01/12/2025
๐๐ก๐๐๐ก๐๐๐ฅ๐ฆ, ๐๐จ๐๐๐ ๐ ๐ฆ๐จ๐ฆ๐ง๐๐๐ก๐๐๐๐ ๐ฆ๐ข๐๐๐๐ง๐ฌ ๐๐ข๐ฅ ๐ง๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ฃ๐๐ก๐ข ๐ฃ๐๐ข๐ฃ๐๐
ENGAGE UP stands in solidarity with the November 30 Bonifacio Day mobilization and asserts that the revolution begun by Andres Bonifacio remains unfinished as long as corruption continues to function as a man-made disaster against the Filipino people. In a country already on the frontlines of the climate crisis, corruption is embedded in the entire project cycle: from feasibility studies and detailed design, to procurement, construction, inspection, and maintenance. It systematically weakens the infrastructure that should protect communities.
Recent typhoons such as Typhoon Tino and Super Typhoon Uwan show in concrete terms how natural hazards turn into large-scale failures of the built environment. Typhoon Tino left at least 269 people dead, 523 injured, and 113 missing in the Philippines, affected almost 2 million people, and displaced more than 560,000, with severe flooding in Cebu and other parts of the Visayas damaging large numbers of houses, knocking out power to about 1.4 million households, and rendering multiple roads and bridges impassable. Super Typhoon Uwan then affected around 7.6 million people, displaced roughly 1.4 million at the height of the storm, damaged hundreds of thousands of houses, caused widespread power outages, and again left roads and bridges closed by floods and landslides. These figures reflect not only the intensity of the storms but also chronic weaknesses in how projects are sited, designed, constructed, and maintained, and in how hazard and risk assessments are applied in practice.
Corruption does not only slow down infrastructure delivery. It distorts engineering decisions at every stage. Project scopes are inflated, feasibility studies are tailored to justify predetermined projects, and value engineering is misused to cut safety margins instead of optimizing performance. Funds meant for hospitals, schools, social housing, transport systems, water supply, sanitation, flood control, coastal protection, and early warning systems are diverted through overpricing, substandard materials, and ghost projects. The consequence is not just budget loss. It is reduced structural integrity, lower factors of safety, inadequate design lifespans, and higher failure probabilities that translate into deaths, injuries, displacement, and long-term poverty.
This system is maintained by the collaboration of public officials and private business interests. Contractors, developers, consultants, banks, and corporations treat public works as low-risk, high-return investments. ENGAGE UP condemns not only those in government who approve these schemes, but also the engineers, planners, consultants, technical experts, and scholars who design, sign, and legitimize defective and harmful projects. Fraudulent structural analyses, incomplete geotechnical investigations, manipulated hydrologic and hydraulic models, and environmental impact assessments written to favor a client are not minor technical issues. They are steps that produce underspecified bridges, undercapacity drainage networks, unstable slopes, and unsafe buildings.
In the context of the climate crisis, the margin for error is small. A bridge designed with inadequate load and scour calculations, a seawall that does not match projected storm surge heights, a school building that does not comply with seismic and wind codes, or a relocation site sited in a known hazard zone can result in immediate casualties. When science, technology, and engineering are subordinated to corruption and profit, they no longer function as tools for risk reduction. They become part of the risk.
As Iskolar ng Bayan, we are being trained to work inside these systems. Our motto, Honor and Excellence, has no real meaning if our skills are used mainly for corporations, political dynasties, or foreign interests. An engineer who signs off on an unsafe design, a scientist who adjusts data and models to legitimize harmful projects, a planner who ignores social and environmental impact assessments, or a manager who pressures staff to accept noncompliance is directly responsible for the resulting failures.
We call on students, faculty, and alumni to refuse work and research that clearly harm communities. Question and, when necessary, withdraw from projects that ignore building codes, hazard maps, and safety standards. Insist on transparency in project preparation and procurement, meaningful community participation in planning and site selection, and technical and financial accountability in all stages of design, construction, and operation, whether in government, private firms, or international institutions. Those most affected by floods, storms, heat, and displacement must have a real role in decisions about the infrastructure built around them.
Science, technology, and engineering must be taken out of the grip of profit and patronage and directed toward the needs of the people and a just, livable climate future. We call on all Iskolar ng Bayan to uphold honor and excellence only in the service of the Filipino people, to reject complicity wherever they encounter it, and to help build systems where no community is treated as expendable, and no infrastructure failure is accepted as normal or inevitable. ENGAGE UP commits to collective action against corruption as a man-made disaster and against the structures that sustain it.
On Bonifacio Day, we remember Andres Bonifacio as a worker, organizer, and revolutionary who opposed a system based on exploitation and betrayal. The Katipunan aimed not at minor reforms but at changing the foundations of an unjust order. Today, when corruption drains public funds, corporate interests shape infrastructure priorities, and climate-related disasters repeatedly hit those who are already the poorest, the challenge that Bonifacio posed remains. To honor him is to side with the masses who refuse to accept their suffering as fate and to work to dismantle corruption as a man-made disaster built into our infrastructure and our economy. # #
Sources:
[1] https://reliefweb.int/report/philippines/philippines-typhoons-tino-and-uwan-dref-operation-mdrph057
[2] https://www.worldvision.org/disaster-relief-news-stories/super-typhoon-fung-wong-facts-faqs-and-how-to-help