Hagonoy folk stage protest anew over lack of flood solution

HAGONOY, BULACAN, Philippines — Church groups and residents in this flood-prone town took to the streets to question the national government’s ability to solve the perennial flooding problem amid the persistent corruption.

Fr. Rodel Ponce, parish priest of the National Shrine of St. Anne in Hagonoy, joined a protest march by civic movement Tindig Hagonoy shortly after celebrating the 6 a.m. Mass on Sunday, voicing support for the residents’ calls for justice and action over the town’s worsening floods.

Ponce said Hagonoy could continue to experience flooding even in the absence of rain, saying corruption had become entrenched in the country’s system of governance, particularly in Bulacan, regarded by many as ground zero of the flood works scandal.

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In a prayer he led at the Battle of Bangkusay Shrine beside the municipal hall plaza after the march through the poblacion, Ponce sought Divine Providence to move government leaders to address corruption so Hagonoy residents could once again live with “contentment and peace.”

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READ: DPWH to deploy new equipment to flood-hit areas in Bulacan

The Church, he said, was joining the call against corruption as part of its advocacy for meaningful change.

In an interview with the Inquirer, Ponce said corruption involving billion-peso flood control projects would persist unless the country’s system of governance changed.

‘Empty promises’

“The words that solutions are on the way are promises. But their implementation is our concern. Funds are there to be used, yet corruption still exists because the officials and the big fish who were known as behind the billion-worth of corruption in the flood control projects remain in power and that the system of corruption still highly persists in the government,” he said.

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Amando Saguinsin, 72-year-old lay minister at the National Shrine of St. Anne, said residents had seen no improvement in the flooding.

He said conditions had worsened a year after the government uncovered alleged ghost flood control projects following President Marcos’ 2025 State of the Nation Address.

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READ: Weeks of rain leave 15 dead, 3 injured in Bulacan

Saguinsin said as early as 2012, he and fellow parishioners, led by their then parish priest, Msgr. Luciano Balagtas, had already anticipated that Hagonoy could face floods reaching up to 5 feet in the years ahead.

They wrote to then President Benigno Aquino III, but their appeal went unheeded because flooding at the time typically reached only 5 to 6 inches, Saguinsin said.

READ: Ramon Ang: Bulacan flooding due to low elevation, narrow rivers

Fourteen years later, he said, normal flooding in the town now reaches 2 feet or more than waist level.

“Back in 2012, high school students from the flooded barangays had to leave their houses very early and stay in the premises of their schools in poblacion at dawn to evade the wee-hour occurrence of high tide,” Saguinsin recalled.

He also cited Mary The Queen Subdivision in Barangay San Sebastian, which he said was once a well-developed residential community on relatively high ground but has since been largely abandoned because of flooding.

A year after Tindig Hagonoy marched through the flooded streets of the town to protest alleged corruption involving billion-peso flood control projects, Saguinsin said residents were still waiting for solutions promised by the national government through of Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon.

Renato dela Cruz, leader of Tindig Hagonoy, told participants during a program after Sunday’s march that the group was beginning to see some hope following continuing dialogues, meetings and assurances from Dizon on addressing the town’s flooding problem.

Choose leaders well

Dela Cruz said the group had met with Dizon several times to discuss measures to end the decades-old flooding in the town.

He also called on residents to choose leaders based on their record and commitment to addressing community concerns rather than being satisfied with short-term assistance such as rice and canned goods.

Hagonoy became a focal point of the government’s probe into alleged “ghost” flood control projects in Bulacan after reports surfaced in 2025 that some projects in the town were nonexistent or had not been implemented as reported.

Investigations later flagged several Hagonoy projects, including a P74.1-million riverbank protection project in Barangay Carillo that was reportedly paid in full despite a Commission on Audit inspection finding no structure at the site.

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The controversy has heightened residents’ frustration over Hagonoy’s long-standing flooding problem, which is worsened by high tides and heavy rainfall. /cb