January 12, 2026: Flooding remains a persistent disaster threat in the Philippines, costing lives, property, and livelihoods every year. Despite massive government spending on flood-control infrastructure, public confidence has plummeted as the country is engulfed by a wave of anger over recent revelations of “ghost projects”, substandard construction, and billions of pesos lost to corruption. This has fueled a broad public sentiment that the system is failing – and that citizens must step in where formal oversight has failed.
PTF has launched “Strengthening Citizen Monitoring of Flood-Control Projects”, an innovative project for monitoring Multilateral Development Bank funded flood-control projects in the Philippines. Spearheaded by PTF Asia and implemented with Bisto Proyekto, the 9 month project is funded by the Lifebank Foundation and PTF.
Against the backdrop of a loss in public confidence, Bisto.ph has emerged as a promising citizen-monitoring platform that empowers communities to verify government infrastructure projects through evidence-based reporting (such as photos, geotags, onsite observations, and documentary checks). Responding to both public demand and institutional momentum, this pilot will organize, train, and deploy volunteer citizen monitors in selected flood-control project sites to demonstrate the feasibility and real-world impact of community oversight.
Focusing on 5 priority sites vulnerable to flooding, the pilot will train 150-200 volunteers and inspect at least 100 flood-control projects, publishing monitoring reports, and tracking the government’s response.
Following a successful 9 month pilot, PTF aims to build on a growing civic movement to scale-up the use of citizen monitoring as an effective way of combatting corruption and strengthening accountability both in the Philippines and across the region.
