EDITORIAL | Infrastructure Dreams, Flooded Realities: When Public Service Falls Short

Are we truly developing—or are we merely trapped in a cycle of underdevelopment and corruption? For decades, progress has been promised, but we’ve survived enough ‘resilience’ to prove that what they call development is endurance disguised as growth.

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Have you ever dreamt of owning a Hermès bag, traveling abroad, or wearing designer clothes? For many Filipinos, these are symbols of luxury. Dreams that are forever beyond the reach of an ordinary worker who labors year after year and still barely manages to get by.

The streets of Manila reflect a sharp contrast between wealth and poverty. Gleaming skyscrapers tower beside makeshift “homes.” Drenched roads engulf daily travelers, while gated communities remain unaffected. It’s a city and a country split by affluence, alongside the failures of governance.

 

The Philippines has long been known as a ‘Third World Developing Country.’ But is it? 

Are we truly developing—or are we merely trapped in a cycle of underdevelopment and corruption? For decades, progress has been promised, but we’ve survived enough ‘resilience’ to prove that what they call development is endurance disguised as growth.

In recent years, inflation, rising taxes, and missing public funds have been the subject of scrutiny and have fueled the growing outrage among the Filipino people. And rightly so. We cannot hide nor change the fact that the amount of riches collected should have built highways, waterways, and dignified shelters. But the painful truth is, the results rarely reflect these efforts. The reality on the ground tells a different story.

Every time heavy rain pours or earthquakes strike, we ask, where did the billions go? The money meant to serve the public didn’t build safety. It vanishes into reports, is reflected into questionable accounts, and buried under bureaucracy. The promise of progress stands on crumbling roads, inadequate facilities, and citizens left to fend for their own survival. While those in power remain indifferent to anything beyond their comfort—and could have saved lives instead of their lavish lifestyles— greed has long flooded the system.

“Serbisyo sa tao, 'wag gawing negosyo."

It might be up to the justice system to hold the powerful accountable, only that this is a country where justice bends to the wealthy, shields the corrupt, and punishes the powerless. The politicians we brand as “corrupt” are not faceless. They are the same names recycled in power, protected by influence and silence. We have been taught to fear naming them, to bury their crimes, and to normalize complicity. And for every truth left unspoken, another page of history is rewritten to glorify those who have failed the nation the most.

This nation has endured enough floods, both of water and of lies. Every collapsed bridge and drowning street stands as proof that corruption kills faster than any storm. We have learned to live with floods, traffic, and corruption, as if they are part of our identity. But they are not. These are symptoms of a system that chooses evil over public service. The enduring tragedy is the people's struggle to reclaim what has always been theirs, while the silence of their right to be served echoes louder after every disaster.

The problem was never the rain. It was the rot beneath the surface. No amount of concrete stands firm when leadership is hollow. Change will not come from broken systems, only from leaders who remember that public service is a duty, not a privilege. For a nation can rebuild what has fallen, but never the trust lost in years of betrayal. Power belongs to the people, and when the people rise—not to beg, but to demand—those who lead will finally learn to serve.