those with parliamentary seats who seem far removed from the lives of ordinary Filipinos.
“That [song] is our real situation,” Ms Tolentino says. “It explains everything.”
