After Typhoon Tino (Kalmaegi): Mourn and Rage for Accountability and demand for ecological transformation
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Filipinos in the country (and worldwide) are enraged by the devastation brought by the recent typhoon Tino, with the international name Kalmaegi (November 4, 2025).
The public cannot just simply mourn. While the survivors are slowly picking up the pieces of their lives, movements across the country demand full transparency and justice for the victims.
For the Filipinos, the failure to protect lives and national resources must entail legal and political consequences without delay.
The devastation caused by Typhoon Tino across the Visayas, Mindanao, and (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, and Palawan) MIMAROPA regions is more than a natural disaster—it shows the high price of ecological destruction and systemic corruption. Over 2.2 million Filipinos are affected, and the families are grieving the 188 confirmed deaths (National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, Nov 7, 2025), with 135 individuals still missing.
A total of 123 areas reported flooding, not less than 9,585 homes and 81 pieces of infrastructure—including government facilities, schools, farms, roads, and bridges—were damaged. Agricultural losses are estimated at ₱10.615 million, and at least 64 cities and municipalities have declared a state of calamity.
The nation entered a State of National Calamity on Thursday, Nov 6, following the catastrophic onslaught. Government reports said that the Office of the President (OP) has provided a total of PhP760 million in financial assistance to the affected local government units:
PhP50 million each for the provinces of Cebu, Capiz, Surigao del Norte, Iloilo, Bohol, and Negros Occidental; PhP40 million each for Eastern Samar, Surigao del Sur, Southern Leyte, Antique, and Aklan;
PhP30 million each for Leyte and Masbate; PhP20 million each for Guimaras, Agusan del Norte, and Dinagat Islands; PhP10 million each for Biliran, Camarines Sur, Sorsogon, Misamis Oriental, Negros Oriental, and Palawan; and
PhP5 million to Albay, Romblon, Batangas, Northern Samar, Siquijor, Quezon, Samar, Agusan del Sur, Laguna, Zamboanga City, City of Manila (due to stranded passengers), Camiguin, Occidental Mindoro, Camarines Norte, Zamboanga del Norte, and Iligan City.
Raising more doubts and the loss of confidence in the bureaucracy related to the recent flood-control projects corruption scandal, the disbursement of these amounts has been called for a transparent system with strict compliance with accountability standards. It must!
Beyond Immediate Relief
But what is also important to highlight nowadays, aside from preparing for another typhoon, is that the government’s and people’s responses must extend beyond immediate relief to confront the root causes that turned a powerful storm into an avoidable, human-made tragedy.
The massive, deadly flooding in urban centers such as Cebu—where 111 lives were lost and water levels rose faster than in any recent storm—provides undeniable proof of a failed “ridge to reefs” management strategy. Surface run-off and landslides were amplified by the degradation of natural defenses. Recent reports confirm that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is probing large-scale developments and altered mountain slopes in Cebu, underscoring the direct link: when forests disappear, communities drown.
Government spending on flood control projects in Cebu reached more than P50 billion over the past decade, the Department of Public Works and Highways Secretary said and submitted the records with recommendations to the investigating Commission for Infrastructures formed by the Philippine president following the explosion of massive protests demanding accountability. While, approximately ₱25.52 billion to ₱26.6 billion was spent on flood control projects in Cebu province from 2022 to 2025 as mentioned in the media reports. Whenever the dates covered, the disaster revealed that these investments failed to protect the populace.
This inability of billions of pesos in flood control projects to safeguard communities is a direct consequence of misappropriated funds and substandard engineering. Investigations into more than 500 flood control projects in Cebu must bring uncompromising justice.
But it would be naรฏve to attribute the tragedy solely to climate change or natural occurrence. While rising sea temperatures and intensifying storms are real, the scale of loss in Tino’s wake is amplified by systemic corruption. Funds intended for mitigating infrastructure have been ghosted, contracts awarded to politically connected firms, and oversight mechanisms weakened.
The Office of the Ombudsman have announced the creation of a special task force, and must prioritize investigations into anomalous flood control projects in the Tino hit areas. While the DENR also reportedly announced to aggressively pursue and sanction entities whose activities—such as mining, quarrying, logging, or illegal land conversion and other forest alterations—contributed to landslides and accelerated flood flows. This includes suspending or revoking Environmental Compliance Certificates (ECCs) for violators. These processes must uncover truths for justice and not bury the findings to escape from accountability. Officials, contractors, and engineers responsible for substandard or non-existing projects must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. These must not serve as an addition to bureaucratic circus and mockery to the dead.
In addition, the demand for an independent, legislated citizen’s-led truth commission to investigate and bring behind bars the culprits who mastered all environmental and government fund plunders has become louder. We cannot rely genuine compliance with personalities and agencies investigating their own dark shadows. They are responsible for issuing permits and clearances to these environmentally destructive and anomalous investments and have colluded with irregularities. To ensure escape, they will only clear their patrons if not their selves. Reforms in the government procurement processes must be introduced restricting politicians from accessing government projects or any corporations having close ties with public officials and government personnel. Records should be made available for public access. Constitutional provision against political dynasties has to be enacted once and for all.
The widespread presence of political dynasties and recurring infrastructure scandals in the Philippines is a well-documented national problem, often identified as a significant barrier to genuine progress and effective governance. These political families, who maintain intergenerational power across regions, are widely considered a root cause or major enabler of systemic corruption, especially within public works.
Dynasties: Power Concentration and Broken Checks
Philippines is run by despotic dynasties for long decades already. Estrada, Aquino, Duterte, Marcos, etc have ruled the nation one after the other. These dynasties have monopolized power from the national level down to provincial, city, and municipal governments. And this overwhelming concentration of authority erodes the system of checks and balances.
Such, established and sustained extensive patronage networks, where loyalty is rewarded with access to public resources; Massive-budgeted infrastructure projects become the primary vehicle for the patronage system and for misappropriation of public funds; unrestricted access to opportunities for corruption with control over substantial public funds—particularly those allocated for flood control and roads; and the deeply entrenched influence over vital institutions, including the bureaucracy, regulatory bodies, and even the justice system, corrupt dynastic politicians often operate with a high degree of impunity, making accountability low-risk.
The wealth and resources acquired through corruption (frequently stemming from infrastructure projects) are then used to finance expensive election campaigns, thereby ensuring the dynasty’s survival and perpetual hold on power.
This cycle ensures that the concentration of public wealth, control over natural resources, and political power remains in the hands of a few families.
A study by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) found that at least 71 of the country’s 82 provincial governments (87%) are led by members of political dynasties.
Examples across Luzon include the Marcoses (Ilocos Norte), Singsons (Ilocos Sur), Ortegas (La Union), and Pinedas (Pampanga); dynasties like the Romualdezes (Eastern Leyte) and Tans (Samar Island) in Visayas; and Mindanao is similarly dominated by families such as the Dimaporos (Lanao del Norte), Adiongs (Lanao del Sur), and Mangudadatus (Maguindanao).
The PCIJ also counted that 113 out of 149 Philippine cities are dynasty-ruled, including the Dutertes (Davao) and Binays (Makati City).
These dynastic families holding executive posts in provinces and cities also place relatives in local legislative bodies, even encroaching upon Party-list elections. Their influence is further compounded by having close family or friendly ties with corporations involved in government bids, with some even owning construction firms. This strong clout is consistently leveraged to bargain votes, influences, and favors with national authorities.
In the ongoing investigation of the DPWH and the Philippine President himself, findings led to DPWH and dynasties-favored contractors were rewarded government infrastructure projects and are also election campaign donors.
Despite a presidential vow following the fourth State of the Nation Address in July to investigate and punish those responsible for widespread infrastructure failures exposed by massive rains that same month and his institution of an infrastructure investigating commission, not a single conviction had been made three months later.
Where to after Tino?
Going forward, the national recovery plan must be anchored in democratic ecological restoration and climate justice.
Three critical actions are proposed here:
The government must prioritize massive reforestation of upland watersheds and rehabilitation of damaged coastal mangrove forests in affected regions (and the whole country), allocating a substantial portion of calamity and recovery funds to these efforts. This requires moving beyond a defensive, status quo mindset that enables environmental plunder and corruption, toward a holistic, ecological, and democratic approach defined by transparency and corruption-free mechanisms.
The Marcos, Jr. administration needs to immediately push to repeal the Philippine Mining Act and table the proposed climate accountability and alternative mineral management policies as urgent priorities. These policies are vital for establishing a resource management system that prioritizes the Filipino people and the environment. Furthermore, these are necessary to hold major fossil fuel polluters financially accountable for climate damages, losses, and the essential adaptation measures required by Filipinos, who are among the most vulnerable to worsening disasters. If President Marcos, Jr. seeks to truly differentiate himself from the pro-capitalist legacy of his father (Marcos Sr.) and the International Criminal Court detainee former President Duterte’s, he must champion these proposals now. And to be really different, he should front line in the passage of an anti-dynasty law in the country, a test of his statesman’s imagery in the global scene.
The Philippine government must fundamentally shift towards a climate-just, democratic, and sovereignty-based economic and governance model. This mandate requires all government agencies and Local Government Units (LGUs) to integrate this perspective into every facet of development planning, recognizing that our forests, rivers, and reefs are the lifeblood of human sustenance. Protecting the environment is synonymous with protecting the people and all other inhabitants.
The current practice of continually funding ineffective, often corrupted, climate mitigation efforts—such as the National Greening Program, or waste management programs that fail to address pollutant plastic production or the failure in implementing those beautifully bound plans, must be transformed.
Instead of wasteful spending, the government must take serious structural actions like, implementation of a comprehensive rehabilitation and restoration of all watersheds and forests, spanning from the uplands to the plains and coasts; immediate suspension of operations and projects that are actively destroying our forests, hills, rivers, and coastal areas and rehabilitate; and provision of substantial support for ecological agriculture, local industrialization, and democratic, sustainable economies.
Without these decisive, structural reforms, the daily devastation will only escalate. As a nine-year-old girl in front of me this morning said, “corruption and destruction of the environment enriched the few and tear apart the country.”
Dignified Recovery to Democratic Transformation
Government, civil society, and the private sector must guarantee the meaningful participation of survivors in all recovery and rehabilitation processes. This means providing guaranteed spaces for representation, dialogue, and decision-making. Survivors should never be subjected to recovery programs that burden them with debt or require gratitude for essential aid. Excluding victims and survivors will only aggravate their grief and frustration, potentially leading to social chaos.
Beyond immediate humanitarian aid, social and progressive movements need to mobilize the nation’s broad base of climate survivors. This collective force must be consolidated into a significant political and electoral base at both local and national levels to genuinely push for reforms and radical transformation, rather than being used as mere political propaganda. Any form of opportunism capitalizing on these tragedies must be exposed and denounced.
The outrage surrounding Typhoon Tino presents a crucial opportunity—not just for short-term relief, but for a fundamental transformation of the Philippines’ development model. Progressive movements, civil society organizations, and innovative private sector actors should unite around a platform that inextricably links climate action with social justice. This coalition must actively challenge the entrenched extractive interests that have long benefited from environmental destruction.
The disaster of Typhoon Tino, and others before it, should serve as a stark indictment of the moral and political decay fueled by the prevailing capitalist culture. The tragedy must not be simply recorded as a statistic. Instead, it must catalyze a new era of governance where ecological stewardship, transparent and accountable fiscal management, and real democracy are inseparable.
True rebuilding is not just about repairing physical infrastructure like roads; it must also include restoring the moral and social fabric eroded by corruption and negligence. This profound transformation cannot be expected from the current ruling elite; it is the shared responsibility and accountability of progressive forces and the popular masses.
Democratic forces must continue direct demonstrations and and mass actions for accountability on the pocketed government funds for infrastructures, and this must include now the environmental plunder and the aggravating circumstances.
Ondoy, Sendong, Pablo, Odette, Yolanda including the earthquakes and
the rest must have taught us lessons and grounded experiences- the civil
society, the communities and the government in shaping our vision, our
strategic direction and actions. Resiliency corresponds empowerment and
justice.
The climate martyrs and the survivors deserve decisive action and justice—and we must fight for it.
Weeks ago, September 30,2025, to be exact, the same province (northern
Cebu) trembled with a 6.9 magnitude earthquake —collapsing buildings,
causing dozens of deaths, displacing thousands, and prompting a
large-scale emergency response.
Remo Camote
Mindanao, Philippines
November 8, 2025
Some References:
Philippine flood control project fails the poor
https://energynews.oedigital.com/environment/2025/09/30/the-philippines-flood-control-project-fails-the-poor
113 out of 149 Philippine cities ruled by political dynasties
https://pcij.org/2025/01/26/113-out-of-149-philippine-cities-also-ruled-by-political-dynasties/
Eastern Visayas Dynasties
https://pcij.org/2025/05/14/in-eastern-visayas-where-the-romualdez-clan-rules-political-heirs-inherit-power/
The flooding and corruption crisis in the Philippines
https://thediplomat.com/2025/08/the-flooding-and-corruption-crisis-in-the-philippines/#:~:text=These%20insertions%20are%20usually%20infrastructure,budget%20with%20pork%20barrel%20programs.
National State of Calamity declared
https://pco.gov.ph/news_releases/pbbm-declares-state-of-national-calamity-p760-m-in-financial-assistance-released-to-affected-areas/
Rebuilding Disaster Affected Communities
https://cids.up.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Rebuilding-Disaster-Affected-Communities-for-a-Sustainable-Future.pdf
Bong Go kin firms top Davao projects
https://pcij.org/2018/09/06/firms-of-bong-go-kin-top-contractors-many-jvs-delayed-projects-in-davao/
DPWH Exec summoned
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2025/09/29/2476140/2-dpwh-execs-summoned-over-p965-million-discaya-project
Advance the political-social-economic alternatives
https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article52679
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