In deep water: Residents commuting through a flooded area in Calumpit, Bulacan. — AFP
The dike meant to protect the town cost taxpayers nearly US$2mil (RM8.4mil), but when a minister visited this month, he found little more than dirt hastily dumped along the river’s banks.
Residents of Plaridel, north of the capital Manila, could have told him what happened – contractors had only just begun a project that government officials marked “completed” more than a year earlier.
