Public anger grows in Philippines over multibillion-dollar graft in flood control
MANILA: Whenever water levels rise near her home in Barangay Del Monte in Quezon City, Robie Yambot sends her children straight to the nearest evacuation center, never knowing how bad the situation may turn.
Living in a wooden house by the creek, the family knows what it means to lose everything to flooding. But what was once a rare event during especially intense monsoon seasons has now become a regular ordeal, and each time, the floods grow more severe.
“It’s no longer like before when the floods came only every few years ... now, it’s almost every month. Every time it rains nonstop, we get flooded, and floods today are different: the water rises quickly,” Yambot told Arab News.
“My children sometimes cry because we don’t know if there will be anything left. When floods come, it’s so fast that we can’t save our belongings in time. We just focus on evacuating.”
